Where I've Been

On graduating law school, deferring the bar exam and the search for legal employment.

Let me embarrass myself for a moment:

The day before the July 2024 bar exam, I got a call from my school telling me not to come. My practice test score wasn’t where it needed to be, and the school couldn’t predict my passage with confidence. I’d just scouted out the testing location and was about to print my admission ticket. After three grueling months of serious study, I was exhausted and vulnerable. So, I acquiesced.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I argued with the Dean for a while, sidestepping the less-than-ideal facts of my performance. What finally worked on me wasn’t logic, but an appeal to my ego. Though I regretted the decision the next morning, at that moment, he won.

“The hardest part,” I told him, “is disappointing my family and friends.” They’d supported me through every step of this journey. I dreaded calling my mom, who had sent me her hard-earned money to cover another month of bills. Her only request? That I use my success to help ease my little brother’s burden someday. I’d planned to anyway, but the weight of that promise felt heavier in that moment.

To their credit, my family didn’t give me too much grief. They reassured me this wasn’t a failure that defined me. But the message was clear: it was time to find a job. I knocked on every door I thought I could fit through, and it took me five long months to find one. I share more of that story in my GoFundMe.

Privately, during those months of unemployment, I kept writing. I wrote email after email, clinging to the hope that something would break through. The Dean of Career Services was my lifeline, pulling me back from the emotional ledge more than once.

source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/62980094791122037/

Now, a week into my campaign, I’ve experienced a spectrum of emotions. I feel like both a mogul and a beggar, the prince and the pauper rolled into one. There’s something strangely intoxicating about sharing your story and watching it resonate with people. The keystrokes become sentences, and those sentences ripple outward, affecting readers in ways you couldn’t anticipate.

For so long, I’ve lived with a double identity, splitting myself into Rake and Rashid. But now, for the first time, I feel those two selves converging. Most of my donors have been family and friends from different chapters of my American life. Yet, strangers—people I’ve never met—have also shown up to support me.

I don’t want to keep living two lives. I want one life, whole and authentic, and for the first time, it feels within reach.

Sure, I feel like I’m behind my classmates who’ve already passed the bar and been sworn in. But I can’t dwell on that. Instead, I look back on the past five years, and I see how far I’ve come. I may not be there yet, but I’m light-years ahead of where I used to be.

source: TAMU Law Instagram

I’m past 54% on funding bar prep expenses! If you enjoyed my writing, please consider supporting my bar exam fund by either donation or sharing the link. Most of my donations have been small amounts of $20-50, and I’d love it if you donated to my campaign. My GoFundMe is linked here.