I Fought the Law

July 2005 Bar Exam Post Mortem

Okay, folks. Here's the highlight reel.

On Monday afternoon Meli and I checked into the luxurious Oakland Marriott. We tried swimming in the cold and tiny pool before retiring to our room. The room contained two double beds, so we decided to sleep Lucy and Ricky style. I spent the evening going over my flashcards and one-page outlines before falling asleep relatively easily at around 11:00 p.m.

At 12:45 a.m. I woke up because the room was shaking. My first thought was "Yes! An earthquake! All the out-of-staters will be too freaked out to do well tomorrow!" But then I heard the unmistakable sound of female orgasm coming through the walls, and I knew that the room was shaking not because of seismic activity, but because our nextdoor neighbors were banging their headboard into the wall. Nice. It was especially fun because I could have sworn I had heard two female voices earlier that day.

The following morning, I headed down early and there were already a dickload of people waiting to get in. When they herded us into the exam room (the biggest room I've ever been in that didn't have a basketball in it), I introduced myself to the women that I'd be sitting between for the next three days. They seemed nice. After some ham-fisted proctoring formalities we got down to business.

I was expecting the first question to be either Torts or Contracts. This is what BarBri had told us to expect: starting off the experience with a big meaty fact pattern that you could construct a nice narrative around, making squishy common law arguments every which way. Instead, essay number one began: "Henry and Wilma...", which meant Community Property. No squishy arguments here. We were beginning the exam with technical, nitpicky rules that only apply in California. It was as if the bar examiners were saying to us, "You're in California, bitch. This is our house, so you're playing by our rules. Just keep that in mind for the next three days."

Question two was Real Property Equitable Servitudes. We were told that Real Property was about the least likely thing to show up on the July exam (except Trusts), so this was surprising. Also upsetting, since equitable servitudes have been my sore spot ever since the beginning of summer. But whatever. I trudged through it and seemed to nail everything. But by the end of it I was a little off-kilter and more than a little irritated.

Question three began with officers and directors of a corporation. BarBri said Corps was unlikely, and that if it did show up it would be securities rather than director duties. One for three so far. Halfway through the first paragraph we meet "Larry," which means one thing: Professional Responsibility crossover! The question was obnoxious but the facts were relatively uncontroversial and I think I managed to hit everything that needed hitting.

I had finished all three questions with about 45 minutes remaining, so I was convinced that I had missed a dickload of issues. I read and re-read and re-read again all the questions, and looked over my answers repeatedly. But apart from cleaning up my arguments and adding a few collateral discussions I didn't really change much. So either I type really fast or I failed the first three essays.

(Sidenote: I type really fast.)

During lunch I went up to the room and enjoyed the wonderful lunch that my wonderful wife had left for me. I ate it extremely quickly but didn't get sick. Plenty of gas, though.

Tuesday's performance test was a persuasive letter to opposing counsel, so pure legal reasoning. This was a gift, my friends. The law geek in me let out a little squeal of pleasure (not unlike what I had heard in my hotel room the previous night) as I prepared to convince the fake lawyer that the fake retirement community needed to let the fake retarded guy live there. By the end of the performance test I was getting emotional about poor Clint, and I wanted to punch everybody who was trying to keep him from living with his family. I think I did a good jorb.

On Tuesday evening Meli and I met up with a bunch of my summer associate friends for a drink at the hotel bar. That was nice. At 10:00 we all dispersed to rest up for Wednesday.

Wednesday was the MBE. Bleh. During both the morning and afternoon sessions I answered all 100 questions in the first two hours, spent a half hour going over my answers again, and left early. (I forgot to mention that if you stay the whole time, you have to wait a half hour while the proctors collect and inventory all 1100 exams. If you finish early you just hand in your materials and get the fuck out.)

Wednesday night I used the crappy hotel gym to work off some of my grouchiness. The gym was filled with idiots talking about the bar exam, and fuming over the fact that almost every other state was done with their exam already and California was one of the few states that imposed a three-day exam. I worked on my pectorial [sic] muscles for a while before having dinner with Meli. A dinner that she brought to the hotel room, because she is awesome.

