The Law School Transplant » Bar (not the drinking kind)

Law School Transplant, Esq.

Erin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 22:01:24 +0000

Well, y’all, I passed the bar!

After much worrying and fretting, in the end, I really had nothing to worry about. To Anonymous Boyfriend and Anonymous Parents: You were right. There, I said it.

Anyway, off to celebrate! I already did my celebration dance to “Eye of the Tiger (Esq.)” Who knows what the night has in store…

The Mother of All Fuckups.

Erin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:04:00 +0000

Well, I am officially retarded, y’all. I missed the motherfucking deadline to take the bar exam on my laptop.

Yes, you read that right. I will be handwriting the essay portion of the bar exam. Six freaking hours of essay goodness to be scrawled out on paper in my pseudo-legible left-handed scribble.

I swore the deadline to register for the software was the 29^th, when in fact the deadline to register was the 26^th and the deadline to have all steps of the process completed was the 29^th. So when I went to register for the software on the 28^th, I was duly informed that registration had been closed. A double check of the State Bar rules confirmed my worst fears. Awesome. Just awesome.

First I panicked. Then I cried. Then I thought about not taking the bar at all in July.

But, after some reflection, I decided to sack up (figuratively, people) and go ahead and take the fucking thing. At least that way, if I do pass, I will have even more reason to feel good about it. Anonymous Boyfriend, being the rational and analytical type that he is, made several good points. First, the fees have been paid and are non-refundable. Second, this test is administered by the government, so there is no way they can make it prejudicial to those who do not have the means to take it on an expensive piece of equipment. Finally, people have been taking – and passing – the bar exam for years and years before computers were allowed.

Bead Freak, who is voluntarily handwriting the bar, made another good point: Approximately 10% of the people who pay the laptop fee end up having to handwrite halfway through because the crappy software used by the State Bar malfunctions.

Besides, either I know this shit, or I don’t. Being able to barf more words out onto the page by virtue of being able to type eighty words a minute isn’t going to help my cause if I don’t know what I’m talking about. The only part that really worries me significantly is the MPT, which is generally pretty long and on a very strict timeline.

I suppose if this is the worst thing that happens to me as a lawyer or a soon-to-be lawyer, I’m in okay shape. Or so I keep trying to tell myself.

And hey, this might be the last time I get away with missing a deadline and not get sued for malpractice.

Eight Days a Week

Erin — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:22:00 +0000

I’m not sure how some of y’all (and you know who you are) are consistently putting in ten hours a day studying for the bar. It is a struggle for me to get in a good eight-hour day, and ten hours turns me into a brain-dead, drooling mess.

On Monday, I diligently studied all day long – MBE questions all morning, break in the afternoon, state material at night until Starbucks closed at 11 (seriously, most of the baristas now know me by name AND drink: “Hi LST! Iced grande non-fat caramel macchiato?”). And by the end of the day, Anonymous Boyfriend had to scrape me off the floor with a spatula.

Perhaps bar review is just another weed-out process before we actually enter the profession, and my current ineptness at being able to deal with it for long periods of time each day is indicative of my future ineptness at being able to sit at an office doing document review or writing briefs for long periods of time. This definitely solidifies my notion that I am not cut out for life at a big law firm. But, given the choice, I’d definitely rather have only a moderately-priced sports car and a life outside of work than a Maserati that only gets driven to and from a high-rise parking deck.

Yesterday, I took it easy, and cut back to about seven hours, despite my reservations in doing so. I was still productive, but had a lingering nagging feeling that I still wasn’t doing enough.

This morning, I awoke to a rather helpful e-mail from my essay-slaughtering, red-pen-wielding MicroMash mentor that suggested setting a schedule of six to eight hours of studying a day, for six days a week, which seems much more manageable than trying to cram in those extra two or three hours in the evenings. Though I do like my weekends. Yes, I definitely have a future in government employment and I am so looking forward to my clerkship, which will be a nine-to-five cake-walk compared to this crap.

Perhaps the major challenge for me is mastering a couple of concepts each week, yet still having to retain them while I have to master additional concepts the following week.

