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.