Finally!

I started law school in January 2005, freshly home from my time as a missionary, with $77 in my bank account. Since I had no money and no job, I lived with my parents in San Jose. I was going to school in San Francisco. My daily commute was 2 hours each way. My dad dropped me off at the train station at 6:30 in the morning on his way into work, and he picked me up at the train station around 5:30 in the evening on his way home from work. It was thoroughly exhausting.

I kept that up for a year before I was fed up enough with the commute that I moved out. I ended up in Fremont, which was still a 45 minute train ride away, but it was much better. A few months later, my law school education was unceremoneously interrupted due to a whole bunch of bureaucratic nonsense that was out of my control. The day that I found that out, I also lost my job.

I spent the next two years working and trying to figure out what to do with my life, and then I went back to law school somewhere else. (At a school that was far better run and treated the students as respected colleagues instead of as obstacles.) Then I graduated.

Then I took the California bar - and failed it - three times. (Seriously, if someone reasonably intelligent with a law degree can't pass the [expletive deleted] test after three attempts, maybe there's something wrong with the test!) Then I decided that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So I took the Arizona bar in February. I found out in May that I passed it. In fact, I knocked it out of the park. It really was California and not me.

I've been waiting for my background check to clear, and I found out yesterday that it did. Most law schools have big ceremonies a few weeks after exam results are released where all of the alumni who passed the bar are sworn in en masse. Since I'm being admitted to the bar in a different state, and I'm being admitted off schedule, I don't get that.

I went to the UPS store on my lunch break today to get sworn in. So, nearly eight years of toil and effort was culminated by signing a piece of paper in front of a notary and dropping it in the mail. I'm practically allergic to ceremony, but it still felt a little anticlimactic.

I Passed the Bar!

I found out on Friday afternoon that I passed the bar exam. The press release is here. It still hasn't sunk in yet.

I still have to pass the background check, which will take another 3-4 months depending on the backlog. I could have filed it sooner, but I wanted to wait to see if I passed the bar first. (I didn't want to pay the fee for the background check if I ended up failing.)

Hopefully in a few days it will all feel real. I'm glad it's over; I don't have another bar exam in me.

Bar Exam Diaries - Arizona Edition - Day 2

I decided to take the light rail this morning, so instead of walking five blocks, I walked a block and a half. My blistered feet appreciated it. I also folded down the back of my loafers to make my shoes backless for the day. I ended up bruising the bottom of my heel due to stepping on the back of my shoes, but that hurt way less than rubbing the blisters would have. (I'm totally wearing my flip-flops tomorrow. I would rather stand barefoot on the airport floor in all its unsanitary glory during security screening than wear those loafers for another nanosecond.)

We were told to arrive at 7 this morning, and I arrived at 7:05. I went through security and headed to my seat to engage in another hour and a half of staring at the walls, finding patterns in the ceiling tiles, daydreaming, calculating that I've spent 11 days of my life taking the bar exam (I was too demoralized by that to even think about calculating how much time I've spent studying for it), daydreaming some more, and wondering if there's a time-warp in the exam room that makes time move more slowly while waiting for the exam to start but more quickly once the exam is in session.

At 8:30, instructions began. The head proctor delivering the instructions looked and sounded just like my criminal procedure professor. Sadly, he didn't hand out candy to the examinees like my prof would have.

The test began at 9. Today was fill in the bubble day. My mind wandered a bit halfway through because I got bored. I quickly got back on track and finished with time to spare. Then I got some lunch. I found a cafe nearby that serves soup, so I had a real lunch today.

After I ate, I wandered back to the convention center. I ran into some of the other test takers, and we talked for a bit. Then we went back inside for the afternoon session.

The afternoon session was less boring than the morning session, and I finished about an hour early. I turned in my test and left. I took the light rail back to my hotel, stopped at a taqueria to pick up some dinner, and then ate.

