This is a two-part story about to my experience studying for and taking the California state bar exam.
For any of you who are 24 fans (the television series starring Keifer Sutherland as Counter Terrorist Agent Jack Bauer) don’t be surprised if someday you come across an episode where Bauer uses the California bar exam as a method of torture to extract sensitive information from a terrorist.
It all started in March 2009 when I applied for admission with the State Bar of California. Now, I want to let you in on a little secret: the State Bar of California does not want me or anyone else practicing law in California. How do I know? They make it as painful as possible to apply and gain admittance into the bar. I submitted a mountain of paper work along with several thousands of dollars in admission, background checks, and processing fees. Oh, I also had to pay a fee to use my laptop as well as an additional fee to purchase a limited license for the exam software. And that’s not all!!!
You see, going to law school really isn’t a prerequisite for passing the bar exam. How do I know? As it currently stands, very, very few law graduates can pass the California bar exam without taking a bar prep course of some kind. [I’m writing another blog post about how the California bar exam is drafted and why it does nothing to filter individuals who are not sufficiently competent to practice law.]
About the only known worthwhile bar prep course available is BarBri (this isn’t to say there isn’t another worthwhile bar prep course around, I’m simply stating that BarBri is the only prep course that law students are exposed to), which runs about $4,000 in California. Pretty sweet huh? You spend $100,000 to acquire a Juris Doctorate, only to be stone walled by a bar association that mandates another $6,000 in fees before you can even begin to take a stab at their ridiculous exam! Oh yeah, you also don’t find out the results until November 20th (four months after taking the exam).
Anyways, I began studying for this stupid exam back in May of 2009. To save on money, Missy and I moved back from Portland, Oregon into my parent’s home until after I took the exam. At the time, I was studying for the July California Bar Exam; a grueling 3 day affair totaling 18 hours. The first day consists of a morning session of 3 hours with 3 essay questions. The second half of the day is another 3 hours of testing dedicated to solving a legal problem full of fictional cases, facts, and characters.
The second day is pure multiple choice (200 questions to be exact), with 100 questions in the morning and 100 in the afternoon. The final day is a repeat of the first.
I attended BarBri courses 5 days a week while tacking on an additional 4 hours a day of separate study time. I crammed my head full of 14 subjects; from corporations, to criminal law, to civil procedure. After two months of logging more study time than I could calculate on a 5×11 sheet of paper, I felt fairly confident in my abilities to pass the exam. I had simulated three full exams, all of which I tested well on.
However, two weeks before the exam (the most important segment of time according to BarBri talking heads), something terrible happened. My father’s sister, who lived only a few blocks away from my parents, suddenly passed away. She was 40 years old.
You can imagine the emotional baggage that swept into our home. My father’s entire family came into town, and I was suddenly faced with the prospect of juggling my studies and spending time with family (many of whom I had not seen in several years). Needless to say, it wasn’t easy. Even when I was studying, it was difficult to concentrate. The funeral was held on the Saturday before the bar exam, which began that Tuesday.
The exam location I attended was situated in the Sacramento Convention Center, about 45 minutes from where I lived. I had a buddy who lived in Sacramento, so I made arrangements to stay with him during the exam. As I drove to my buddy’s house the night before the exam, I felt confident that I had done all that I could to put myself in a position to pass this Dreadnaught. It was my final hurdle to lawyerhood; a dream of mine since I was eight.
On the morning of the exam, I showed up early, parking a few blocks from the exam site. I strolled into a nearby coffee shop, grabbed a steaming cup of coffee with cream, and confidently waltzed towards the Convention Center. I knew the exam wouldn’t catch me by surprise; all I had to do was execute. Execution was all that stood between me and lawyerhood.
After I entered the location, I downed the remainder of my coffee, dawned by intellectual battle gear, and thrust myself into the foray of thousands of similarly situated law graduates.
The testing hall was enormous. The best analogy I can think of to describe it was that of a cement flight hangar. Before me were several huge pillars erupting from the floor into a ceiling hundreds of feet above us. Dozens and dozens of long tables lined the aisles as if we sitting for a Thanksgiving feast — we were the feast (the turkey if you will), to be feasted upon by the law examiners.
After the first day of examination, I headed back to my buddy’s house and reviewed a few multiple choice questions to get my mind into “multi-state” gear. It wasn’t so much that the multiple choice was difficult. On the contrary, the questions themselves are relatively predictable.
But imagine focusing for three hours at a time on wave after wave of boring, dreary paragraph-size questions. To use a legal phrase, it sucked.
I managed though, completing each 100 questions in the time allotted. I’ve never been any good at multiple choice, so I figured this would be my weakest portion of the exam. However, I was confident in my essay writing abilities to make up the difference.
On the third day, I arrived at 8:45 a.m., 15 minutes before testing was suppose to begin. The lady at the entrance told me to hurry as they had already begun instruction. “Yeah, yeah,” I thought to myself “I’ve already heard instructions on how to upload your essay files.” I took my time finishing my coffee before walking into the hall.
You know that feeling you get when you realize you’re totally screwed and there’s nothing you can do about it? Yeah, that was me. Apparently they gave the instructions at 8:30 a.m. and had already begun testing!!!
I’m usually good under pressure, so I managed to maintain my composure (notwithstanding the fact that I was so angry I wanted to yell). To compound the situation, the examiners, in their infinite wisdom, did not provide us with a clock or a timer letting us know how much time was left, so I had to guestimate how much time I had lost; I suspected I had already lost about 15 minutes.
As I walked down the aisle to my seat I removed the laptop from my bag and began booting it up. As I hastily sat down I was totally out of sorts; my concentration was shot. However, I also understood that this wasn’t the time to let my emotions get the best of me. Instead, I took a deep breath, regained my concentration and quickly opened the exam booklet, reading the first question while my computer finished booting.
Once I had given the question a good reading, I logged into my laptop and immediately began writing an answer (normally I spend the first 15 minutes outlining, obviously that was no longer an option).
As I my fingers typed with a furry known only to the God of Flames, I could see, in the corner of my eye, several other examinees walking into the room “late.” Yeah, good job state bar, you just screwed about 100 examinees (if not more). They don’t care though, the name of the game is to eliminate as many applicants from the pool as possible, so I’m sure many of the examiners were smirking with glee as we walked in late.
Well, I somehow finished on time but my brain was fried. I had to work much quicker than I was use to and I still had another 3 hours of examination after lunch. I went back to my car, slept, and returned for the final stretch.
About halfway through the final three hours, my brain began to cramp. As I progressed, the cramping became worse. My eyes became blurry, the sentences confusing. I decided to break off from the foray, taking a 10 minute break to regain some of my sanity. I returned, edited the madness before me, and finished just as the examiner called an end to the torture.
Yup . . . I can certainly see Jack Bauer putting a terrorist through this. Obviously I’m overstating things, but after completing the California bar exam, I felt as if my brain had been mentally water boarded.
And as I sit here now, trying to work through a criminal law outline, I’m reminded of that fateful beginning: the start of a painful, depressing journey that leaves me pigeon-holed between fate and destiny. I think of all the hours and toil I’ve experienced studying for this wretched thing and I think to myself:
“Bar study is torture!”
My name is Tim Sutherland and I approve of this message.
My next posting will reveal how I did and what I’m doing about it!
