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Share on FacebookI want to write a longer post on the subject eventually, not because I thought the bar exam was traumatic, but because it’s a rite of passage, and I feel I should at least record a considered summary of it.
For now I’ll just give you an update from yesterday. Today was the multiple choice, Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”) portion. It was broad. It was relatively deep. And I think it expresses a romatic view of lawyers that I embrace completely.
What I mean is this. In our modern era, the law has become broad and complex. Lawyers today look nothing like Abraham Lincoln because they are all so specialized and so all consumed with finding a “job.”
But the bar exam seems to stubbornly cling to that notion that a laywer can represent his or her client no matter what issue comes up. Cynics may disagree and argue the bar exam is nothing more than that–a bar to practice, to the profession.
Me? I see it as an attempt to cling to that romantic, and probably correct, view of lawyering–even today. While I only give myself about 50-50 odds of passing, I had a great time, and I learned a lot in the process.
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Share on FacebookI wrote twelve essay answers in six hours, so I’m not in the biggest writing mood. Still, I thought I should record a few initial impressions. At first, I was kind of disappointed. Before the break, I was kind of pleased with myself. I thought my preparation was pretty good and that I analyzed the issues pretty well.
Then, after lunch, the questions suddenly got a lot harder and far more specific. They asked much narrower questions than I expected, like “can the judge rightfully deny the criminal defendant’s request to give an opening statement after the close of the prosecutions case?” And “does a minority shareholder of a closely held corporation have to make a demand for dividends before he can bring suit?” They aren’t hard questions if you are prepared for them, but I expected much broader, general issue spotting questions–not narrow, focused questions.
Oh well, tomorrow is the multiple choice. Off to rehearse more bubbles.
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Some people take a big trip to Australia or Topeka, but I’m coming back to the Ross-Blakely law library.
I’m going to randomly grab three bound law review journals off the shelves, and I’m just going to sit and read a few articles. I’m going to read them on my terms, and pay attention to the details I care about for a change without worrying about what I think the professor or the bar examiners want me to study.
I am going to read selfishly for the first time in years.
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Share on FacebookI don’t know if I was just there on a good night, but something about this Waffle House made a tired student grin from ear to ear.
I went to the Waffle House on an anonymous strip mall on an anonymous intersection on the anonymous border between Tempe and Mesa because I figured it would be a good place to study late Friday night–at least before the bars closed.
I took a seat at the loners’ counter, looking for an anonymous place to sit and study in a place bathed in alarmingly white fluorescent lights. The humming of those lights was all I could hear, at first… well, that and the buzzing of the refrigerator and that sizzling sound coming from the kitchen.
Then there was noise.
The girls were talking about who baby daddy doin’ what and what not and then the jukebox. Michael Jackson, to be precise. The entire restaurant sang along softly. I mean, everyone including the customers (well, except me).
It compelled me to post this over the top tweet.
The desert is quiet, especially at night when you can often hear nothing more than buzzing refrigerators and the servo click of air conditioners turning on down the street. I hate silence. I’ve had way too much of it in my lifetime. But places like this so-called anonymous Waffle House fill the desert with sound and light. And that makes me happy.
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