I'm glad it's over. The end of the exam was a little bit anticlimactic. In California, the last day of the exam is a performance test, and since it's administered on a laptop, everyone has to stay until the bitter end. So everyone leaves as a group and there's this cheer because we're all celebrating together. But since Arizona's last day is multiple choice, I got to leave when I finished. I walked out alone with nobody to celebrate with. I did run into another test taker while waiting for the light rail, and we chatted a bit, but it's not the same.

I'm flying home tomorrow. I'll find out my results in May. I'm glad it's over.

And if the Arizona bar wants to use this helpful marketing slogan I've devised, they're welcome to. "Only 67% as miserable as the California bar!"

Bar Exam Diaries - Arizona Edition - Day 1

I set my alarm for 5:25 in the morning, and when it went off, I was annoyed. Now I understand why toddlers scream and throw temper tantrums when they're tired. As I was up and moving around in my exhaustion, it was actually physically painful. My body insisted that it wasn't quite 4:30 in the morning, and it wanted to be asleep.

When I booked my hotel, the website said that it was 5 blocks from the convention center. Well, just in case you ever need to know, 5 blocks is way longer in Phoenix than it is in any city in the Bay Area. Where I come from, a 5 block walk will take 3-5 minutes, maybe as long as 7 if all of the lights are red. Yeah...my hotel is a 20 minute walk from the convention center. Oops.

Bar Exam Diaries - Arizona Edition - Day 0

I feel like I've been stuck in the movie Groundhog Day, but instead of reliving February 2 repeatedly, I'm living the bar exam over and over. Tomorrow is the first day of the exam, so here I go again. May this time be my last.

I spent the night at my parents' house, and my mom took me to the airport this morning. I flew out of San Jose. They've really fixed it up, and it's a nice airport now. It had been 10 years since I had flown out of it; it used to be the old rundown airport in the area. I got through security in 5 minutes, and I wasn't subject to the usual indignities.

The flight to Phoenix was uneventful and took about an hour and 15 minutes. After landing, I took the airport shuttle to the light rail station, and then I took the train downtown. It was a quick two block walk to my hotel.

I got settled in and ordered a pizza for dinner. Then I watched some TV. I'm going to bed early tonight because I have to be at the convention center at 6:15 tomorrow morning. (For those of you keeping score at home, that's 5:15 California time. Why couldn't the test be two weeks later, when CA and AZ are in the same time zone?)

I'm feeling pretty good about it this time. Here goes!

Something wrong with the universe

"If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe!"
Dr. Beverly Crusher (Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 4x05 "Remember Me")

When things go wrong, I tend to spend a great deal of time thinking about what I did to cause the problem. If I did something to cause the problem, then the world is a controllable place. Controllable places are safe. If things are controllable, then bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people.

But sometimes things happen that aren't controllable. Like the bar exam.

Here's the state of affairs:
1. I attended a good law school.
2. I did well in law school and graduated.
3. The only motion I've written that has gone before a court has won.
4. That motion was part of a team effort that ultimately resulted in the overturning of a wrongful conviction.
5. I'm excellent at standardized tests.
6. I have an IQ of 164, the same IQ that Albert Einstein was reported to have.

Given all of this, the bar exam should have been a breeze. But no. I've failed the [expletive deleted] test three times!

The first two times I failed, I tried to figure out if I should have studied harder or something. But now I'm convinced that the problem isn't me. I'm smart, I'm well educated, and I'm good at the law. So, clearly, since there's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with the universe test.

And now I have to figure out where to go from here.

Bar Exam Diaries - Third Time's a Charm Edition - Day 1

I got a good night's sleep. My alarm went off at 6:30, and I got out of bed about 6:45. (I'm a bit of a snooze button addict.) I checked my email. One of my friends texted me at 7:15 to let me know that she was awake and didn't need a 7:30 wakeup call. I showered and got ready for the day. After my shower, I decided to eat breakfast. I opened up a container of yogurt and tried to eat it, but the smell was so off-putting that I couldn't do it. It made me sick to my stomach. I'm on an antibiotic because of the burn on my hand, so I'm guessing I'm in for another round of antibiotic induced nausea. Fun.

