by Bryan S. Greenberg
Miss mom and dad so much that you want to move back to your home state? Perhaps you just
want to move where the weather is hot or the skiing is spectacular? While there may be a lot of
great reasons to abandon your current locale to pursue your dreams of wonder and bliss in a new
state, the difficulties associated with relocating your legal practice are likely to make you
second-guess your decision.
The preparation for moving your law practice to a new state must begin almost a year in advance.
The first step is to apply for admission to the new state's bar. If you are a litigator, admission is
required to file pleadings and appear at depositions or in court. If you practice
corporate/transactional law, you may be able to practice without admission, but you will
generally need to have a licensed attorney review and sign all your documents.
Step one for admission: Call the state bar association. Some states make the application process a
costly and time-consuming administrative nightmare for laterals. For example, some states
require you to register upon admission to law school and failure to do so can cost you thousands
of dollars. The application process alone can take 6-12 months with background checks and
character reviews.
The bar examination also will create its own list of obstacles. While some states will grant
reciprocity if you are admitted in another state, some states require you to retake the whole exam
(multistate, in-state portion, and ethics exam). Be careful: you may have to sit for the whole
exam at a location in the state; and some states require you to retake the ethics part of the exam if
you sat for that test before graduating from law school. (See"Have License. Will Travel" in The
Young Lawyer Nov. 1996 at 4.)
If you thought that taking the bar exam again was the worst part of this process, think again. You
will still need to get a job, which can be a daunting task when you are looking long-distance. The
best sources for jobs are the state or local bar newspapers in your new state. Using a headhunter
may be an option. And, you may want to try your law school's placement services personnel; if
they cannot help, they may be able to enlist the help of other law schools located in your
destination state.
Assuming that you are successful in landing a job, finding a place to live, and getting admitted to
the bar, you now face the reality that despite your years of legal experience you know
next-to-nothing about the practice of law in the new state. How do you bluebook a case cite?
How many people must witness a will? Despite the fact that these simple cross-state differences
in substantive and procedural rules can be mastered in short order, many associates will lose at
least one year of seniority on the partnership track or payment scale when they switch states.
Switching states can be quite unnerving. At the end of this rainbow, however, awaits the pot of
gold: a new job as a lawyer without any clients, lots of new bosses, and no clue how to work the
copy machine. But at least you can go skiing on the weekends ... that is, if you're not working.
Bryan S. Greenberg is an attorney with Runden, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell, P.A., in
Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
