Congrats, man. Nice feeling.

congrats man

in other news bar prep sucks but i have decided to go the solo route with my mom. i think it is a good spot she shares the office with some other solos and they have a lot more work than they can keep up with and only one of them does criminal stuff and apparently he hates it and just talked to him and he said he would be thrilled to pass on any criminal stuff to me. i wanted to do criminal defense so i think this will work out very nicely and the mentorships should ease some of the anxiety or going this route. one of the guys does worker's comp and he is a really great lawyer but super well known and has too many cases/too much money to care about the smaller case. i really thought worker's comp was boring as hell in law school but i'm definitely not above doing a lot of those cases to get me started and get some money in to build. they all thought advertising at the local high school football games and whatnot would be a really good idea too so i guess i'll try that and see how it goes


my property professor did not teach us ****. his tests were kind of hilarious he gave us like 3 hours to do like 6 questions and most of them had 250 word limits and the big "essay" at the end was limited to 500 words. i will say that i wish we would have had more closed book essay tests I only had like 2 in all of law school which is really hurting me on this bar prep stuff i'm not that used to memorizing the rules so perfectly

what I find truly incredible is that you got a 24 page opinion within days of a hearing. In New York that would take 14 months.

This is really like the only situation where I would suggest hanging up your own shingle right out of law school. Close family relative or friend who can mentor you and take on a majority of overhead expenses until you get a regular client base/flow of work.

Thanks dude


You're doing the right thing imo. As always, shoot me a pm w/questions. It's not as scary and daunting as it seems, promise.

I know, right? I was shocked as well. This was expedited and Judge/clerk apparently stayed till 10 pm both nights getting it cranked out. Went through all 24 factors individually which took tons of space.

As always, "it depends". Going solo isn't as crazy as it sounds, especially if you begin to plan for it in advance. But I agree, having a family member who can essentially guarantee you won't starve is a huge advantage

Edit: Cohiba, I may be completely off here, but didn't you say your father is a lawyer? Do you have any intentions of going solo or are you planning on working for him? Or, trying to go biglaw or gov or something? I may be confusing you with someone, which if I am, apologies in advance

Yes. Father is managing shareholder of three attorney firm (all partners no associates). I'm likely going to join them when I graduate as an equity partner which will require me to buy-in for 30k.

There is enough work among the three attorneys to keep me busy right away, and my father's partners have been friends for years and are very collegial in the way they handle splitting compensation.

As of right now I am leaning towards specializing in estate planning/elder law (Dad is 60, other two partners are 50 and 40) so I could have a steady base of referrals just from their friends alone. But I am not opposed to starting out as a generalist and finding my niche after a year or two of practice.

I agree about bar prepping sucking.

I will be fine on the multiple choice but the essays are brutal. Not great at MPT either.

Focus majority of your attention to multiple choice. My brother crushed MBE and did roughly better than average on essay and passed by 30 points.

So character and fitness interview is absolutely nothing to worry about right?

I was late applying so didn't get notified that it had been scheduled until 2 weeks ago. But then I was out of town for a week and had to reschedule. So now instead of being at a small firm office it is at the actual Bar Association office in the area and one of the interviewers is full time there. Definitely would have preferred the firm office. But still nothing to worry about right?

Assuming you don't have a really checkered past, it shouldn't be a big deal.

Lots of people, myself included, have lax discussions that feel like nothing at all. Occasionally you hear of people drawing some hardass who quizzes them on rules of professional conduct and ****, but even in those cases it sounds like it's just pointless hazing and nothing that will cause a person to fail their C&F.

Given your situation I would guess that your odds of an overly formal hardass probably went up, but I wouldn't sweat actually being prevented from sitting for the bar. Again, assuming no terrible past.

lol so he did better than avg on both? well of course you'd pass then

I am confident I will do better than avg on MC. But I think I'll be below avg on essays.

So I decided to transfer. Father's firm lost two paralegals in the past 4 months (maternity and other took a big law paralegal job), so I told him I'd move back home and help fill the void.

Not transferring to chase prestige. Was admitted into two T20 schools and turned it down because I did not want to lose the ability to do pro bono scholars program in New York.

=In one of the trials I am involved in (as plaintiff, client) SDNY, the judge put up a 100+ (yes, 100+) page opinion within a week. I am fairly certain he/she wrote it well before the testimonies even ended. My understanding is clerks often write opinions like reporters do well before they are needed if they got free time and sometimes they just recycle the memos they wrote to the judge.

I did while I clerked fwiw. Would use the same legal analysis but just change some facts. Exactly like a reporter would do.

Granted, I was at family law in a big city and not doing anything civil, so ymmv.

Did it come out with a victory? Celebrating or no?

It's a victory for now but still tons of issues left to sort out, including against other potential plaintiffs that want a piece of the judgment. There is enough money involved more appeals are inevitable probably for another year or two. Then my guess is a year or two to actually liquidate properties seized.

After that my guess is plaintiffs start suing each other on how to divide the money.

Then the lawyers will probably take almost all of the money. I am sure they've racked up a lot of billable hours over almost 10 years since the case started.

I think I read about the case you are talking in the New York Law Journal... did the judge drop a footnote explaining how she was able to release that opinion so quickly? She basically said something along the lines of "I was taking notes and was working on the opinion throughout the entire trial" correct?

I didn't read the New York Law Journal but I did find a footnote to that effect.

just popping in to complain and say how annoying the bar exam is. first state i took was UBE, but state-specific distinctions are just so unbelievably pointless. cant wait for everyone to get onboard the UBE train. NY is a good domino.

****ing tell me about it.

<--CA in less than two weeks

Received horrible news in the mail today. I was approved to take July bar exam.

Day 1 of the bar exam down. BANG.

Let's go!!! Congrats!

Very interested in hearing your thoughts, as I'll be taking it in February (though, if I recall correctly, you're in a non-UBE state). It seems like the exam is over-hyped, and it's interesting how almost everybody faces the exam with dread, when passage rates really indicate that putting in the requisite time (and being a quasi-decent test taker) will result in passing.

In a sick way, I'm looking forward to focusing solely on one objective for a couple months, as the prep programs take care of the logistics for you.

I'm not UBE, but I am taking the MBE today. I'm in CA. Will definitely share my thoughts when it's over.

The very nature of so much of the exam swinging on multiple-choice results will always leave me convinced that I could have failed if I just ran badly.

My state doesn't actually release specific scores to those who passed unless you request them, which I never did, so I actually have no idea whether I barely passed or passed with ease. But even after having passed on the first go, it never feels to me like I was somehow invincible from failing it.

Obviously every test-taker who puts in the time is very likely to pass, but I just don't think that many people are necessarily a lock.

Part of the dread is that if you fail, you are not a lawyer. The years of school and thousands of dollars spent are worthless if you fail.

I didn't think the bar exam was super hard, but I have met people that just cannot pass the test if their lives depended on it.