Waiting for Bar Results

Waiting for the results of a bar examination is a lot like waiting for a baby to be born; you have no control over the situation, and you try to act normal, and go about your life, but it's always in the back of your mind, and could kick you in the kidney at any second.

Unlike baby, you will sleep more soundly after the results are revealed.

A few weeks ago, for the third time in my life, but the first time in a decade and a half, I sat for a bar examination - in Florida. I spent A LOT more time studying for this bar exam than I had for the previous two....maybe because I'm both smarter and dumber now that I'm forty?

When I was a smug and cocky twenty-six year old, the bar preparation process was the most regimented studying I'd ever done, but in my mind, passing the exam was an inevitability.  I lived with a friend who was a bit of a compulsive when it came to his studies.  While I mostly wanted to punch him for the three months we spent living in that tiny Baltimore sublet across the street from Johns Hopkins, it was a valuable lesson in the power of habit and routine - things at which I do not excel.

Like pretty much all of my William & Mary classmates, my friend was smart by any measure.  The difference between us was largely that he had honed his study skills over a lifetime, while I pretty much had to learn them from him;  until I got to law school, I'd skated by on looks, lots of charm, and minimal actual effort.  He convinced me that was not going to cut it for the Bar Exam, and he was, in all likelihood correct.

So, with him as my overseer study partner, we settled into a routine like I'd never experienced before. Weekday mornings, he drove us to the local law school to attend the three hour, live bar prep lectures (where he'd meet his future wife - a woman of great vision if she could find appeal in his condition that summer!). After, we would head home to prepare and eat lunch, and then complete whatever assignment was on our schedule for that day.  Once the assignments were done, I would lose my  mind just a little, and run out the door to the gym, pool, or yoga class just to do ANYTHING ELSE.  He would continue to study, making flash cards, reviewing notes, practicing questions and essays.

 I was in the absolute best shape of my adult life this summer, thanks to all of that study avoidance!  He probably lost like ten points of his sight from his intensive reading and study schedule.

When I'd return from my too long work outs, we would prepare dinner, watch some TV or sit out on the balcony and smoke cigarettes and chat until he was so spun out, he'd have to go to bed (no later than 11pm!).  And then all again the next day.  It was pretty horrible, and I hated it.  But - the experience was tempered by the fact that I didn't know a single soul in all of Baltimore besides him, and I was definitely nervous about the exam.

When you graduate from law school, you do it with a sense of dread.  Yes, you've finished this impressive bit of higher education (not a coincidence that graduation day is usually on Mother's Day), and yes, you're dying to get away from your classmates, and professors, and get on with "real" life (because you're an idiot), but....the Bar Exam looms just beyond the pomp and circumstance.  You have to get through this hazing ritual order to actually BE a lawyer.  All you'd done so far is finish law school - that's not enough.  Like any licensing exam, it serves as a barrier to entry.  And some people, people i know and love and believe are very smart lawyers, will never make it over that barrier, for whatever reason.

Maybe it's performance anxiety, maybe it's the pressure....maybe it's undiagnosed dyslexia?  Who the hell knows?    All I know is that there are actual, real live smart people who can't ever pass the bar, and eventually stop trying.  There are others, none of whom I know personally, but I've heard many stories - as have you, no doubt - who WILL. NOT.  STOP.  These are the folks that fail five, six, seven times, but dutifully sign up for the next administration of the exam and try again.  As if it's normal.  I am not one of those people.  I can not imagine the humiliation you must feel walking into the bar exam for the 5th time.  That's not for me.

And so, I allowed myself to be subjected to this crazy regimented life, so that I might know that passing the bar was absolutely something that I was going to do one single time.  And it worked!  While the exam did manage to toss a few frustrating surprises my way (e.g. that question about llamas and water rights that i still remember pretty vividly fourteen years hence), I walked out of it knowing in my heart that I passed.  There was no question in my mind.  I nailed that shit.  And when you walk out of a bar exam with a few thousand other people, most of whom seem to be on the verge of an actual panic attack, that is something you never, ever utter out loud.  "Yeah - I totally nailed that Bar Exam!"  No one says that!  Both because no one wants to be that asshole, and because it just seems like you're tempting fate to be so bold.....But that was how I felt that hot July afternoon.  And I surely kept that shit to myself.

Then came the wait.  Back then, at the dawn of high speed internet access for everyone, things just took longer.  (Seriously, kids, you have no idea how good you have it!)  Exam results would not be posted until the week before Thanksgiving. That is a long, long time to be waiting.... but it felt fine to me because I already knew.  I guess it's like getting a bunch of prenatal testing - you're pretty sure you already know what's coming out when that baby is born.....but...you're still nervous as it's all going down.  So too was the moment when we logged on to the Court of Appeals of Maryland website at the appointed hour.  I insisted on doing it behind a closed office door, and felt a little light headed as I ran down the long list, trying to find my exam number.  I rechecked it a few times - counted all of the fingers and toes, as it were.  But, just as I knew to be the case four months prior, my number stood at attention, firmly in the pass column.

The following July, I sat for the Virginia Bar,  partly because I had not yet figured out where I was going to land after my judicial clerkship, and partly because Virginia enjoys reciprocity with places I actually wanted to be (namely, D.C. and New York).  That time, studying for the bar exam entailed me taking my roommates bar study books, and reading the Trusts & Estates material (not tested in Maryland) while drinking a lot of wine and smoked a lot of cigarettes on our balcony (theme emerging?) after work.

I did not have time to do the crazy, but that wasn't me, anyway, and I didn't need to.  I finished the exam in approximately half the appointed time, and never for a second felt nervous or trepidatious, though the speed with which I finished definitely shook up a few of my fellow test takers.  I walked out again, knowing that I passed, and again never saying that out loud.  .

But last month, when I walked out of the Florida Bar Exam, now a seasoned attorney, fourteen years, two children, and many many gray hairs into my practice, I had no idea whether I had written a passing exam.  None.  In my mind, it is just as likely that I'll see a big FAIL next to my bar number (assuming I even remember what my bar number is)/  And here's why:  This time around, I know what I don't know.  I know where I failed to write my best response, for whatever reason. I know that my kids still need to have snacks, and permission slips, and hair cuts, and doctors appointments.  I know that I still have to tend my marriage, and love and support my husband, and thank him for picking up the slack while I tried to independently study for the first time in my life as a forty year-old mom.  What the....?

So now I'm waiting.  For the first time.  Just like everyone else.  And I'm so thrilled that the wait is now only half as long.  Can't say that about babies, can you?