Any suggestions you fellow bar-studiers have for dealing with my time more effectively and efficiently would be greatly welcome. I set a schedule each week, and stick to it pretty well. I take a break in the middle of the day and try to go for a run everyday as well. I’m just not sure where the disconnect is.

Ah, I already miss the good ol’ law school days of open-book exams and rampant grade inflation.

A Girl Walks Into a Bar… and Says, "Ouch!"

Erin — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:44:00 +0000

Graduation is over, vacation is done, and now it’s time to put my nose to the grindstone for that Last Big Test. The State Bar finally issued my certification, my transcripts are ordered and my fees have been paid. Now all I have to do is pass the fucking thing, because God knows I do not want to go through this rigmarole again. And that is proving to be no small task.

Most of my classmates are doing the BarBri bar review program, which involves watching videotaped lectures and filling in the blanks of pre-printed outlines as you follow along with the videos. I did the one-day BarBri course when I took the MPRE last year, and spent the entire time searching the room for a sharp instrument with which to end my misery. I can’t even imagine what the whole bar review course is like. Thanks, I think I’d rather have a six-week-long root canal.

Being the maverick I am, I decided earlier in the spring to do MicroMash, a sort of do-it-yourself bar review, for a variety of reasons, the primary one being my aforementioned aversion to hours and hours of menial blank-filling each day. It’s also significantly cheaper than BarBri, and lets me study from the comfort of my local Starbucks. I also don’t have to listen to the some of the assholes I went to school with — and I am certain they remained assholes after graduation — talk about just how many MBE questions they did the night before and how they have already mastered Commercial Paper, when I don’t even know what the hell a Commercial Paper is (I really thought it was referring to the New York Times, but that is apparently not the case).

It was a little disquieting, however, to have a box of books just dumped on my doorstep (motivation not included) with no one to hold my hand or tell me what to do. To its credit, the program is fairly well-guided, with software to work on the MBE portion and weekly state-specific law assignments that I am supposed to read, as well as an essay question that I complete each week and e-mail to a lawyer mentor, who will then redline it and return it with a multitude of confidence-instilling comments about my bright future as the most well-educated barista at the aforementioned Starbucks.

If law school didn’t serve as a sufficient reminder of just how much you don’t know, then bar review does a phenomenal job of displaying your incompetence about the law, despite having suffered through three full years of Socratially-inflicted misery. Things I thought I learned during law school I find myself having to re-learn again and again. I have been reduced to making flashcards, which Anonymous Boyfriend patiently quizzes me on, then offers helpful hints after observing my vacant look, then eventually reads me the answer after I get it 23% correct.

It’s basically like study week during finals. Except it never ends. And there are things you’ve never learned before that you have a week to figure out. And you don’t even know if they are going to be on the test, but you just pray they won’t be and that it paid off to risk only half-assedly learning the minutiae of limited liability partnerships and adoption procedures in order to be able to eat once in a while.

Wish me luck, y’all. I’m gonna need it.

Priceless.

Erin — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 18:13:00 +0000

Bar Application Fee: $300

Cashier’s Check Fee: $8

Motor Vehicle Report: $7

Fingerprinting at the Police Station: $12

Floppy Disks: $3.41

Express Mail Postage: $14.40

Having my Bar Application finally done: FUCKING PRICELESS.

Dazed and Confused

Erin — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:30:00 +0000

After much procrastination, I finally decided to go to the police station to get fingerprinted for my bar application.

I arrived around 1:30, only to be told that a) the officer who takes fingerprints is out to lunch, and b) they don’t take credit or debit cards. So off I went to get cash and kill some time browsing K-Mart (let me tell you, this is exciting stuff).

I came back at 2:30, paid my fee and sat down to fill out my fingerprint cards. There was one other person, a middle-aged woman, in the waiting room, and apparently she heard the clerk and me talking about the bar application process.

Freaky Lady, talking to the clerk: I have to go to Wal-Mart. They have distilled water for $0.64 a gallon!

Clerk: What?

Freaky Lady: Distilled water! $0.64 a gallon at Wal-Mart!

Clerk, still puzzled: Oh.

Freaky Lady, to me: What kind of law are you going to practice?

Me: I don’t know. I might not even practice law, but I’m taking the bar anyway.

[You'd think this might end the conversation, but it didn't, because I'm a freak magnet.]

