Let's share bar exam stories!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I was completely strung out on caffeine pills and think I only got a few hours sleep. IIRC we had the mult-state, multi-guess test in the morning and essays in the afternoon. I was convinced there was no way I would pass so I bugged out for a while. When I got up, people were just staring at me like, WTF, you’re leaving, in the middle of the exam? Are you stoned? I hit the head and had a smoke and ambled back in to finish.

I had been told that when you got the letter from the examiners, if you were too impatient to open it, you could flip it over and see if there was a map visible through the envelope. If so, you passed since the map gave you directions to the swearing in ceremony. I did that. No map. But when I opened it, it turned out that I had in fact passed.

For years after that I fully expected them to contact me and tell me that it was a mistake because I have no idea how I did it - especially since the pass rate for that exam was less than 50%.

22

We got the Water Rights essay in Property. It was the last thing they taught in that section in BarBri, and they said “It’s really rare to get a question about this, so don’t worry too hard about it.” I studied it briefly on my last night of studying before the exam. Many others didn’t bother, and were in an utter panic over it afterwards. That was one of my highest-scoring essays.

23

Back in the Dark Ages, during the Johnson (Lyndon, not Andrew) Administration, the Iowa Bar was a two and a half day ordeal . The was no multiple guess/multi-state portion. It was five session, four hours each, of essays. Each session had five questions, one was mandatory and the exam taker got to chose three of the remaining four. Each question got its own exam book. The standard was pen and ink answers – bring your own $.19 BICs. There was a special room for people who wanted to type. Otherwise everyone was in the big lecture hall at the U of I law school.

At the end of each session the exam books and the typescripts were bundled up and taken to the Board of Bar Examiners who were settled in at the Ramada Motel in Coralville. By seven o’clock the evening of the third day the results were posted – a list of marginals who would have to appear the next morning for oral examination and a list of people who just flat-out booted the thing.

That is right, we had results some seven or eight hours after completing the exam. Because of this we had a fair number of people form foreign jurisdictions like New York and California who had jobs with the federal government and who just needed to be admitted somewhere fast taking the Iowa Bar.

Given the times, there were a number of guys (and the exam takers were at least 95% male) who found themselves with unanticipated federal employment — often with travel benefits and a need to know how to head space a .50 cal. machine gun.

24

I think esteemed cocounsel Max Torque and I took the Texas Bar here at the same time. My incoherent thread: Taking the Bar Exam in Seven Days: pravnik’s journal and equally incoherent results thread: My Bar Exam results are in aaaand…. Man, that seems like a thousand years ago. :slight_smile:

25

I can sympathize. Whoremastery is a pretty esoteric area of property law, and only shows up once every eight or ten years or so as an essay question in most bar exams.

26

I’m starting to feel old - I remember when guys like pravnik and Cliffy, Esq. were announcing that they’d passed the bar…

Mais, retournons à nos moutons … when I did the provincial Bar Ad exams back in the halcyon 80s, it was a three day extravaganza: one day for the general exam on the various topics taught at the Bar Course; one day for the provincial statute exam; and one day for the federal statute exam. We had about a week from the end of the Bar Course to the first exam.

The exams were set in late June, and we were exempted from going to the office at all during the study period, so it was generally an easy going affair. Beautiful sunny days, working in my own apartment, at my own pace. Walking around the neighbourhood for breaks, whenever I felt like it. An odd mixture of hard work and general relaxation - a moment out of time. I totally get Mr. Excellent’s peace with the universe - even though I was working hard on prepping, I had a feeling that all those years of study and work were moving to a climax.

The exams were in one of the conference rooms at the Hotel Sask - one of the priciest hotels in town, so the surroundings were pleasant. The exam room had great long tables that took two students each. The general exam was open book, so we could bring our 15 or so Great Green Binders of Bar Course materials. The other two were closed book, as I recall.

The exams each took up one morning. After the general and provincial statute exams, we all just scurried home to get working on the next one. The last one was the federal exam, after which we all went down to the hotel bar to drink. Of course, we all started trading answers to the questions that had stumped us. One of the nastier ones was to list five different ways the Supreme Court of Canada had jurisdiction over a case. People were grumbling about such an obscure question, put in by sadistic bar examiners just to ensure no-one could get a perfect score - until I rattled off five different jurisdictions (I had happened to study it for an unrelated matter). There was a pause, and someone said, “I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”

After that, we all broke out into the lovely summer day and went our separate ways, with the greatest feeling of relief imaginable. More than one of us commented, “That’s the last exam I’ll ever have to write in my life!”

