A Memory of Victory, A Memory of Pain, A Day of Realization

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Today I was asked to accompany a woman I work with in Philadelphia's Project Dawn Court to Family Court for a support hearing.  Upon reflection, it was really quite amazing.

I arrived at Family Court and, upon flashing my attorney ID card, I was permitted to bypass every metal detector and cut every line.  I competently presented my client’s evidence before the hearing office and we both emerged from the building soon thereafter, all smiles.

I then walked to Reading Terminal Market, and picked up produce from an urban grocer and meat from a Mennonite butcher (which I used to make this).

As I walked from the downtown market to the subway, market goods on one arm and a leather briefcase on the other, I walked by the Pennsylvania Convention Center and thought to myself, “There is the site of my victory.”  It was in this giant building that I sweat out a passing Bar Exam grade.

I then examined my clothes- pinstriped suit, rabbit-fur lined gloves, and a knee-length black down coat.  A far cry from the Rainbow sandals and Roxy hoodie of my suburban Disneyland youth.

It honestly wasn’t until these moments, reflecting on my calm, successful morning, when I realized that I am an East Coast Urbanite.  And an attorney.  And it’s marvelous.

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Like someone who has been kidnapped and tortured by villains, I therapeutically wrote a small memoir of my Bar Exam experiences several months ago.  You may have read it already.  If you are contemplating law school, I highly recommend reading it.  Otherwise, don’t spoil the positivity of the post above and save yourself the effort :)

Cathartic Musings On the Bar Exam

Or, Law is Not for the Faint of Heart

Or, DON’T DO IT!

Studying for the Bar Exam is not just the accumulation of 3 miserable years of studying fulltime for hours and hours every single day, wading through ancient English texts and cases written by long-winded, self-righteous Supreme Court Justices who over-use difficult vocabulary and Latin phrases just because they can, and statute after statute after statute of poorly-worded, grammar-rich garbage.  No, its not just a review of some subjects you’ve already poured over for hundreds of hours.  Its re-learning hundreds of years worth of laws, case laws, and three-pronged test, factors to balance, and standards of proof and review not only from the English common law, but also the majority rule among the various states, and also the minority rule among the states, and the rule specific to the state who’s bar you are taking, and perhaps the specific rule for another state if you are a masochist like me who insists on taking TWO bar exams at once. 

And you not only need to know these things well enough for a multiple choice question or two, but well enough to craft an entire essay on any given splinter of a topic at the slightest hint that it might be relevant.  In other words, the bar examiners won’t likely say, “What are the elements of a valid trust?”  and allow you just to vomit your memorized list.  No, no.  They will give you a convoluted factual scenario and expect you to draw from those facts that a question of a trust’s validity may be involved and you will then need to organize an essay discussing that the issue is whether there is a valid trust, give the elements, apply the facts to each of those elements, discuss other relevant history/case(s)/ statute(s), and reach a legal conclusion. 

[PHEW!]

Oh, and you must be prepared to do that for every subtopic in every law school course you’ve taken and several courses that you have NOT taken.  In other words, there is never-ending work to learn and re-learn literally volumes of information in about 6 weeks time, coming fresh off of final exams.  Bleh. 

With so much work to do, life becomes…dull.  For me, it was a constant fight to keep my sanity.  My prep course was online and, consequently, I spent hours in front of my computer listening to painfully dull lectures and hours more reading, and hours more doing practice questions and writing practice essays and so there were times when I would go for days on end without saying a word to another human being. 

I began regularly singing aloud just to make sure my voice still worked!

Like my other classmates, I began to look for humor and small semblances of happiness in my hopelessly hum-drum routine.  I think the authors of the practice questions understood this and so, to make sure we were still paying attention, they would throw out the oddest questions. 

