How To Eat An Elephant - Part One

August 4, 2008 - Monday

Hello everyone, So many of you sent good wishes to me regarding the bar exam. Before I go on, I want to tell you how much that meant to me. It revealed to me beyond any disputation that I am a blessed man to have such wonderful people in my life who care about me.

I was told all my life that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time and when I started law school I was told the same thing. There were a great many hurdles to overcome before I could even get into law school. Since I never finished my undergraduate education I needed to complete a battery of college equivalency tests that established, to the satisfaction of the State Bar of California and my law school, that I had the intellectual ability of someone with a college degree.

I took these three comprehensive examinations that covered writing skills, together with a broad evaluation of the arts; history, psychology, sociology, economics, literature, anthropology, and the sciences; physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, algebra, calculus, trigonometry. After passing these three examinations I was deemed to have the equivalent of at least 60 credit hours of undergraduate education and allowed to enroll in law school which would make me eligible to take the bar exams.

Yes, exams – plural. Since my law school was not accredited by the American Bar Association, or the State of California, I would be required to take and pass the First Year Law Student's Exam, or what we affectionately call the "Baby Bar."

The Baby Bar is a full day exam given by the California State Bar covering the first year subjects of contracts, torts, and criminal law. The exam consists of 4 essay questions completed in a 4 hour block of time in the morning, followed by 100 multiple choice questions completed in a 3 hour block of time in the afternoon. The pass rate is low – less than 30% and passing the exam is a requirement to continue in law school and ultimately take the General Bar Exam.
I passed the Baby Bar in October of 2004 and found out I had passed in December.

Preparing for the Baby Bar entailed my flying to Alaska and sequestering myself for 3 weeks and doing nothing but practice questions for 8 hours a day. This was my "Baby Bar Boot Camp" which followed a weeklong review course in Fullerton.

So at the conclusion of one year of law school I got my first glimpse of the monster. Thankfully my first strike was a fatal blow and I moved on to my second, third and fourth years of law school, trying to pretend the bar exam wasn't getting any closer.

I devoted much of my last year in law preparing myself for the bar exam, plus virtually the entire five months before I took the exam. I can safely say that this did not amount to over-preparation for the bar exam.

I had substantial assistance with my bar preparation. Many people encouraged me. A number of attorneys gave me very good advice on prepping for the exam. Certain people very generously helped make sure that I could devote my post-graduation bar prep time to studying instead of chasing money. Some of you helped me study. I was driven to the airport when I flew out to Anaheim to take the exam, picked up and delivered to my hotel, and retrieved after the last day of the exam and delivered to the airport (albeit in a rather inebriated state).

My thanks and gratitude is simply inadequate to express how much you helped me. The California bar exam, widely regarded as the longest and most difficult bar exam in the entire country, is a three day, six hours per day, challenge: not only of a candidate's knowledge, analytical ability, and skill, but also of the candidate's ability to function effectively under pressure and time constraints.

There are 2000 possible points, and to pass the exam a candidate must score at least 1440 of them. Only about half of the first-time takers pass it, and only about a third of the repeat takers. The various sections of the test are strictly timed. Through my preparation I was able to complete all the sections within the allotted time, although in virtually every case I did so with only minutes to spare. Many applicants were still frantically writing away when "time!" was called and the proctors swooped in.

I took the test at the Anaheim Convention Center – directly across from Disneyland. At approximately 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday, July 29, 2008, a thousand or so of us very dutifully lined up at the doors and presented our admission tickets to be granted entry into that basement room. My pens, earplugs, and highlighters in a clear plastic bag I found my seat and began some self relaxation exercises. Instructions were dutifully read over the center's PA system before the start of each morning and afternoon session. That voice will haunt me….

Day one's morning session had three essays. There was that damn executive powers constitutional law question Professor Fleming said would be there, along with a contracts formation question and a full professional responsibility question. I quickly decided the order I would write my answers in and poof – three hours was gone and it was done.

Oh, there was a 5.4 earthquake towards the end of the morning session. At first I thought some asshole was pushing a really big cart of chairs or tables through the convention hall – or maybe the cheerleaders upstairs were on Red Bull. But then the up and down shaking turned into a sea sickening side to side ride and everyone started screaming like bitches and diving under the tables. No offense to anyone who did that – I guess that's what you are supposed to do.

But I'm a Wardog, a Paratrooper, and fuck it all I'm not diving under any damn table to hide. Bring it on. Either way I'm going down with pen in hand writing my essay. Who knows what it all means but people are already saying there might be an "adjustment" to the scoring because of the earthquake. I'll take any points they throw at me.

Day one's afternoon session was a performance test involving writing a memo to another attorney about the tort of false imprisonment. Really that's all I remember about it. Another 3 hours poof and it was day one.

Day two was the multiple-choice question day. This involves 200 questions, 100 in each session covering criminal law, criminal procedure, contracts, constitutional law, evidence, torts, and real property. The MBE is given to law students all over the country. Due to copyright infringement by a certain bar review company the contents of the exam are now strictly deemed confidential and that's all I can say about it. Not that I remember anything anyway.

On day three, I was expecting a full evidence essay based on California law, a full civil procedure essay based on California law, and perhaps an Agency or business associations essay. Ready for the worst I turned over the questions and did my little happy dance when I saw another contracts question (this time focusing on remedies), a real property question, and a community property / wills crossover !! I literally giggled out loud and was smiling all day about the fact that there was no evidence or civil procedure as had been predicted. I was not the only applicant smiling.

I suspected a community property issue might come along and had reviewed my approaches the night before along with a few hours of evidence and civil procedure. I'm glad I didn't need it all!

Poof – 3 hours gone.
On the afternoon of day three, we had another performance test. We were the prosecuting attorney for some case involving a confession to a murder and lots of Miranda issues.

Poof 3 hours gone again… but this time everyone rose in a mixed chorus of applause, tears, and sighs of holy crap its over.I will find out the results of my bar exam in late November and will let everyone know how I did in my own time and manner. Please do not ask me about the results.
Looking back, after one eats an elephant, the bites really don't look so big anymore. But I had a lot of help and I will thank everyone in the next installment of this blog.......