Second, and more important, my life has been in pretty bad shambles over the past year and a half and I desperately need advice. (I will also be omitting some of the details that would identify me). Beginning of my 3L year, a year and a half ago, I went through a very severe bad event. As a result, I had some major panic attacks and getting through that semester was terrible. Unfortunately, that was just the start of everything, at the beginning of that second semester, several things happened: my fiance had a cancer scare (which I was the cause of), three of my friends died (all unrelated, and two of which on the same day), and finally a family friend was abducted by a sex offender over an incredibly long weekend. I went from top 15 students in my class to ~50% by the time I graduated. My summer associate position (a mid-size litigation firm) decided to not hire anyone due to budget issues. Around the end of the semester, my panic attacks evolved into severe depression, which I battled until shortly before the end of the year. After all of that I decided to postpone taking the bar for a year, and I'm beginning to study for this July. Since law school, I worked as a financial adviser...being full commission sucks and put me in a worse position than if I took any other job in the world. I just want to get back in law, as a result I will be starting as a temp law clerk/paralegal type of position at a solo shop in order to get some money and get my feet wet again.
Now that I'm done with my sob story, here's what I need help with...Real estate isn't my interest. I love litigation, in particular employment, insurance defense, and complex litigation. I also loved the mid-size firm environment, and would do anything to get back into it. Unfortunately, I understand given the decline of my grades and gap in legal experience might make that rather difficult. How do I get back to doing what I want to?
It also might be worth noting a few misc. things. 1) I went to a low tier 1 school (think 40-50 range), 2) I have excellent references that would be glad to go to bat for me (one of which told an employer that I am a "biglaw caliber lawyer" looking for a small firm), 3) might be irrelevant - M&A stuff also interests me, but I've never had any actual experience, and 4) despite my academic decline in my 3L year, I know I'm damn good at this and can prove it in an interview...I just need to get there
