I managed to sleep the entire night this time around. The only problem was that it only lasted for five hours. Again. Combine using the pool and hot tub, walking two miles up and down 7th St. before deciding on some random place to eat (Day by Day Café—quaint little place, one waiter wearing a Randy Moss jersey, good cream of cauliflower soup), watching a DVD I bought last week, packing up all my stuff so I wouldn’t have to worry about it in the morning? it took me a really long time. I managed to squeeze a little study time in there, too. Just enough to read a few things and find out that I screwed up in a couple essays. That was not a pleasant experience.
So I woke up after five hours of deep sleep instead of tossing and turning all night, either because I was in the groove now or because I had no idea what I was up against. Sure, the Multistate Bar Examination is multiple choice [guess], but that didn’t make the choices any easier. The only consolation I had was not having to worry about mislabeling stuff anymore. At 9:00 that morning, they said go and a whole buncha law graduates drooped their heads over their tables and started scribbling away with their number 2 pencils.
If you want to know how bad some of these questions are, lemme give you an example. (I’m going to write in general terms—even so, according to the Bar Exam people, I could get in serious legal trouble along with going to Hell. Not a good combination…) Some guy asks a woman to kill someone else. She says okay, but tells the cops and they set a scene with a police officer lying in fake blood instead of the “killed” person. When they guy walks in and sees the body on the floor, he shoots it in the head and says, “I don’t want him to look too good for the funeral.” The cop dies. What can the police bust the shooter for?
A. Solicitation [asking her to kill someone]
B. Conspiracy [working together to kill someone]
C. Solicitation, conspiracy, and attempted murder
D. Conspiracy and attempted murder
Quick lesson about the law: if you take an act one step further, you can’t be accused of the previous step (i.e., you have to solicit someone to enter into a conspiracy—once that happens, you can’t go to jail for solicitation). Thus, C is out. Then there’s something called “mens rea,” which is the state of mind someone has when committing a crime. It can mean the difference between murder and manslaughter (“Take that, motherfucker!” versus “Oopsie! God, that probably hurt, huh?”). Thus, if you think you’re shooting a dead guy, you can’t go to jail for murdering him. That’s the most likely answer, which means I got it wrong. Thus, the reason why the law sucks.
In a way, it’s sad that we equate “the law” with “justice.” Sometimes, they are polar opposites. Consider this: if someone tells his lawyer that he killed a guy, the lawyer can’t tell anyone about it. Doesn’t matter if he knows where the body is, where the wounds might be, how many pieces are left… can’t talk about it. The law says it’s to encourage people to be open and honest with their lawyers. I say it’s still letting chunks of dead people lie in a cornfield and no one will ever find the remains—they’ll just fertilize the crops for the upcoming season. Yay for bad guys, boo for parents!
But I don’t want to get off on a tirade about what’s wrong with the legal system—I’m sure you can all think up stories of your own. The point is that I got to spend a large amount of time realizing how little I knew about what I’ve “studied” over the last three years. (Ever get the feeling you should have been more diligent about getting the reading done for class every week?) And it only got worse during lunch when I talked to a few people and they’d ask each other about a question: they’d be relieved that they got it right, I’d be cursing under my breath.
And did I mention that I left my little container of toiletries in my hotel room? I didn’t pack it the night before—Who wants to go to an exam with morning breath?—and just left it in the bathroom when I took off. I realized that right around question 20 of the morning session… it was a bit distracting. Sure, toothbrushes and shavers are replaceable, but I’ve been wearing retainers since I was a teenager to keep my teeth straight and I didn’t want to lose them if I could help it. Thankfully, I ran over there during the lunch break and they got it for me out of my room.
About an hour later, to compound my joy and excitement, when it was time to start the afternoon session, I stuck my pencil inside the booklet to open the seal, but when I pulled down, it ripped part of the cover. It also ripped that portion of the answer sheet. Just one more reason to feel stupid that day… They had me use the same booklet and put it off to the side when I handed it in so it could be hand-graded instead of sent through the Scantron or whatever the hell they use. I really don’t know and naturally, I really don’t care at this point. I’m just glad it’s over.
Over two days, I think I spent about 11 1/2 hours hunched over that table during the course of two days and I didn’t like any of it. Well, I liked the parts when I was straightening up to get ready to leave, but those were about it. Now it’s all over but the waiting. Kind of ironic, really. We graduated at the end of May, took the Bar at the end of July and won’t get the results until the end of September. Sons of bitches… Still, when I got up, left the room, gave back the clip for my picture badge (Who knows how many people might have chewed on it before I had it attached to my shirt?), I was free. It was gloomy and rainy outside, but it was still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Except for last month’s centerfold, but it was still pretty damn good.
