Just a random thought of the day, for any Dopers considering a career in law: There are plenty of perks, and I’m glad I did it overall - but being a lawyer carries a steep cost in geographic mobility, one that isn’t there for most other professions.
I refer, of course, to the bar exam. In most cases, I can’t work (as a lawyer) in a state where I’m not admitted to the bar. There are exceptions - most Federal employees don’t need to be barred in the state they work, for example, so long as they’re barred somewhere. But for the most part, you’re restricted to practicing in states where you’ve been admitted to the bar. If you’re lucky, your state will have reciprocal agreements with others, and you can waive into other jurisdictions without sitting for a new exam - but even that process can take half a year.
The upshot of all this is that, as a Maryland lawyer, I can’t just up and move to take a job in California. Or New York. Or Florida. If I want to move, I need to either track down a federal job, find one of the very few other legal jobs that doesn’t care where I’m barred, or sit for the bar exam of the jurisdiction I want to move to. That’s not an insurmountable burden - I passed the bar once, and I could do it again. But I’d need to take another bar prep course to do that, and those courses cost thousands of dollars and are quite time-consuming.
Moral of the story: If you want a career that’ll let you just pick up stakes and go someplace new on short notice, think carefully before going into law. With a few exceptions, it’s a poor choice for folks with wanderlust.
I agree, in general. I took the bar in three different stays (and waived into a fourth) to remedy the situation somewhat. We also Pro hac in all over the country on a regular basis, so there’s lots of travel and exploring new places. It’s a pain, but not insurmountable.
Same goes for teachers and contractors, but it seems like re-certification for lawyers would be the most time-consuming and hardest. Contractors, I’d think, might be the most expensive.
There’s a guy working on my deck right now who’s licensed in WV as a contractor, plus electrician and plumber (he tells me a general contractor needs licensing in all the trades). Right now he’s living in Ohio and just working as a part-time grunt for the contractor I hired.
Just a language question: do most attorneys used the term ‘barred’ to indicate being admitted to the bar? Because it seems that particular term is subject to just the opposite interpretation.
Amen, brother. I’ve been job searching, and happen to have some great friend/family legal contacts…in another state. It would be a cakewalk for me to get a job there, if I were licensed in that state.
Upside is that I love living where I do, so I’m not exactly desperate to move. But I am desperate for a new job.
I’m kind of in the opposite situation, personally. I have a very specific job (special effects) in a very specialized field (video games). There are only a handful of cities which have game studios. As such, if I get a new job, odds are it’s in a completely different state.
In order, my last four jobs were in:
Austin, TX
Bend, OR
Seattle, WA
and now
Baltimore, MD
I kinda like the moving, but my wife has ixnayed further travel for a while. It’s kind of hard to buy a house when you know that you’ll have to sell it if you take a new job.
Urban planning can be kind of funny. Because it’s such a specialized field, many bounce around either to advance in their career, or to escape an ugly political situation where they find their job is under threat. However, that bouncing doesn’t look good to the government agencies who do the hiring, who see other professional employees in less volatile positions that spend most of their careers in positions with longer tenures in one state.
California has environmental regulations (CEQR) that are very complicated, and unique to the state. Most planning positions in California require extensive CEQR knowledge, whether you’ll use it or not. Thus, the California job market, where the bulk of planning jobs are located despite the horrendous economy, is off-limits to planners from outside of the state.
Canadian planners can usually find work in the US, but the reverse isn’t true. Technically, there are expedited entry procedures for urban planners under NAFTA; get a job offer, show it at the border, and you’re in. However, Canadian employers usually demand certification by the Canadian Institute of of Planners (MCIP). The CIP has reciprocity for those with American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) certification, but it’s not enough in the eyes of employers. Canadian planners also have the advantage of being able to work just about anyplace in the Commonwealth, while those with US citizenship are locked into the States; 49 of them.
Often local governments want a driver’s license in the state as a job qualification.
That would be cool, but obviously is not the case in the US. Some states have agreements that after X number of years you can become a member of the bar without taking the exam (although I think you still have to pass the character and fitness background check), but generally once you become a lawyer in one state, you can’t practice in another state without significant time, expense, and possibly an exam.
You don’t need a Federal job; you just need to practice in a Federal area of law. Immigration lawyers can practice immigration law anywhere in the U.S., as long as they’re admitted to the bar somewhere.
But I know what you’re talking about. My stepmom is an employment lawyer. When my dad lost his job in IL and found another one in NY, she needed to have 5 years practicing in IL in order to be admitted to the NY bar without taking the bar exam. So they had a commuter marriage for 9 months.
Most state and local government employees are in the same situation. We can’t relocate out of state without essentially starting over again in our career.
How does it work for being a partner/manager in a law firm?
Presuming there are no reciprocal agreements between State A and State B, can a lawyer who passed the bar in State A be a law firm manager/owner in State B, provided he does not dispense legal advice to clients?
How about meeting clients and not dispense advice but rather dispatch the case to a lawyer employee?
Here in Canada, I don’t recall hearing that word used in that sense; I would say that we would use “called” instead (e.g. - “I’m called in Saskatchewan, but not in Alberta.”)
My nephew is an architect, who recently moved from one state to another. He’s working his way through the state exams - about half a dozen of them, given over a period of some months. Not easy.