That night I couldn't bring myself to study so Meli and I watched Daredevil on HBO. Daredevil, in case you were wondering, is a terrible movie. Ben Affleck tries hard to do "blind eyes," but he ends up doing "retard eyes." The fact that his hair his messy ('cause he's blind!) doesn't help. Also, I couldn't buy the love interest with horse-faced Jennifer Garner. But I guess he's blind, so it makes sense. After allowing Daredevil to shave off a few IQ points I went to sleep and was uninterrupted by any illicit activity nextdoor.

Thursday morning, everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood. We were all tired, but we knew that we only had a day left and it would soon be over. The essays and performance test weren't as scary now that we had all done a whole day of them, and at this point it was just a matter of endurance rather than knowledge. The proctoring went a little more smoothly and we prepared to finish the job.

Before the morning session started, a friend who was sitting in front of me and I discussed our predictions as to what the day's challenges would be. I thought Torts and Evidence were absolutely guaranteed, and since they had already hit three non-MBE subjects on the first day I was predicting Crim Pro as the third essay. I predicted fact gathering for the afternoon test (based, again, on what BarBri had said). My friend agreed with my Torts/Evidence prediction but thought the third question would be Civil Procedure. Who would be right?

Question Four was Evidence. No surprise except that it was narrative rather than a transcript (wrong again, Sakai!). There were a few tricky things. I knew all the rules but the proper organization was hard to pin down. Whatever, I think I got everything in. The underlying trial was an failing business/arson/insurance fraud case, which was the plot of one of the trials I did in my Civil Trial class in law school. That was a good sign.

Question Five was a straight-forward contract Remedies question, which wasn't so bad once I got past the fact that the underlying facts dealt with a contract for the sale of land, suggesting that they were throwing more Real Property at us. Not so much. Land is unique, specific performance, blah blah blah, let's do Question Six.

Now, given my visceral hatred for Professional Responsibility, both as a concept and as something that's obscenely over-emphasized in California's attorney qualification process, I had somewhat jokingly predicted on Tuesday after the Corps/PR crossover that Thursday would have a full-on PR question. Everyone p'shawed, but I assured them that it was possible, that it had been done before. I didn't think I would be right, but...

"Lou is a lawyer." FUCK. Here I was, the last goddamn essay question I'll ever have to write (one hopes), and I have to claw my way through another Professional Responsibility question. I read through the facts, which were unremarkable apart from the lawyer banging his client (a married woman!), and the first thing I typed on Exam Soft was "You bastards." I deleted that, gritted my teeth, and sallied forth. The nice thing about hating a subject is that you study the hell out of it so that the testers won't have the satisfaction of using it against you. So I knew all the rules down to the letter and that tempered my rage somewhat. But still.

I finished all the essays with about ten minutes left this time (I got tripped up on the Evidence question), but made sure to get out early to avoid the half-hour collection process. I met Meli in the lobby for lunch, took a walk with her, hung out with some friends from law school and past jorbs, and went back in for my final three hours.

The second performance test was an MPA, which involved legal and factual analysis (the folks at BarBri really shouldn't be visiting the track any time soon). More good news for me. Except that this time we were not only the bad guy, but we had a major stinker of a case. So we had to be dicks and present borderline frivolous arguments with a straight face. Maybe it was an elaborate Men in Black-style test where they wanted us to write a memo to our superiors saying, "Submitting these arguments to a court would violate our ethical duties of candor and fairness, and therefore I cannot complete this task." Perhaps. But I played along and zealously advocated pursuing a course of action that would likely lead to the death of a two-year-old girl. Hooray The Law!

When time was called in the afternoon session a resounding cheer filled the room, which was nice. We were all sternly admonished to stay in our seats until the proctegenarians finished counting up all our shit. They let us out and I zipped up to the bar where Meli was waiting for me with balloons and hats. We were joined little by little by a number of my friends, and after a few drinks a bunch of us went to Le Cheval for dinner. I ate mussels!

So there's that. It's over, I now have two and a half months off before I start working as a lawyer, and an additional month before I find out if I have to take the test again in February. Meli and I are going to Hawaii next week (but we'll have apartment-sitters, you burglars, so don't even think about it), and I have jury duty on August 30th, but apart from that I'll be sitting around playing Crono Trigger for most of the foreseeable future. Who wants to get lunch?

Posted by holohan at July 29, 2005 10:38 AM