Pre Law School Employment advice Forum

[moshi_moshi]

So, I graduated in 2008 and have had steady employment since then. I had an abysmal GPA (mostly pulled down by very hard math courses...that turned out to be unnecessary...), but scored over 175 on my LSAT and have rockin’ recommendation letters. Because I know that GPA is incredibly important, I sought to distance myself from it by working for a couple of years. In 2009 I managed to snag a job at the UN. I want to focus on Environmental or International Law in the future, so I was pretty excited about it.

Anyway, I recently started applying to more environmentally related positions around here. Right now, I MIGHT get a pretty sweet research position with either the UNEP or the NRDC. If I get the UNEP position, I will definitely transfer from my current department (Accounts and Budgeting...ugh). Nothing would change, except I'd get a higher salary and actual job satisfaction. However, working for the NRDC would mean a pay DECREASE, moving to a crappier city (DC vs. NYC), and shittier weather/transportation (hey, I’m from mild CA so a couple of degrees hotter would kill me! xD ). I’m given it a lot of thought, and realised that if working for the NRDC would raise my chances at getting into a good law school, that would completely balance out all the negatives. I'm calling my university's law advisor when I have time - work is a clusterfuck right now, but I would really like an opinion from people who have applied in the past five years.

So here's my question:

if I get the NRDC job and not the UNEP job, should I take it? Does working at the NRDC look better on my application than working for the UN, given my focus on environmental law? Or is it pretty much a moot point at this stage? I'm aiming to apply for the 2011 school year, so I do have plenty of time to rack up experience.

Thanks guys!