At long last, the End of the Road. With successfully passing the California Bar, I have no substantive barrier to becoming a lawyer. I still need to take the oath, pay fees and otherwise go through some motions before I have my Bar card, but there is nothing to stop me now.
It is almost four years exactly from signing up for the LSAT, my first move toward becoming a lawyer. The path involved selling our house in Temecula, moving to a new city, three years of classes, no fewer than four internship-type jobs, almost 100 Martini Hour parties, dozens of friends and a move back to Los Angeles. During this period, I lost my mother, my youngest child went from 14 months old to a kindergartener, I closed the business that had sustained us since December 2003 and many more transitions.
I have not been blogging, not for lack of things to say, but for a multiplicity of audiences. Do I post as a law student? As a patent agent? As CEO of a translation agency? A father and husband of my family? As the son and brother who has lost his mother? I suspect now that I have a stable, definable job (patent litigator at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe), I might be able to post a bit more.
Finding at 6:03pm this Friday that I passed the Bar is not an unadorned positive. Several of my law school friends were not so lucky; they did not pass the Bar. Overall, less than 50% of the test takers passed. And, given their native intelligence and the efforts they made preparing, it can only be luck that separated us. They will undoubtedly sign up for the next test, being offered in February. And I look forward to the opportunity to welcome them into the Bar, a welcome that they richly deserve.
