California Bar
No, it's not some new favorite chocolate bar...but it will soon be a swear word in our home. For the past year or more Jake and I have been kicking around the idea of moving to California after law school. It's gone back and forth...one minute we're sure we want to go, then we get settled back in to NYC life, then we go back to the CA idea, then we considered the NYC suburbs.
We stuck on that one for awhile, then we actually visited the suburbs. We had envisioned some sort of oasis outside of the city, but we were disenchanted. It would do, but we definitely kept to the idea that if we lived there, it would just be long enough for Jake to get some good experience, then we would move to really settle down.
During our visit to MO Jake had a great talk with my home ward bishop who also happens to be a great friend of our family and a lawyer AND the son of the man Jake did his internship for when we were living in MO. Anyway, he reinforced some ideas Jake had been told before...saying that we should not waste the time and money to take the bar in a state where we don't intend to stay for a long time because it's hard to stop and do it all over again once you get into a job and are making money. He suggested Jake just decide where he wants to live and just find a job there, no matter where it is.
After talking with a few of his professors and hearing the same thing, Jake decided to take the leap and transfer his registration from the NY Bar to the CA Bar. Since then we've been spending hours researching the different big cities in CA and trying to decide exactly where we want to live. That's the biggest advantage of taking the CA bar...we have 4 big hubs to choose from. LA, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento are all on the list, though our first choice is the San Francisco area. That's where we're concentrating most of our efforts, but we're open to the other areas if opportunities arise.
So there you go. Mid-August we're hoping to pack up and move cross-country to the SF Bay Area. In the mean time, we need to have a baby, Jake needs to graduate, study for the bar, then fly to CA to take the bar. Unfortunately, CA has arguably the hardest bar in the country. However, I'm confident Jake can rise to the occasion. He'll be taking a BarBri course to help him prepare and the kids and I will spend a large portion of his study time with my parents in MO so Jake can concentrate on the bar. It will be a long, grueling 2 months of studying, but hopefully that's all it will be and we'll get on with life in a new place, in a house with a backyard and a washer and dryer and room for our kids to have fun and run! Oh yeah...and nicer weather!
Yes, the Bay Area is expensive, but we've been living in NYC--the most expensive place to live in the US. Yes, the traffic can be horrendous, but we plan to live out of the city and Jake will hopefully be able to take the BART to work. And yes, the Bay Area is beautiful and we can't wait to be there!
Isn't life an adventure?!
We stuck on that one for awhile, then we actually visited the suburbs. We had envisioned some sort of oasis outside of the city, but we were disenchanted. It would do, but we definitely kept to the idea that if we lived there, it would just be long enough for Jake to get some good experience, then we would move to really settle down.
During our visit to MO Jake had a great talk with my home ward bishop who also happens to be a great friend of our family and a lawyer AND the son of the man Jake did his internship for when we were living in MO. Anyway, he reinforced some ideas Jake had been told before...saying that we should not waste the time and money to take the bar in a state where we don't intend to stay for a long time because it's hard to stop and do it all over again once you get into a job and are making money. He suggested Jake just decide where he wants to live and just find a job there, no matter where it is.
After talking with a few of his professors and hearing the same thing, Jake decided to take the leap and transfer his registration from the NY Bar to the CA Bar. Since then we've been spending hours researching the different big cities in CA and trying to decide exactly where we want to live. That's the biggest advantage of taking the CA bar...we have 4 big hubs to choose from. LA, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento are all on the list, though our first choice is the San Francisco area. That's where we're concentrating most of our efforts, but we're open to the other areas if opportunities arise.
So there you go. Mid-August we're hoping to pack up and move cross-country to the SF Bay Area. In the mean time, we need to have a baby, Jake needs to graduate, study for the bar, then fly to CA to take the bar. Unfortunately, CA has arguably the hardest bar in the country. However, I'm confident Jake can rise to the occasion. He'll be taking a BarBri course to help him prepare and the kids and I will spend a large portion of his study time with my parents in MO so Jake can concentrate on the bar. It will be a long, grueling 2 months of studying, but hopefully that's all it will be and we'll get on with life in a new place, in a house with a backyard and a washer and dryer and room for our kids to have fun and run! Oh yeah...and nicer weather!
Yes, the Bay Area is expensive, but we've been living in NYC--the most expensive place to live in the US. Yes, the traffic can be horrendous, but we plan to live out of the city and Jake will hopefully be able to take the BART to work. And yes, the Bay Area is beautiful and we can't wait to be there!
Isn't life an adventure?!
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