The Bar (Not the fun kind)

This time of year, my thoughts always turn to the bar. To all of the law school graduates who are freaking out right now doing the last minute cram with one week to go. The good news is that no matter how bad you think it is right now, it'll all be over soon...and the further away from it you get, the harder it is to remember. In a few years, this whole summer will be a blur.

You graduate from law school. It's an amazing moment having them put the doctorite hood over your head and walking the stage. For me, it was extra special. My dad was the first graduate of the law school... I was the first graduate of my class. And my sister was starting law school in the fall, where she would be the first graduate of her class. The school's alum magazine had done this whole article on us as three generations of Frank's grads.

So, we're all riding high from graduation. We go to this party that my 3 closest friends and I were throwing for our families. But as soon as that was done, we had to get to work. We had an apartment to pack and, the day after graduation, hubby (before he was actually hubby) and I were moving down to Jersey. Unfortunately, on the ride down, hubby got the bad news that his uncle died. In Canada. And the funeral was going to be the next day.

At the crack of dawn, I drive them to the airport where we realize hubby has his birth certificate, but his dad didn't. They ended up flying to Buffalo, renting a car and driving across the border. That left me to deal with unpacking.

Four short days later, bar review started. (They don't give you much time to recover) We were both taking the NY and NJ bars. Fortunately, NJ only tested the six multi-state subjects with no state specific distinctions. (Okay...for all the non-lawyers in the crowd, the multi-state is the multiple choice portion of the bar. One full day - 6 hours - of questions on torts, contracts, property, constitutional law, criminal law and procedure and evidence.) New York was another story all together. They tested like 23 topics, most of which I never studied in law school and you had to know all the NY specific law. (Bastards)

Our bar review was conducted in the espelande motel...which was so sketchy and in such disrepair that it no longer exists...but we trudged into the first day, trying to calm the panic rising to epic levels inside each of us, as we lugged every review book on the topic of contracts into the conference room.

Here's the truth. I worked my ass off that summer. I freaked out every day. But beyond going to every lecture and dutifully taking notes, I couldn't bring myself to study when I got home. I didn't read the outlines. I didn't supplement my lecture notes. I didn't make flash cards.

Suddenly, it was the beginning of July and I hadn't opened a freaking book. That was when panic truly set in for me. I went nuts with my studying. I started reading every outline. I made thousands of flashcards. I studied until my eyes went bleary and I couldn't take it anymore.

Part of the frustration with the bar is that you realize very quickly how much you didn't learn in law school... You seriously learn everything you need to know for the most important test of your life in 2 months and the $2,000-5,000 in prep materials. Law school may teach you to think, write and reason like a lawyer. But all you need for the bar is a good prep class.

I took two bar review classes. My second class started up 2 weeks before the bar. It was specific to the multi-state and featured a simulated test. I TANKED it. I mean, seriously embarrassingly low. I'm bad at multiple choice questions to begin with, but this was...well, no chance my essay scores would help me to pass if I did that badly on the real thing. But then an amazing thing happened.

With a week to go, everything started to click. And I accepted I was never going to learn everything... I played the odds. Wills and trusts never made sense to me. So I just learned what made them valid and what made them invalid, hoping that would be what they asked...

The night before the exam, I was nervous. About whether I could find the test center without getting lost. About whether I could drag my ass out of bed on time.

But the test itself? That I was finally ready for...