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After months (which seemed like years) of
preparation, the day of
the bar was here. I will be honest: I lost such much hair in those few
months that I thought I would be bald by the summer’s end. Fortunately,
the only reminder is a little bald spot that is now just slowly
attacking my dome.
Now
back to the story: While watching American Idol the night before
and doing some sporadic studying, I had a couple (or four) cocktails to
calm my nerves. This helped me get a little bit of sleep, but to be
honest, I was pretty restless that night as I still have nightmares
about sleeping through the bar. When my alarm went off the first
morning, I remember letting out an “Oh shit” and then told myself,
“F*@#& it, you are ready” and hopped out of bed. By my own
admission, I am not much of exerciser, but I took a quick lap in the
hotel pool to try and wake up. I then took a quick shower (please, for
the sanity of those around you: use soap), threw on a t-shirt and
sweatpants, and headed off to the bar site.
Any tension I had
that morning evaporated pretty quickly –
not because I was confident but for another reason. About fifteen
minutes before we were supposed to take our assigned seats, I was
standing around talking to a few friends when I felt an unwelcome tug
on the legs of my sweatpants and watched in disbelief as they hit the
floor. Yes, a friend “pantsed” me in front of an enormous
warehouse-sized room full of people. The only thing that saved complete
embarrassment was the fact that I had made the conscious decision to
throw on some boxer shorts that morning. Crisis averted. Even though I
screamed several expletives at my friend, any tension I had was gone
and I was completely relaxed.
Once
I took my seat, I had one goal. This goal may make me seem like a
complete asshole, but hey, it worked. The exam passage rate in the
State of Texas is somewhere around eighty percent. There were about
thirty people sitting on my row. So, like any twisted individual who
likes statistics, I quickly scanned the table for the six people of the
thirty that were going to fail. One of these guys was sitting directly
diagonally from me. He was easy money. He had the look of death on his
face and hadn’t even remembered to bring his ID or any pencils into the
exam room. This theory was confirmed on day three of the exam. Day
three of the Texas bar is all essays. Examinees are given a series of
different colored “bluebooks” to answer each question. About ten
minutes into the exam, he stopped writing in book one and tossed it
aside. He looked at the second question (which in all fairness was a
tough property question), looked at me, raised his shoulders in the air
with a “WTF” look on his face, and tossed that book aside. About an
hour later, my neighbor was done and out the door. I don’t remember
exactly how long we were given that day, but he only used about
twenty-five percent of the allocated time. Needless to say, if you are
reading this after having already taken the Texas bar, it is likely
that this guy sat across from you, as I am sure he has repeated taking
the exam several times since.
Click
here for my advice related to the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE).
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