Since the bar exam results were released things have been sort of up and down here on Baker Street. Despite having a resume that "is very strong" according to the people at career services, the prospect of employment has been slippery. Leads are scarce to begin with, and most of the ones that are tracked down have mostly resulted in dead ends or professionals promising to "pass along" the resume.
The reasons aren't tough to understand. The economy sucks. Firms who were living the high life when things were good racked up tremendous overhead and when things went bad a number of associates were let go. Our recently graduated class is now competing with other potential candidates who actually have a clue of the ins and outs of day to day practice. In short they have something called "experience" which appears to often tip the scales away from a newly minted attorney.
Luckily the prospect of being a traditional lawyer was one I always considered just an option, not the only destination. I kept that perspective from the time I wrote my admissions essay to the time I graduated. Still, in looking around at other positions the nibbles and bites haven't come as quickly as would have been preferred. The advice I get from various support systems range from "it'll happen" to "when it's meant to be". It's a nice sentiment, but the truth is I'm pretty bored on a day to day basis and can't wait for something to happen.
Employment issues aside, we are gearing up for Christmas time. With most all of our non-essentials sitting in a storage building, we went out and bought a small tree and cheap ornaments to post in the living room. It's not the perfect set up, but at least we have some sense of the Christmas spirit despite spinning the proverbial wheels. After Christmas I'll head down to Orlando and will be met by Tracy on the 30th for our third straight New Year's in the Magic Kingdom. Then, in February we head to Las Vegas before going to St. Lucia in April. All in all the first quarter of 2011 will be pretty eventful.
Hopefully in between the various coming events we'll have a chance to update the employment status and finally start moving forward.
