Happy Hour: The Bar is Over!

Hi guys! I'm baaaack!

Is it weird to say I missed y'all? I've really missed blogging, sharing my workouts and training, and getting to hear from you.

So... the bar exam is over! Thank you SO much for all your support. I received so many comments, tweets, texts, and Facebook posts wishing me luck. It meant so much to see that before taking the exam! I felt like I had an army of supporters behind me :)

Love these ladies -- my soon-to-be-colleagues! We all summered at the same firm and are all going back this fall. Wenli, on the left, also graduated from Columbia Law with me. 

Hana, on the right, let me stay in her hotel room both Monday and Tuesday nights. I only had to walk 1/2 a mile to the testing center and could escape Javits Conference Center during the lunch breaks. Her calm positivity was such a blessing amid the craziness that is the bar exam! Also, I look ridiculously tall in this picture, but I promise I wore flats because... why wear heels to the bar exam?

Anyway, I am going to do a separate post on exactly what taking the bar exam is like. For now, I'll encapsulate it with one word: long. A two day exam, six hours each day, can't possibly be anything but long and draining. I feel a bit like a zombie today!

I won't find out results until November, which is kind of nice. It's so far away that I can just sit back, relax, and concentrate on the exciting things I have planned before I start work at the end of September, including a western national parks road trip!!

Sourabh surprised me with an incredible dinner at Jean Georges after the exam finished on Wednesday! It was such a fun evening together, especially after months of either Sourabh being anxious about 1L year or me being anxious about the bar. We are finally both done with being nervous messes. Hopefully, at least! And I can work on ridding myself of those bags under my eyes...

We also had something else to celebrate: last week, Sourabh received a summer associateship offer! While the recruiting process typically takes place in mid-August, one firm has started hiring outside the normal process and interviewing mid-summer, and that's how Sourabh got this offer. Since most NYC firms give 100% permanent offers to their summer associates, this basically means he has a job offer.

At Columbia, the way legal recruiting works is you do four days of 20 minute interviews then, if you receive an invitation, you do "callbacks" at firms. A callback is roughly four hours and consists of four to six interviews and an optional lunch. Then, if the firm wants to extend an offer, you'll hear back within a few days. I went through this process two years ago, and while I enjoyed meeting so many new people, it was still a bit stressful until I received my first offer. So glad he doesn't have to worry about that now!!



What's the most anxiety-inducing experience you've had? How did you celebrate when it was over??