I ended up eating some of the snacks I had brought instead. So I started the day off with Pringles, Oreos, and wasabi rice crackers. Breakfast of champions. After breakfast, I headed downstairs for the test. The test center was much more organized this time around. I didn't see any chaos. I had a different proctor this time, which relieved me. I like the proctor I had the last two times, but I think I would have been embarrassed to have to face him again. (He remembered me in February. I guess there aren't too many redheads taking the bar in Oakland.) My proctor this time is a grandfatherly old man with a cheery disposition. When he was checking my ID, he said, "Looks just like you." I responded "I hope not!" and then we both laughed.

Bar Exam Diaries - Third Time's a Charm Edition - Day 0

Here we go again. I had always heard stories of people who take the bar exam multiple times, but it was never supposed to be me. That's supposed to be something that happens to other people. People have tried to cheer me up by saying, "You're smart. You'll pass this time." I appreciate the sentiment, but clearly there's more to passing the bar than being smart. (Plus, I'm reasonably sure my intelligence has remained unchanged between last July and now.)

It seems like my body decides to get ill or injured right before every bar exam. Last July I had an eye infection, and the antibiotics I had to take to treat it caused nausea. In February, I was in a car accident the week before the test. Not to be outdone this time, I burned my hand rather severly last week. I only just regained the ability to hold a pencil this morning.

I wasn't able to get much time off work, but my employer is pretty good about flex time and work/life balance. So I worked from home today and took a long lunch that consisted of traveling to Oakland to settle in to the hotel I'm staying at. I signed off of my email at 5:30 and put up an out of office auto-reply for the next three days. (I'll still have to log on every night and catch up on the day's messages, though.)

After I checked in to the hotel, I went to the grocery store to get food for the week. It's cheaper and faster than eating out. I really wish I could go swimming, but my hand hasn't healed enough for that yet, so I'll have to find something else to do.

I'm feeling pretty good about the test this time. I'm in a good place emotionally. The first time I took the bar, I was freaked out. The second time, I was so fed up that I just didn't care. This time, I'm prepared and calm. I'm ok with the outcome, whatever it is. If I pass, great. If I don't pass, it's not a big deal. I don't really need bar membership to be a professor. But I think I'll pass. Third time's a charm.

Raising the Bar

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, if I want to pass the bar exam in July, I need to do something different.

I rocked the multiple choice section both times I took the bar, so obviously I know the law. (The multiple choice section is widely believed to be the harder portion, though I found it to be the easier portion.) So, I need to work on my essays. I'm a good writer, but the bar exam doesn't reward good writing. It rewards what I like to call "Mad-libs for Lawyers". My remedial college English students can write better essays than the so-called "model answers" that the state bar holds up as paragons of legal writing. That means I need to do a ton of practice essays so that I can spew back awful writing in my sleep.

I also need a change of venue. I have trouble studying at home because there are so many distractions. The TV, the computer, the laundry, and the cats are all way more interesting than the Rule Against Perpetuities. I also need to accept the limitations of my endocrine system and realize that my malfunctioning adrenals mean that I'm more productive in the morning than in the evening.

So, instead of studying by trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to read books in the evening after work, I'm going to study by writing essays in the morning before work. There's a coffee shop next door, so I'm going to go there at the beginning of the day and write one practice essay each morning before heading into the office. I guess hot cocoa and pastries will need to become another line item in my budget.

I'm going to take the light rail to work so that I can use my commute time to practice multiple choice questions and brush up on areas of law I'm less sure about. Since the light rail station is about 4 blocks from work, that gives me a mile round-trip of walking each day. That way I'll have exercise automatically worked into my schedule, too.

This will lengthen my day considerably. I'll leave home around 7 in the morning and get home around 7 at night. But, once I'm home, I can take the rest of the evening off. I can play with my cats, do chores, go out with friends, watch TV, or go to bed early with no guilt. This time I'm going for quality over quantity.

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 3

I'm done! Here's hoping that I don't have to repeat this ordeal in February.

