For the first two years since my admission to the Bar, I was only admitted to practice in New York's state courts. Today, I was sworn in and therefore admitted to practice in United States District Court in two federal districts, the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.

My friend, colleague, and admission sponsor Joni treated me to lunch afterwards at Ping's in Chinatown. Yum!

Tuesday afternoon, I felt completely worn down for no apparent reason. Yesterday morning, it was clear I wasn't going to make it into work - and this morning was even worse. Luckily there wasn't anything significant on my work calendar for either day; in fact, yesterday's pre-trial conference had to be adjourned to a later date anyway because my client was unavailable. But staying home from work wasn't my first preference (for a change). Nor is staying home from tonight's auction at Cardozo, which I'd been looking forward to - but I don't want to risk still being sick tomorrow.

I've been puttering around the house trying to do what I can to feel better - napping, taking it easy, watching movies ("Zelig" was cute and worth a Netflix rental, but not great), running an errand or two when I had the energy. But I didn't really start feeling better until just a little while ago, after picking up and eating a potato knish, a raspberry hamantasch, and a cup of coffee with milk from the Bagel Mill across the street.

Now I'm feeling warm and happy. With any luck I'll be close to 100% tomorrow. Hope you're all doing well.

I'm quite certain I got on an E train at the World Trade Center stop after my lunch with Gerald, a friend from law school who's opening his own solo practice downtown. In fact, it even still said it was an E train when I got off of it...

...on Roosevelt Island.

WTF?!

On the other hand, how sad is it that I'd never been on Roosevelt Island before today?

So, it's been a few weeks. There's a slightly longer story to it - a perfect storm of discontent, poor people skills, and even poorer organizational planning - but I came within a hair's breadth of starting a document review gig through an agency I didn't respect for a client who didn't seem to know what was going on for a rate lower than I wanted and fewer hours than I wanted to work, and which was to start two weeks later than they originally told me. Instead, the firm where I'd been working from early June to mid-September called the agency who'd placed me there, told them they loved my work, and asked to have me come back. So I'm back, and happy to be there.

In the meantime, since it's been my habit in the past to make note of celebrity sightings, I thought I'd mention my breakfast yesterday. I met my friend Molly at Irving Farm, a cute coffee place not far from Union Square, and we had some great waffles while we talked about our writing. Susan Sarandon came in to get some coffee to go, and then a short while later Val Kilmer sat down with someone to have an extended conversation over hot drinks. Did I mention the waffles were great?

...the project on which I've been working for the last three and a half months may be over. We were sent home mid-afternoon. We'll know tonight whether to go back in tomorrow, but it sure didn't sound likely.

Time to look for work again!

On December 18, I left the law firm where I'd been working for a little less than a year. The less said about my departure the better, other than to acknowledge that it was, without a doubt, an improvement. My mood lifted, my outlook improved, and my shoulders relaxed a little. I'd needed a break anyway; this was just a slightly different kind than the one you might plan in advance.

Then I got the flu, which ate up nearly three solid weeks of the free time I'd hoped to use to take care of a lot of personal business and clean up things around the house (and in my life) that had been awaiting just such a chunk of free time. I managed to get some of it done anyway, but it definitely didn't turn out to be the go-to-the-gym-every-day-and-sell-every-extraneous-possession-I-own kind of month I'd been hoping for.

I have embarked on a new job search, with an open mind toward two things: The type of law I might practice, and the idea that I might not practice law at all. While I am still hoping to find out someday how good a trial or appellate litigator I can be, a JD is a versatile degree - and can be put to use in many fields, including non-profit fundraising, a career at which I excelled before I went to law school, and which is still expanding and in need of experienced candidates. I am also somewhat determined not simply to take the first job offered to me, which is more or less what happened with my now-former law firm.

Luckily, having a JD and being admitted to practice in New York State also means that I am qualified to do temporary ("contract") work for law firms through the many agencies that engage lawyers for such work in New York City. I have just finished one such gig at a large midtown firm, which lasted slightly over two weeks - and although I worked very long hours at it (9am to 10pm every day, including weekends, which is the main reason you haven't seen me here), I must point out the irony that doing the grunt work of document review - tedious, repetitious, relatively unchallenging point-and-click analysis - for fifteen days earned me as much as working about six weeks at my law firm used to earn me. I was actually conducting the business of litigation in an attempt to save large insurance companies huge amounts of money, often in the millions of dollars, and I was barely making a living by Manhattan standards. Plus, on this contract review gig, I received free dinner and a towncar ride home every night for working those hours.

I was even offered another gig - this time for two months - before this last gig was over, though I had to decline because they wanted me seven days a week starting immediately, and I need my next few weekends to myself. More will come, I've been assured, and soon - the gig I just completed was for one of the most notoriously intolerant and unsatisfiable document review supervisors in the city, and she specifically asked for me back when the first ten days ended.

But despite the obvious attraction - the possibility of making bunch of money for a couple of weeks, then taking a couple of weeks off to do something fun or relaxing - I'm not tempted to make contract work into a career, as some of my colleagues on this gig have done. I simply want to use it as a tool to allow me to make a more informed, considered, intelligent decision about my next permanent job. And I have interviews coming up for such permanent jobs, starting as early as tomorrow. I may do contract work for a few more weeks, a few more months, or a year. We'll see.

Not having to panic is a wonderful thing. I'm not ashamed to say: if I end up both a little richer and a little more relaxed because my old firm couldn't see my worth, well, that's just a bonus.