I'd love to find a job in Texas. I've never lived there, but it seems like a great place to live. I'm most interested in the cities of Houston, Austin, and Dallas. I have a degree in Finance and a J.D. I have experience working at the State Attorney's Office and as an in-house attorney for a regional company. All together, I have only a little over a year of experience working as an attorney. I would prefer to work in a transactional capacity rather than in litigation if I worked as an attorney. Any jobs that can use my finance degree, or an intersection of my finance degree and law degree would be great too. Also, a public sector job would be a BIG plus with my student loans. Having said all the above, does anyone have an good recommendations on where I should look for a job in Texas (specific companies, state or federal organizations, etc)? Any knowledge of any openings that would fit my education and experience?
The energy sector would probably provide the largest pool of jobs here in Houston - whether its transactions or litigation that interest you. I know my company has a posting out there, but it looks like a senior position reporting to the general counsel. Email me through the board if you want more info.
Dallas is the a terrible place. Unless I got an offer 3x what I was currently making here in Houston, I would never ever ever live there.
A good friend of mine moved from NY to Austin, last fall, basically sight unseen, with a pretty good resume and only a few connections. He's still looking for a fulltime gig, but is currently running one of the the American Lawyer's legal blogs and temping for a small firm in Austin (which offered him a fulltime slot that he refuses to take). makes enough to cover his expenses but that's about it; lives comfortably enough tho from what I can tell for now. Anyway, the advice he got was basically, coming in from out of state, you're not going to get any legal job offers until you have actually waived in to the Bar of Texas (takes about 6 months or so) and jobs at the State AG office or other state gov't lawyer positions are very hard to come by due to tight budgets etc (he's been looking for them and can't get squat).
Great points. That's probably the one thing I dislike most about having a law degree - your mobility is severely limited unless you become certified in multiple states. It's one of the reasons I'm looking into federal government jobs and non-legal jobs.
I am guessing you are not licensed in Texas as an attorney? The Texas Bar requires five years of experience before reciprocity is an option. You're going to have to sit for the bar here if you aren't licensed. You won't be able to find a legal job here without a Texas license.
At least in terms of the legal market, Austin is not better than Houston. Forget about the other aspects of the debate, otherwise we might have another Mummywrap sighting.
Austin = state capitol = tons of law firms/lawyers Houston has corporations and is bigger but don't discount the amount of lawyers in this town
I'm not discounting it. I do accept that there are tons of lawyers there. But from anecdotal evidence, it just seems that there are more opportunities available in Houston than in Austin.
There is probably a lot more corporate legal work in Dallas. But it does suck. It's a souless, acid washed jeans, mega church, mall shopping, dyed hair, entry level BMW, Chili's, hair band and big hat radio, Rush Limbaugh type of town.
