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Take Post Bar Exam Trip or Try to Find a Job?

By Stephanie Rabiner, Esq. on August 01, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

While you recover from your post-bar hangover, you have some important decisions to make about the next few months of your life.

Besides applying for permanent positions, should you go on a post-bar trip? Should you volunteer? Should you find a paying non-legal job? Should you sit on your butt eating pizza and drinking beer until November?

While this last one is especially appealing, it's probably not the best option.

But which one is?

With the disappearance of law jobs went the days of months-long post-bar trips, meaning that you're going to have to do something to keep your resume active.

Since you're not likely to get hired before results are released, you should consider volunteering at a local organization or government agency.

The First Circuit has expanded its rules to allow representation by graduates awaiting bar results, and there are a few unpaid AUSA positions up for grabs, as well as volunteer positions in most local DA offices.

If no one is willing to take you on as a full-time volunteer, sign up to dish advice at monthly clinics.

As for non-legal jobs, we all have to live, right? Still, think about your resume and consider some small-time volunteer options.

And though it definitely won't save your resume (or your bank account), a post-bar trip will certainly save your soul.

You've just spent three years and a chaotic summer cramming case law into your head. No matter how short or how exotic, you need to take a vacation, recharge your brain, and get ready for the next stage of your life.

Go somewhere. Enjoy yourself. Do it before bar results are released and you really start to panic.

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