Fellow dopers–especially lawyer types!–I come looking to you for advice.
I’m a 1L, just going into my first batch of exams. But, with the exhortations of our Career Development Office, I’m also starting to think about What I Want To Do With My Life. That includes both what sort of practice I’d like to get into, and where I’d like to do it.
For right now, I’m leaning in a general way towards litigation–perhaps not entirely to my surprise. I’d always said that I’d probably wind up in the less public parts of law, but then, I’ve always had at least a certain itch to get in the courtroom. At any rate, this is just a tentative thing; courses and experiences to come may change things.
I’m much less certain on where I should be directing my attentions. I’m pretty sure that, as a matter of personal preference, I don’t wanna stay here (Cincinnati). I have certain general ideas about where I’d like to wind up, but nothing solid enough to be even tentatively certain.
I’d like to find someplace relatively cosmopolitan; someplace with lots of good restaurants and shops and cultural events. As I’m bi, I’d like a place that has a fairly good GLBT community. More generally, I’d prefer to avoid anyplace -more- politically conservative than Cincinnati; I think that mostly eliminates the South. Professionally, I’d naturally like a place with a thriving legal culture. One of the things that I like about Cincinnati is, from what I understand, we have a rather collegial and friendly legal community. If I could find that somewhere else, it’d be a definite plus. Finally, I don’t know if I’m ready for a BIG city like NYC or LA; after all, I’m still a midwesterner to some extent. 
Places I’ve had in mind include Pittsburgh (where I went to undergrad), Seattle, Boston, Minneapolis, Cleveland…
So, if any of you would care to share your experiences about these or your own cities, I’d appreciate it.