Within the legal community, it's generally an accepted fact that some states' bar exams are more difficult than others. New York and California, for example, have the reputations of giving difficult exams, and their pass/fail ratios back this up. So, for example, if you want to work in California, you'll either have to pass the full California Bar Exam or the two-day attorney exam. It's that simple. Well, it would appear so at first glance, but it all depends on the type of work you're pursuing.
In order to go into court and litigate actual cases, then, yes, you will more than likely need to either waive into a state or pass the bar for that state itself. However, this will not matter if you're looking to get into non-legal corporate work.
The difference between a practicing lawyer and a J.D., of course, is whether the person has passed the bar or not. Some corporate jobs require a ''legal background,'' even though your job will not require you to practice law for them. The legal background connotes, at the very least, an understanding of laws, contracts, and other subjects in that realm, whether the corporation wants to hire a full-fledged attorney or not. Having a J.D. will definitely fulfill the legal-background requirement, even if the person is not a practicing attorney.
People have been padding their resumes for as long as resumes have been in existence. It looks great that you have a J.D. listed under your education heading on your resume, but it looks even better if you can add ''Admitted to the ___ Bar.'' Without bar admission into at least one state, your resume can work against you. A potential employer will see that you're a J.D. but that you have not passed the bar anywhere. Their first question will be why is this so.
Were you bright enough to earn your J.D. but you keep failing the bar exam in your state? Did you not take the bar exam yet? If not, why not? Why would you invest so much time and money and hard work in earning your J.D. and then decide to go into a corporate or otherwise non-legal job?
For these reasons-in order that these questions don't come up-it's a good idea to have the Admitted-to-the-Bar stamp on your resume. And if you've taken the Bar Exam and failed it in a difficult state like California, there are still ways around this issue.
The first way, of course, is to study harder and prepare yourself better for the next Bar Exam. You obviously know that you're not the first nor last person to fail the Exam, so there is no shame in having to take it more than one time in order to pass. But there is another way that has gained some popularity among J.D.s.
Let's say you resigned yourself to the fact that you cannot or will not pass your state's bar exam. (We encourage you not to take this attitude, but if you already have it, then we figure that you know yourself better than anyone and maybe you're being realistic.) You can still have Admitted to the Bar on your resume. The key is to take another state's bar exam-a state with a much easier exam and a much higher pass rate.
You can do the studies on your own of states with high-pass Bar Exams. Compare it to your own state's exam. You'll have to study for that particular state's exam and arrange for your own travel and accommodations at your own cost, of course. All the research must be done on your own as well. So with all this extra work and expense, what are the benefits?
Remember our point earlier about padding your resume? That's where it can pay off. If you're in New York applying for a job and you have Admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar on your resume, for example, that looks infinitely better than just having J.D. in your education section. At an interview, you'll doubtless be asked about this situation, and this too can work to your advantage.
You obviously don't want to say, ''I took the PA Bar Exam because the NY exam was far too difficult'' or ''I took the PA Exam just for the sake of having a Bar Admission on my resume,'' even though that may be exactly what you did. Instead, you can come up with creative reasons. Perhaps you can say that you once aspired to practice law in Philadelphia but later opted against it. Or you can say that you found that PA law interested you in the past because you thought about living there.
In any event, this may not work if you're applying for a NY job that requires a NY license. But for a corporate-type job where bar admission is not required, your resume will look more complete with a Bar Admission on it, as opposed to just a J.D. Competition is fierce for employment, especially for legal jobs. Many of your competitors will have Bar Admissions on their resumes, so you cannot afford to be without one.
If you're licensed in one state and do wish to move and practice law in another, then that's where the complicated reciprocity rules come into play. There are about 19 states that allow lawyers from other states to come in and practice without having to pass their bar exams. But this provision usually only applies if the first state also has the same arrangement. It's definitely a tit-for-tat situation.
Only about 12 states waive these reciprocity agreements altogether and allow out-of-state attorneys to come in and practice law without regard to mutual agreements with other states. The remaining states require that out-of-state lawyers pass their bar exam. Most of these remaining states, however, give out-of-state lawyers an option of taking a slightly shorter attorney's exam, which is basically the exam minus the multistate. Of course, deciding whether you want to take the full test or the attorney's exam is an entirely different issue upon itself.
So, as you can see, crossing state boundaries to practice law can be a complicated issue depending on what state you're in and where you want to move to. You'll need to do plenty of research and verification to find out about your specific situation.
So don't just rest with your J.D. Do what it takes to pass the bar in your state. Or another state. Any state. Get it on your resume. It's that important. From there, you'll be able to look into practicing in whatever state you choose. Or whatever jurisdiction, like the District of Columbia. But DC is a whole other situation which we'll save for a rainy day.
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Facts
LawCrossing Fact #74: Those who use the job map feature will have an easier time locating a job near them than those who don’t.
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