I can't help but notice how excited to talk about this we all seem to be.
My bar exam results are supposed to be ready in the next three days. I went through most of August and September not thinking about it very much, but in the last week or so I've started to get anxious. I'm not panicking -- I felt okay about the exam -- but I'm anxious to know for sure. I feel bad for the people who took the California exam and have to wait until November, especially since it's reputedly a much harder test. (I don't know about any other states).
The biggest challenge before me right now is my hunt for employment. The legal market in the Denver area, as in most parts of the country, is a lot slower than it used to be. I went to a top-20 law school, and was in the top quarter of my class, but those aren't numbers that work magic, at least not anymore.
Part of me wishes that I'd taken a bit of time between undergrad and law school to get more experience in the world and to figure out a bit more about what I was getting into. Probably at least half of my class had taken at least one year off or had other post-baccalaureate degrees, and some of them were making big changes from other careers that had been running for a while. I jumped in not really knowing much about where I was going or what I was going to do with it. Even though most people change their minds about their plans, I still think it might have helped me to have had a better idea of what I was getting into and why I was there. My first year was... challenging, shall we say, and also loaded with culture shock and other complicating factors. When you're not sure why you're there, it's hard to face all that. I was well into my second year before I started to feel more at home with what I was doing in school... but then, I think it's pretty rare that anyone feels happy with their first year of law school.