And I’ve not!

27

I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Roanoke because it was cheap, and fortunately I had been advised to plead for a room on the side away from the highway. The motel is situated at the bottom of an entrance/exit ramp between the interstate and one of the main roads into Roanoke, which has a traffic light, so apparently trucks are starting and stopping there constantly. A friend who ended up on the highway side said it was air brakes and engines all night long.

Back then, the motel had primitive pay-per-view movies, and the adult selection was – I am not making this up – “Bimbo Bowler Babes From Buffalo.” I told myself that I would reward myself with this movie after the first day, but I was so exhausted by then (even a 7-11 clerk told me I looked like hell) that I just crashed right away. Ever since then, I’ve been looking for this film, to no avail.

28

I guess this must be a cult classic - who knew?

9420 hits on google :wink: Although to be completely honest, only the first few seem to be a close match.

You’re welcome. :smiley:

29

Summer of 1995. I’d gone to law school out of state, so I knew nobody in the bar bri review sessions, and I was older than most. Met another guy about my age, also from an out of state school, and did the study-buddy thing with him.

The exam itself was three days of unmitigated Hell. But my story comes later.

The exam was in July. Results come out in September. My buddy lived in another part of the state. Several hours away. I lived in the state capital. Where the exam was taken, and from whence the results where mailed.

He called me on a Saturday in mid-September. All excited because his results came in the mail that morning, and he’d passed the bar. Asked how I did. I didn’t know. My results had not arrived that day.

WOE. AGONY. DEPRESSION. TERROR. An overpowering sensation of impending DOOM.

I just knew that the Bar had mailed all the good news letters first, and that I’d failed the bar.

Words really can’t adequately describe what that feels like.

My buddy tried to talk me down, but I was beyond help at that point. He did describe in detail exactly what the envelope he received looked like…actually a cardboard mailer-thing, with a thick packet of stuff inside.

I would not get mail again for about 48 hours after that phone call. Longest, most miserable 48 hours of my life.

I lived in an apartment complex at the time. Monday, I was at the community mailbox thingy waiting when the mail truck arrived. It took the guy approximately 9 decades to back up to the mailboxes, and open the back of his truck.

What exactly transpired next is kinda hazy. I remember seeing the envelope sticking out of the top of one of the bags in the back of his truck. I strongly suspect it was not glowing with mystical energies like Excalibur raised in the hand of the Lady of the Lake, but I’d testify that I saw it doing exactly that. Grabbed the envelope. Energy coursed through my veins. It looked exactly like the one my buddy described. Could it be? Might it be?

REDEMPTION! SWEET, BLESSED REDEMPTION!

I read as far as “Congratulations! You’ve passed the (state name here) Bar Exam…”

Reliable witnesses reported hearing a primal scream. And then seeing a completely improvised celebratory dance punctuated by whoops of joy.

Probably the happiest moment I’ll ever have.

30

I wish I had had that arrangement. An exam I could deal with; what we had probably broke up my marriage.

Six months of weekly written assignments–sample opinion letters, statements of claim, and other paperwork, all requiring extensive research. Three weeks of oral assignments in another city; again, requiring extensive research. Little to no time off for bar coursework while at work; I still had to handle my caseload at the firm while I was doing all this. A failing grade was anything less than 100%.

I made it through, but at great cost.

31

Slight hijack – from context this seems to mean, “back to the story at hand” but am I reading that right? “So, let’s get back to our sheep?”

ANYWAY :slight_smile:

I’m still bitter two years later that there was not one, not one! question about CPLR statute of limitations. I still see those damn flash cards in my dreams. The one topic they told us had been tested on 100% of previous exams. GAH!

32

Learning you’ve passed is a great moment. :slight_smile: It almost never happens the way you describe any more, though - most states (perhaps all) post their results online. Of course, this means that on the announcement day the bar servers take a hit many, many times beyond their ordinary traffic, and crash like mad. So the day tends to pass with friends calling or IMing each other:

“Can you load the page?”

“No, you?”

“Wait, I think it’s loading - no, wait, 404. Damnit.”

Pro tip for current law students: It’s good form, if you do manage to load the announcement page, to save it and email it to your friends, so that they can quit playing the Refresh Game.