For example:

“A mother gave title to a waterfront bungalow to her twin daughters for their 3oth birthday.  The deed gave the twins joint ownership with rights of survival.  The twins immediately moved into the small bungalow and founded a religious cult, which met every week at the beachfront house. Furious, the mother demanded that they return the property.  Equally furious, the twins ripped up the deed and threw the shreds at their mother.  They then vacated the bungalow and moved to Mexico…”

…

“A clown owned a clown college and the land on which it stood.  The college was located next to an etiquette school.  The owner of the etiquette school detested the clown college, as she felt that it undermined her efforts to teach proper manners to software executives.  One day, the software executives skipped etiquette class and sat on the fence separating the properties to watch the clowns practice.  One of the executives shouted catcalls at one of the new clown students.  The student became distracted, tripped, and fell on the clown college owner.  The clown college owner suffered severe injuries, including minor brain damage.  Since he could no longer teach clowning, he decided to sell the college and the surrounding property.  The etiquette school owner saw this as the perfect opportunity to rid herself of the embarrassingly gauche clown school…”

Oh, my.

Meanwhile, when my fellow students and I managed to find a moment to commiserate one with another, we all concluded that we were all suffering unexplainable hair loss, weight fluctuations (for me, this was the obvious result of self-medicating with mini cheesecakes and carrot cakes from the local creperie/chocolatier), nightmares about failing the exam, and hopelessly grouchy.

As the exams approached, the anxiety compounded.  My friends all reported to me that they were all suffering from constant, nagging stomach pains and were finding it increasingly difficult to sleep.  I experienced these woes too.  I began taking Tums like breath mints and it seemed like just as my head hit the pillow, my mind decided it needed to drudge through every trauma I had ever experienced. 

Miserable.

And all for this stupid test that I had to pay literally thousands of dollars just to take!  It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but honestly!  About $700 for one state’s exam, about $600 for the other state, around $150 per state extra just to use my computer to take the exam rather than handwrite, about $2000 for my review course (and there were much more expensive courses available!), around $450 for hotel and travel costs to actually be present for the 3 days of exams far away from my home, and so forth. 

Now, there’s a trick if I’ve ever heard of it!  Make you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a legal education but it doesn’t count worth a dime unless you pay around $4000 more and endure several months of torture preparing for the exam and then waiting for an unreasonably long time to find out if you have to do it all again!

If you haven’t figured this out my now, I will be plain: don’t go to law school if you can possibly help it.  You’ll only wind up in mountains of debt, with shaky mental health, and –in this economy- most likely jobless.

But in all of this drudgery, there were a few positive realizations that I made.  It never occurred to me that I had such a wonderful social network.  Many people realize what a royal trial this is and so support came out of the woodwork from friends I hardly knew I had!

Living in a small community, I have come into close contact with many of the locals and I was constantly being cheered on and encouraged by people left and right, including old professors that I ran into in the grocery store, on the street, etc.; Bikram yoga instructors; yoga class members; my Taiji instructor & fellow class members; staff at the gym; the local college swim coach; people at church left and right; and even my landlords!

Even in the darkest and loneliest of days, I was encouraged by those around me and I could feel the love and prayers of my family.  Even better, my mom sent me a card in the mail every day with inspirational quotes and goodies!  So sweet!  Sometimes it seemed like they brought me the only smile of the whole day and I was very grateful to know someone was thinking of me.

Finally, exam week arrived and I actually was excited at the thought of studying being OVER!

But that excitement wore thin and on the morning of the third straight day of examinations, I awoke with a weary moan and hammered on my pillow with my fist, wailing, “Noooo!  I just can’t do it anymore!”

Despite all this, I did do it.

I emerged from bed and turned on the Rocky Theme Song and began shadowboxing in my underwear, knowing that now was the time to leave it all in the ring. 

Then came the waiting game.  Months of worry until the exams were graded.  But such is life, and I only could pray I wouldn’t have to repeat all of the above ever again.

And, the Lord be praised, all signs point to the fact that I will not have to repeat it again.  On the day the Bar results were published online, I frantically read down the list of P's and when there it was in all its glory- Price, Lindsey Ruth- I beamed a bigger smile than I ever had before.  In fact, I didn't stop smiling for weeks.  I can hardly think of a time I prayed with greater gratitude than on that night when the results came through.

There is a God.  The End.