Freaky Lady: You should help children. We need more lawyers to stand up for the children and protect children.

[Ummm... what?]

Me, figuring out the obscure coding system provided by the bar examiners: Mm hmm.

Freaky Lady: I got divorced and he got mad and got custody to get back at me. I tried to tell the court all of these things but they wouldn’t let me get it in. They wouldn’t let me get in what the child psychiatrist said. They need lawyers who only represent the child.

[What is it about me that compels people to tell me their entire life stories? Does this woman not have a mental filter that says, "By the way, it's kind of weird to start talking to complete strangers about very personal matters"?]

Me, wanting badly to end this: They do. It’s called CASA, Court-Appointed Special Advocates.

Freaky Lady: There was one, but the judge ignored him. I tried to tell the court so many things but they wouldn’t listen and so they gave custody to the abuser. Even though the child psychiatrist recommended only supervised visitation. And I had to hire an attorney from Atlanta to help me because all of the attorneys here are too afraid to stand up to Judge S and point out that he is biased. Judge S just ignored everything and gave custody to the abuser.

[The law student in me REALLY wants to point out her faulty reasoning in asserting that there are not enough lawyers to "stand up for the children."]

Me: Well, it sounds like the problem is not the attorneys, then, but the judge.

Freaky Lady: Judge S just got re-elected. D would have been so much better I think.

Me: I know.

Freaky Lady: So now the child is being abused and [something about a car and blah blah blah blah].

Me, looking for any statement to definitively end this exchange: The law school has a family violence clinic that helps people seek protective orders and the like. It’s not very expensive. You should check it out if you feel like you need that kind of help.

Freaky Lady: Good luck with the bar! I’ve heard it’s hard!

Me: Our law school has a 90-something percent pass rate for first-time takers.

Freaky Lady: Wow, that’s outstanding!

Me: No. Our state bar is just not very discriminating in its attorneys’ competence.

About that time, an officer came to take Freaky Lady’s report for someone who had written her a bad check. Which was awesome, because I was about to go postal. And I don’t want any incidents on my bar application that require explanation. That would look fantastic on my record: “I kicked a woman’s ass and got booked on assault because she annoyed the piss out of me telling me her sob story while I was waiting to get fingerprinted. Do you want my mugshot to go along with my fingerprints, then?” Awesome.

It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for people in bad situations, because I do. In this case, though, I was dubious about her claims of “abuse” and I’m fairly certain that if the judicial system here was rampantly corrupt, I’d know about it since I have several friends working for local judges, prosecutors and lawyers. And the kid is probably better off with her dad than with her whacked-out, socially inappropriate mother, in any case.

Last time I checked, there was no sign on my forehead saying, “PLEASE RELEASE YOUR INNER FREAK. I AM A FREAK MAGNET.” So what gives?

Bar None

Erin — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:30:00 +0000

Yesterday the Director of Student Affairs arranged for the Director of a Very Important Group That Lets Me Into the Bar but Not Without a Lot of Hassle to pay a visit to the law school and very clearly and concisely explain how the character and fitness portion of the bar application involves an airing of all our dirty laundry and a raping of our personal histories, but only after we pay an exorbitant sum of money for this privilege, of course.

I am quite glad they had this meeting. Otherwise I wouldn’t be aware of the fact that I have to order 2 fingerprint cards from the Bar (why an index card won’t do, I don’t know), order a copy of my driving record from the DMV, order a copy of my credit report, tally up all of my outstanding student loans (and try to refrain from crying in the process), contact five references to let them know the Bar will be badgering them for information (and bribe them to keep quiet), and try to remember every place I have ever lived and every employer I have ever worked for. Oh, and I have to ~~write a big, fat check~~ go to the bank to get a big, fat money order to send along with it. After I get the whole thing notarized, of course.

Because I have nothing better to do between now and December 6th. The very thought of having to do all this makes me want to a) drink heavily, b) cry and c) reconsider my choice of profession.

And I don’t really have a whole lot to hide. I’m just glad I’ve never been married, divorced, arrested, bankrupt, caught having sex with an animal, found drunk in a ditch, institutionalized, fired from a job or deported. Thank God for small favors, right?