Finally loading the Maryland results, pressing CTRL-F, and finding my exam number listed among those who’d passed was an unbelievably happy moment. Literally unbelievable - in the months since taking my exam, I’d become convinced that I’d failed. I think I ended up having my mom compare my exam number (from some earlier paperwork) with the number on the pass-list to confirm that they were, in fact, the same number.

ETA: One other amusing thing about the day I learned I’d passed: I was actually sitting in a training session for my current gig, clicking “refresh” when I was supposed to be learning. :slight_smile: It’s a federal job, so I was with people from all over the country, and there was only one other Maryland bar-taker in the room. Suddenly, she lept up while we were watching a film, and shouted “I passed! I passed!”

Me: “So did I! Huzzah!”

33

Sweet monkey Jesus! That would have been wonderful one way or another. Ohio’s are three released three months to the day after the last day of the exam. This puts the release date for the summer exam on the last Friday in October, which was the 31st the year I did it. The results are released at 7:00 am. In the dark ages you could either wait for your envelope in the mail, call the Bar office repeatedly to ask (but they would let you ask for as many names as you liked), or come down to the Supreme Court building and stand there when they posted the list. Now they post it online - hit refresh - hit refresh - hit refresh - hit refresh - hit refresh - come on! - hit refresh - oh names - scroll - A - b- c - hey he passed - g - h - YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! - Big Breath - Is 7:05 am to early to start drinking?

34

Did the English Bar, which is a year long course peppered with assessments throughout the year.

My Cross Examination assessment. I was about the last person in the last in the school to take it and by that time the actress playing the witness knew all the tricks and knew what to expect.

Submission, the judge asked a question on a provision of law and I mixed it up completely. Realized my mistake while standing there and nearly died.

35

I actually wouldn’t like this at all - what if you failed? At present, it’s common for employers to have you start with bar results pending - and since they’ve already sunk some time into training you, they’ll normally let you sit for the bar again if you failed. But if they know, before you’ve set foot in the office, that you’ve failed the bar, they might just decide to go with someone else. Ambiguity is better - I’d rather wait on the bad results, and good news can certainly keep.

36

A very close friend of mine took the CT bar this last summer, and the results were posted online a few weeks ago. I wrote a simple curl script to check the page a few times a minute until it changed revealing the results.

She was very enamored of this, and we are agreed that I might have been the first person to have seen the CT results. I called her up immediately and no one in her office had even seen it yet, and most of them had been refreshing all morning. She checked herself to see if I was calling with congratulations or condolences before she answered my call :slight_smile:

(and yes, she passed! wooooohoo!)

37

Indeed it is. But mine wasn’t quite as clear. VA posted them online - I think we got them around 2 pm. At which time I joined my buddy from law school who works in the same building for a late lunch. Then messed around the office for a while, and we all went out boozing.

I remember getting home around 3 a.m. The next day was spent in agony, but when I got home the confirmation letter was there. Everyone had received it. All was good. Except mine said “You have passed the exam. However your character and fitness report is not yet complete.”

Not happy. Turns out my alma mater doesn’t play nicely in the sand box with upstart organizations like the Bar of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It took more than a few phone calls to sort out that one.

38

I had the same problem - turns out that my Character and Fitness interviewer enjoys waiting until the very last minute to drive his report to Annapolis in person. Fun! Though the uncertainty wasn’t too bad in my case - my interviewer made a point of complaining about how boring I was.

39

By the way: Pity the poor NY applicants, who’ve still go the entirety of the Character and Fitness process to endure after passing the bar.

40

Virginia (‘04), then Kentucky (06’). Yes I am a masochist.

For me it was just funny how differently I studied for the two exams. For VA, I did everything Bar/Bri told us to do. Classes in the morning, outlines in the afternoon, practice questions at night. I went hard core. I actually thought the test was ok, although I was freaked out that I finished each section so quickly. But I knew that I had studied as hard as I could, so there was no regret…

For various reasons, but mainly because my entire family lives in KY (and my parents will retire there as well), I decided to sign up for the KY Bar. Because of my MBE score, I only had to take the essay portion of the test. Study strategy: I listened to the civil procedure CD in my car on the drive to KY. Then I did a brief review of my Secured Transactions and Commercial Paper outlines the night before in the hotel.

When the results for VA came out, I refused to look. Too nervous. I waited for an hour or two, but since I had about a thousand messages from my family, I figured it must be good news. It was. THRILLED does not describe it.

When I got the results for KY, I just laughed. Genuinely laughed. Of course, KY is laughing now because I have to pay them for the pleasure of being barred there… although I still practice in VA.