Res Ipsa Hangover

March 19, 2008 - Wednesday

My bar review course has started, beginning a journey that will lead me to arguably the most difficult bar exam in the country; the California Bar Exam. The California Bar Exam is a three-day examination that covers 17 subject areas and has three components – the essay, the multistate (multiple choice questions) and the performance test. The pass rate for the exam hovers in the vicinity of 50%, often the lowest pass rate in the country.

With the onset of my bar review, I want to ask that you observe a few guidelines and boundaries for interacting with me.

First and most important, please do not ask me how bar review is going. You can ask how I am doing, but please leave bar review out of the conversation. You really don’t want to know anyway and I sure don’t want to share.

Similarly, please don’t tell me "you will do fine on the bar exam," or, "you are smart you will pass the bar exam for sure," or any similar ’supportive comments.’ Smart people fail the bar exam every year. You don’t know what the exam tests, how it tests it, and what it feels like to be in that room. I am taking the bar review course so that I can do everything possible to prepare for the exam. Your well wishes are not going to help me pass the bar exam and frankly, it pisses us off bar candidates when people say such things. Please don’t. Tell me you like my new shirt instead, even if its old.

As you are beginning to notice, I am likely to become more of an "asshole" than you might ordinarily think of me. Yes, you are right; I am more of an asshole. If you had to write more than 140 essays, 20 performance exams and more than 3000 multistate questions in preparation to pass the bar exam you would be an asshole as well.

I don’t want to be an asshole – it’s just how it is. But I promise that if you say to me, "hey, you are being a turd to me" I will do my best to stop for a few minutes. As long as you are not asking me how bar review is going. Then you deserve it.

On a more positive note, there appears to be a manic cycle to the bar review disease so I am just as likely to be happy and positive as I am to be a jerk. Embrace the light and remember who I am capable of being during the periods of darkness.

Give me your support by bringing me coffee with cream in it. That’s all I need.

Finally, after I take the bar exam, do not ask me how I did, how I think I did, when the results will be out, etc. No one knows how they did until the results come out and I’ll be beating myself up plenty about the exam without your assistance. No one is allowed to discuss the bar with me until I bring it up after the pass results are released – several months after the exam.
I will tell you how I did in my own time and manner.

Jimmy Buffet sings "don’t try to describe a Kiss concert if you’ve never seen one." Chances are you have never taken the California Bar Exam. That makes you wholly unqualified to talk to me about it in any form. If you have taken it, you already know why I am sending this letter to you.
I’ll see you on the other side…..