Help Me Help My Struggling LS Friend - Career Options Edition! Forum

[theswisswereright]

I have a friend (and I know that's almost always a lie, but this is actually about a friend) from LS who is facing what I think is a fairly difficult set of circumstances withe regard to their future career. I'd like to know what advice I can or should be giving them as they come to a sort of decision point.

BACKGROUND:

My friend and I entered LS together at a low T1 a few years ago. They came out of college with quite good grades, but that didn't really bear out in law school. Their LS grades were not ever great (bottom half of class), but they are an intelligent person overall-- the poor grades were almost entirely due to their difficulties with timed, closed-book testing.

During law school, their summer employment options were pretty limited. They worked as a research assistant for a professor and interned with a local judge, but that was about it.

We were on track to graduate the same year (2019) and in fact walked on stage at the same graduation, but they had one class left to go to complete the JD. They were meant to finish that class, an independent study to fulfill a writing requirement, remotely either over the summer semester or the following fall semester. Unfortunately, that summer, they had a close family member become very ill and ultimately pass. They spent a lot of time caring for this family member, and then a lot of time grieving, and the summer and fall semesters both went by without them completing the class.

Thereafter, their mental health took a pretty bad dive due mostly to a long-term romantic relationship ending. They were sort of working on the class requirements, but not with a lot of tangible results. Although I think they've gotten over the breakup now, their mental health is still not fantastic, and even though they're quite close to finishing the paper enough to turn it in (from what I understand, the school is being quite accommodating)... it has not happened yet. That brings us up to current.

THE PART WITH THE QUESTION

Presuming my friend does complete this class and get their JD, what sort of options can I present to them if and when they ask for my advice on their future?

If they don't want to take the bar, or attempt it and cannot pass (a possibility, due to the aforementioned testing difficulties), what kind of JD-preferred careers exist out there for them to look into?

If they do take and pass the bar (another kettle of fish entirely, although I can be of some help with study strategies and courses since I've done it already myself), how can they explain the massive gap in their education? I know they should list their graduation date as when they received their JD, but looking at their transcript will reveal the gap. A death in the family? A personal health crisis? Just blame COVID?

I realize they've got a lot of factors working against them on their resume. What kind of experience do they need to get to smooth out some of those wrinkles or make them matter less (or how can they spin their deficits to make them sound better)?

Should they be trying to work at a public defender's office, or at a local personal injury shop, or as a legal assistant or clerk somewhere? Should they hang out a shingle and try to do family law?

They aren't necessarily extremely ambitious, but I know they do eventually want to be self-sufficient and pay their own bills, because they've been relying on family support all this time.

What advice can I give to help them move in a positive direction?

[Anonymous User]

Your friend can:

- join a smaller firm
- do a school-sponsored fellowship (if available)
- do a state or local court clerkship
- find a compliance job (JD-preferred, bar passage likely not required)
- pay up the nose for an LLM which might "cleanse" the bad JD record (but it doesn't sound like friend is in a state to deal with this).

Gently, if he or she can't get through writing one paper that's a step toward moving forward with his/her life, daily law assignments and showing up (remote) for a new job sound like they'd be too much.

Your friend should talk with friendly alums and career services. Literally half of all law grads graduate at the bottom of their class.

[ClubberLang]

This person needs to finish the class ASAP, pass the bar, and network into any legal job that will have them, but it doesn't sound like they are up for it. The only answer is to change. There aren't any jobs out there that value the traits that led to this situation.

[theswisswereright]

This person needs to finish the class ASAP, pass the bar, and network into any legal job that will have them, but it doesn't sound like they are up for it. The only answer is to change. There aren't any jobs out there that value the traits that led to this situation.

Presuming they are able to make positive changes such that they can finish the class and pass the bar, do you have any advice on how to spin or explain the obvious problems to a potential employer in an interview or cover letter? I say cover letter because my concern is that they may not get interviews without some explanation at the application stage.

Career services at our mutual alma mater, unfortunately, has never been very helpful and has only gotten worse since I graduated, so I worry about their usefulness as a resource.

I know how I tend to try to resolve my own resume weirdness for interviews, but those are questions like "why did you take the bar in X state when you went to school in X," which have easy (and true) answers.

I guess I just want to be able to give them some hope that these problems can be explained or softened and aren't necessarily a massive iceberg upon which their future will sink. I don't want to believe that's true.

[theswisswereright]

Your friend can:

- join a smaller firm
- do a school-sponsored fellowship (if available)
- do a state or local court clerkship
- find a compliance job (JD-preferred, bar passage likely not required)
- pay up the nose for an LLM which might "cleanse" the bad JD record (but it doesn't sound like friend is in a state to deal with this).

Gently, if he or she can't get through writing one paper that's a step toward moving forward with his/her life, daily law assignments and showing up (remote) for a new job sound like they'd be too much.

Your friend should talk with friendly alums and career services. Literally half of all law grads graduate at the bottom of their class.

Thank you for responding. I'm assuming, in this question, that they're able to get their act together enough to handle the responsibility of a job. I'm hoping that happens.

I don't know as much about state/local court jobs-- are they less choosy about grades and background? This option might appeal to them more than joining a firm, although I don't know that for sure.

What kind of employers have compliance positions? Is it an in-house type thing?

[crazywafflez]

State courts- especially at district court level and regular appeals- are much easier to get (ssc is a tougher gig to get). It also allows for a lot of networking if you do state district court. Career clerks also make a decent living and it seems like a super interesting career. The pay isn't amazing, but not terrible either. Best of luck to your friend.

[Iowahawk]

I think there's been mention on here of DA and PD offices in New Mexico that will hire anyone with a pulse and bar admission. The biggest JD advantage fields are probably compliance and HR stuff and it's also worth looking into various roles dealing with claims for insurers. Compliance is a semi-legal field that's mostly in-house, all sorts of industries have compliance and the jobs can look really different based on the industry (employee benefits compliance isn't much like patent compliance). I know a guy with only a BA who makes a good living working on arbitrations for an insurer.

[ClubberLang]

This person needs to finish the class ASAP, pass the bar, and network into any legal job that will have them, but it doesn't sound like they are up for it. The only answer is to change. There aren't any jobs out there that value the traits that led to this situation.

Presuming they are able to make positive changes such that they can finish the class and pass the bar, do you have any advice on how to spin or explain the obvious problems to a potential employer in an interview or cover letter? I say cover letter because my concern is that they may not get interviews without some explanation at the application stage.

The family issue combined with Covid is a passable explanation for taking a long time to graduate. That said, it is still a huge red flag, so I think networking by meeting with any lawyer who will talk to them will be more fruitful than sending out a ton of applications. Others have posted about legal jobs that take anyone with a pulse, but they'll require moving, so it is a question of how important a legal career is to them.