School: Bar application time

The Florida Bar is a creature of the Florida Supreme Court, and as such, if you wish to practice law in Florida, you need to apply to the bar. This is a lengthier process than most expect when entering the legal profession; the public already distrusts lawyers - no need to throw gasoline on the fire by accidentally letting felons and cheaters become attorneys.

Strangely enough, you get a huge discount for starting the bar application early (in my case, when I'm still attending first-year classes). Not quite certain why this is the case - if I had to hazard a guess, I think it might have something to do with reducing the paperwork crunch near 3L graduation time and with keeping people in FL law schools.

The application is pretty thorough - you must list, for example, every address you've lived at in the past three years and the last ten years' worth of employment.