Looking for Law While you're Working Full-Time at Wal-Mart

Dear Lawcrossing,

I graduated from law school and recently passed the bar, and I am working now in the marketing department of a corporation. My job gives me some time to do legal research, but I worry I'm not getting the experience I need. I really want to find work as an attorney, but there are some obstacles for me. I went to school in another state so alumni are scarce where I'm living. Also, I can't afford to quit my job and volunteer because I need my salary to pay my bills. How can I earn a living and still make the contacts I need?


SS, Qdijvrnia

Dear SS,

No nearby alumni? Can't afford to volunteer? Pshaw, SS-"pshaw" being the suitable retort here, even though LawCrossing admits she doesn't know exactly how you'd actually pronounce the word.

No matter. LawCrossing will tell you exactly what you need to do to find work you do want, even if you can't drop everything and hitchhike the thousand miles to find your nearest fellow alum. In fact, the Job Goddess will even set fire to the circus hoops you want her to jump through, by assuming that you can't let your current employer know you're looking for another job.

You don't say what kind of law you want to practice, but it doesn't matter. For the sake of argument, let's say it's dog bite law. Contact the local bar association, and find out who runs the dog bite specialty section, and when the section meets. Go to the next meeting, and introduce yourself to the section chairperson. Volunteer to help out, whether it's researching an issue or making a presentation to the section on some cutting-edge topic, or anything else. LawCrossing knows a recent law school graduate who got the criminal defense job he wanted by researching the status of polygraphs in his state, and making a presentation about it to the criminal defense section of his local bar. If you don't feel comfortable making presentations, SS, any other kind of volunteering-for instance, helping to set up meetings or find speakers-will give you an excuse to talk to people who do exactly what you want to do, and turn strangers into contacts.

You should also expand your reading list. Find out what practitioners in your specialty read, and start reading those publications yourself. If you read an article that interests you, write to the lawyer who wrote it, compliment them on the article, and ask for advice on breaking into their field. As a writer herself, LawCrossing can assure you that peppering writers with compliments makes them very open to helping you. In the same vein, let's say you stumble across an article in some legal periodical about someone who does what you want to do. Contact them and tell them you read about them, and would love advice about following in their footsteps. Will everybody fall at your feet if you do as LawCrossing suggests?

Perhaps not. But enough of them will that you will make all of the contacts you need, SS. And remember, every time you make a contact this way, even if that particular contact can't help you, you need to do two things: ask if they know anyone else who might help you, and thank them profusely for any advice, information, or referrals they do offer. Getting the idea, SS? You can see the theme here. You find things that you feel comfortable doing, that also, coincidentally, get you in touch with people who can help you. LawCrossing is confident that by acting on any one of these ideas, or ones you generate yourself, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how quickly you can get out of that marketing department and into the legal job of your dreams.