The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Eventually I got my paperwork in, and the New York Board of Bar Examiners said I could get sworn in today. Which I did. I flew into Newark last night, stopped off for dinner at my dad's, then drove up to Albany, where I stayed at Ye Olde Motel 6, which had served me in such good stead back when I took the bar up there. I got to Albany by 11pm yesterday, and was gone by 11am today.

I guess it was convenient scheduling, since I'm using the occasion as an opportunity to see as many friends, relatives, and Huey Lewis and the News concerts I can out on the East Coast, but nevertheless it was a lot of shlep for not that much in the way of ceremony. The Third Department (which I think may admit most lawyers who are not residents of NYC) does attorney admissions once a month (although January and June are the biggest when they do most of the candidates from the previously administered bar exams). At these admission sessions they assemble all the applicants into clumps of 10-20 chairs, where you wait to be called by the person who has been looking over your file for an interview. The interview itself seems to generally be fairly perfunctory, although I suppose they reserve the right to scrutinize you further. Then they send you to another room, where every half hour they do a mass swearing in session. And that's it. Except for waiting to be called to your interview (our interviewer was very nice but extremely arbitrary in how he called people for their turn, as opposed to other interviewers who did a sign-up list for first-come, first serve), it's all very quick.

Afterwards I popped into the restroom to change out of my suit into a t-shirt and shorts, and from there it was off to Boston. What with the drive the previous day up from Secaucus to Albany and now the trip across Massachusetts, it kind of felt like I was doing the last week of last July all over again, but in reverse...