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Urgent help needed please! I’m counting on you guys.

Hi everyone!

I live in Northern Virginia. I’m a foreign-educated attorney as well as New York barred. I’m unfortunately unable to waive in to any other state within the next 5/6 years but I would need a job to survive until then .
I can’t waive into:
-Virginia because I need a JD (I already have an LLB).
-DC because I need to do an LLM before I would have that option (I would like to work for a few years before I pursue an LLM).
I have 3 babies and would love to be able to support them and to save some money while I plan to do the llm.

What are my best options? Any one who can give me some perspectives, please?

Thank you all so much in advance.

You can work for the federal government as long as you’re barred in any state or Puerto Rico. I would start there. Some in-house jobs don’t care where you’re barred, but I don’t think that is the norm. Good luck!

Some threshold questions which will impact the best direction for you to take:

What jurisdiction did you qualify in, and what legal experience did you have before coming to the US?

Are you a US citizen/permanent resident?

If you have relevant experience, you might be able to sell yourself to a firm who would support you to get an LLM and take the DC bar. Likewise, if you a citizen/permanent resident. you should be able to get student loans to get a cheap LLM so you can at least get barred in DC. Otherwise, you might want to look at jobs which don't require bar admission: paralegal jobs, policy/JD-advantage, locally-employed embassy jobs etc.

DCESQ wrote:You can work for the federal government as long as you’re barred in any state or Puerto Rico. I would start there. Some in-house jobs don’t care where you’re barred, but I don’t think that is the norm. Good luck!

Thanks!

Lancair wrote:Some threshold questions which will impact the best direction for you to take:

What jurisdiction did you qualify in, and what legal experience did you have before coming to the US?

Are you a US citizen/permanent resident?

If you have relevant experience, you might be able to sell yourself to a firm who would support you to get an LLM and take the DC bar. Likewise, if you a citizen/permanent resident. you should be able to get student loans to get a cheap LLM so you can at least get barred in DC. Otherwise, you might want to look at jobs which don't require bar admission: paralegal jobs, policy/JD-advantage, locally-employed embassy jobs etc.

New York licensed.
I’m a permanent resident.
I would have liked to do the llm later not a quick cheap one just for the sake of waiving into another state.
I like the idea of a firm supporting me to do an llm.
No way I’m going to work as a paralegal.
This didn’t come on a silver platter for me.

Thanks for your input.

Ohnt wrote:
New York licensed.
I’m a permanent resident.
I would have liked to do the llm later not a quick cheap one just for the sake of waiving into another state.
I like the idea of a firm supporting me to do an llm.
No way I’m going to work as a paralegal.
This didn’t come on a silver platter for me.

Thanks for your input.

Which country did you do your law degree in, and did you have any experience practicing there before you came to the US?

I ask this in the light of the rules of professional conduct that govern law practice, in DC for instance (rule 49
- unauthorized practice).

Is in house my only option? I had initially thought I could do a firm in dc with my NY license and work in their corporate department but I guess not.


More views welcome please.

Anonymous User wrote:

DCESQ wrote:You can work for the federal government as long as you’re barred in any state or Puerto Rico. I would start there. Some in-house jobs don’t care where you’re barred, but I don’t think that is the norm. Good luck!

Thanks!

For fed employment, I believe the vast majority, if not all, require citizenship. Are you native in a foreign language? There’s always doc review or law-advantage work such as corporate intelligence or due diligence firms.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

DCESQ wrote:You can work for the federal government as long as you’re barred in any state or Puerto Rico. I would start there. Some in-house jobs don’t care where you’re barred, but I don’t think that is the norm. Good luck!

Thanks!

For fed employment, I believe the vast majority, if not all, require citizenship. Are you native in a foreign language? There’s always doc review or law-advantage work such as corporate intelligence or due diligence firms.

Exactly! Which is why I’v stopped focusing on federal jobs. I’m not a citizen.

I need 26 credit hours from an ABA accredited law sch to waive into DC bar. I’m wondering if they offer classes solely for this purpose. I highly doubt it. I probably should call them though to find out if my most viable option would be pursuing either a JD or an LLM.

Otherwise, I need an in-house counsel job. And those are few and far between for 1st year attorneys. What to do, what to do.

Ohnt wrote:I need 26 credit hours from an ABA accredited law sch to waive into DC bar. I’m wondering if they offer classes solely for this purpose. I highly doubt it. I probably should call them though to find out if my most viable option would be pursuing either a JD or an LLM.

If you're looking to take 26 credit hours anyway, you might as well get an LL.M. instead of registering as a non-degree student. Having a U.S. law degree can only help - at a minimum, the degree would be a nice line item to add to the resume. LL.M.s require about that number of hours (I think a minimum requirement of 2 semesters/24 credit hours is typical), so you wouldn't really be doing any extra work or even spending any extra time in school.