The BAR

First, you have to appreciate how crazy people get about this test. Insane-Guy who sat up a row for our summer classes was getting up and writing his practice essays at the same time we would actually be doing them on the real day - so he'd be acclimatized? One girl I know put all of Equity law into a chart and then put it on the wall...

Shut up - it helped me learn it.

Actually, there were no equities questions on the bar. Also, no Family Law, Corporations, Trusts, or Conflict of Law (these are days and days of my life I will never get back).

Among the helpful tips that Barbri gave us was that before the bar, one should sleep in a hotel within walking distance from the bar testing site... and not to take the elevator that morning, just in case it broke while you were in it and couldn't get off. Miss Moran let me stay with her at her place next to the site, although she was on the 39th floor and we took our chances with the elevator.

This was vaguely like staying in a hostel, as Miss Moran just moved out and took all her furniture with her. It was us and our air mattresses. And her's had a hole in it. Also, it was incredibly hot. Feeling how hot it was, I assured her I didn't need a blanket to sleep with. We went to bed at 10, we went to bed, ready to get a good night's sleep and face the essays in the morning like a firing squad.

At 11 Miss Moran was already sleeping on the floor and I was shivering under a sheet. I finally had to get my towel from the bathroom and huddle under it for warmth. Although my brain knows I must have slept at least at some point... well, I just don't believe it.

So this is us, the morning before we headed out:

My shirt, reads: "Please don't make me cry" - if I'd been thinking, I'd have made her one that read: "I'm probably going to make you cry"

The proctor at this test is worth noting. She couldn't find anyone's name on the roll to check them in and actually told one poor girl (who was about to either faint or cry) that she was in the wrong room and that she needed to leave right now - someone had to take the sheet of paper from the proctor and find her name on the list so the girl didn't go kill herself in the hallway for getting lost the morning of the bar.

Reading the instructions was like a thing unto itself. You know lawyers wrote them when she begins reading, "Starting now, no one is permitted to have at or about their seats any bags, outerwear, including jackets, gloves, scarves, or the like except for items of religious apparel, no electronic transmitting devices such as cell phones, watches, caculators, or any other similar or dissimilar device..." This went of for five minutes. It was longer than it should have been because in addition to that list being given twice in the instructions, the proctor kept loosing her place and rereading the same line. In the middle of the instructions, I'm not even kidding, was this sentence: "Beginning now, listen carefully." Snorts of laughter from everyone in the room... Okay, fine, that might have been the end of one sentence and the first part of the next sentence... but that's now how our proctor read it.

Oh, and we spent 6 hours writing essays on Tuesday.

This is Miss Moran and I after the first day. Let us never speak of it again. You might think we posed for these pictures, but sadly, we spent most of the evening. Exactly. Like. That.

The next day was better. Multiple choice baby. Unfortunately, you had to stay all three hours for the morning and the afternoon session, no matter when you finished. Hopefully someone will someday look at my test book and appreciate the nice pictures I drew in it, trying to kill the entire last hour of the morning, and again that afternoon.

The bar instructions only provide one bit of reassurance, in the midst of strongly worded warnings of all the things they will dismiss a test-taker for: rest assured the proctors will accurately time the test. Were people worried about this? Was there such a mad rash of people emailing them with this concern that they felt the need to add this in?

On Wednesday at 4:30 we had sat for four different three hour sessions of testing. I'd personally been twiddling my thumbs for that last hour of multiple choice taking, although in an attempt not to freak out the people on either side of me I'd refrained from actually putting my head down and sleeping and pretended to be rereviewing all my answers... At 4:30 the proctor anounces we have 15 minutes remaining. In the style of a musical, the entire room bursts out in unison: "No!" Several people then call out, "We were out of time two minutes ago! Please just let it be over!"

There are few things to sum up this entire experience, from the start of law school to the end of the bar, like the proctor miscalling the time. Such is the glamorous path to lawyerdom.

Here are the post-bar pics, including the comatos state and the blissful joy (which both seem to come and go):