My alarm went off at 6:00 because I had planned on doing my hair and wearing makeup for the confidence boost. (I had gone to the other days with no makeup and braided hair.) I was so tired that I reset my alarm for 6:30. I got up at 6:35 and showered and dressed. I managed to do my hair, but I didn't bother with the makeup. It's not like I'm trying to impress anyone there anyway.

I didn't eat any breakfast at home because I wasn't hungry yet. I turned on my computer to check my e-mail, and my cat decided she wanted to curl up on my lap and purr lovingly. I let her do that for a few minutes and then I had to leave. I drove to the BART station and got on the train. I brought a book today, so I buried my nose in it, in the international symbol for "please don't talk to me right now". Fortunately, everyone near me on the train was familiar with that symbol.

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 2

I'm now 2/3 of the way through the bar exam. The worst of it is over. Today was the multistate bar exam, which is the multiple choice section. I'm pretty good at essay exams, but multiple choice is my weakness, so today was the challenging day for me.

I woke up at 6:30, showered, dressed, and decided on breakfast. All I could stomach was a thing of yogurt, so I ate it and then drove to the BART station. I got on the train and headed on my way. Nobody felt chatty today, which is good, because I didn't really feel chatty, either. I got smart today and brought my ipod. I spent the train ride playing Angry Birds. When I arrived, I was hungry, so I stopped at a coffee shop and bought a pastry.

I ran into a few friends and we debriefed yesterday's exam. My impressions matched theirs, which was comforting. Then we headed in and took our seats. I brought pillows today, which helped. I could reach the table. The proctor came over and checked my ID. He was entirely too cheerful for the situation, but I appreciated it.

Bar Exam Diaries - Day 1

Last night, I got all of my stuff together because I didn't want to have to deal with it in the morning. I read over the list of stuff permitted in the exam room, and I laughed because one of the things listed was "two pillows without pillowcases". What? Do they think we have time for a nap or something? Anyway, I went to bed, and my alarm went off at 6:00 AM.

I got up feeling pretty refreshed, since I get up at 6 for work every morning anyway. I showered, dressed, then went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I had peanut butter toast for breakfast because I wanted something with protein, but I couldn't have any dairy because today was my last morning on an antibiotic where I can't eat dairy products within 3 hours. Sigh.

After breakfast, I drove to the BART station, bought my ticket, and got on the train. There was only one empty seat left, so I sat in it. The guy next to me was feeling chatty. We had a conversation that went like this:

Two Lawyers Walk into a Bar...

I'm drowning in work and bar exam studying. I panicked this morning when I realized that:

• There are 13 subjects on the bar exam.
• The bar exam is in 6 weeks!

I have so much information I need to cram into my brain between now and then.

I'm not too worried about the essay portions, but the multiple choice concerns me. Bar exam multiple choice questions are evil. Here's an example:

Oxnard owned Goldacre, a tract of land, in fee simple. At a time when Goldacre was in the adverse possession of Amos, Eric obtained the oral permission of Oxnard to use a portion of Goldacre as a road or driveway to reach adjoining land, Twin Pines, which Eric owned in fee simple. Thereafter, during all times relevant to this problem, Eric used this road across Goldacre regularly for ingress and egress between Twin Pines and a public highway.
Amos quit possession of Goldacre before acquiring title by adverse possession. Without any further communication between Oxnard and Eric, Eric continued to use the road for a total period, from the time he first began to use it, sufficient to acquire an easement by prescription. Oxnard then blocked the road and refused to permit its continued use. Eric brought suit to determine his right to continue use of the road. Eric should
(A) win, because his use was adverse to Amos and once adverse it continued adverse until some affirmative showing of a change.
(B) win, because Eric made no attempt to renew permission after Amos quit possession of Goldacre.
(C) lose, because his use was with permission.
(D) lose, because there is no evidence that he continued adverse use for the required period after Amos quit possession.

There are 200 of these on the exam! Eep!

(Oh, and in case you were curious, the answer is C.)