EGAD!!! 6 months from today!!!

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

Descent into the maelstrom - the 3-day Texas bar exam! Here's what I'll be suffering through:

Day 1: 90-minute TX/federal Civil/Criminal Procedure and Evidence exam
90-minute performance test (lawyering task)

Day 2: 200 multistate multiple choice questions in Contracts, Property,
Torts, Criminal Law, Evidence and Constitutional Law

Day 3: 12, count 'em 12, TX essays on Business Associations, Wills &
Administration, Trusts & Guardianships, Family Law, Uniform
Commercial Code, Consumer Rights and Property (including Oil &
Gas)

Who wants to join me??

[autorank]

1. No joining but lots of wishing you the very best. We need you in TX!

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

18. Thank you!

Still have a few months of school to get through first, but then, here I come!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. deleted by OldLeftieLawyer

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

7. I'm older than you think (42)

I'm in school in PA and am doing BARBRI in TX. I'm enjoying the thought of knowing no one and not worrying about what my classmates are saying and doing. I'm not signed up for PMBR, but have a bunch of the CDs and am already listening to them on the bus because I get queasy and can't read on the bus (darned tricky stomach!), as well as the workbooks and flash cards.

I just reread the bar exam info and discovered, much to my delight, that Tax is NOT on the TX bar. WOOHOO!!! I didn't take it in school (or Corporations, and PA doesn't offer Oil & Gas; wonder why TX does?? )

My plan at the moment is to take my last final on May 2nd, pack up the apartment, fly to TX to start BARBRI the week of the 23rd, fly back to Pitt for my May 28th graduation, load up the car and make the long drive to TX, then get back to BARBRI as soon as I arrive. I'll miss a day or three of classes, but they say I can either attend makeup sessions or watch videos.

Thanks for your words of encouragement! I really appreciate your advice. I have to keep reminding myself to worry about this semester first and not stew about the bar, but it's almost impossible to do.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

13. You sound just fine

Here's a story for you to tell you how taking the Bar and then waiting for the results will be the most grueling part of your legal life:

We were told that the exam results would be published in the Washington Post on May 1. (I had taken the Bar in late February.) So, after two months of waiting - and it got worse as the time went on - I got up after a sleepless night when I heard the newspaper land outside on the morning of May 1.

My husband was sound asleep, so I slowly and carefully went over every line of that Saturday paper, and there was NOTHING. NOTHING.

I didn't want him to be upset, so I folded the paper back the way it had been, and put it back outside. Then I went back to bed and cried myself to sleep.

He got up and did the same thing with the paper, not realizing I had already been up and had looked. He figured he just coudn't find it.

When I got up, I couldn't stop crying. A law school buddy of mine called, and he was as distraught as I was. The best thing he had seen was that some 98-year-old lawyer had died, and he figured that was a job opening.

Then, a friend called. He had been looking in the Post, couldn't find it, so he called the City Desk. Yeah, they had the results there. He asked the person at the Desk if my name was there.

"Congratulations, counsellor," our friend Paul said to me over the phone, and that's how I found out I had passed the bar.

The following week, I graduated from law school.

In the words of Mel Brooks in "Twelve Chairs," "Hope for the best, expect the worst."

You'll do fine. Being older and from out-of-state is a real advantage. Again, best of luck, and I look forward to hearing here at DU that you've become my fellow counsellor.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

15. Isn't it horrible that they make the results public??

Anyone can go to Web sites now and see who passed.

What a nice story! Thanks again for your encouraging words.

[dorktv]

3. I will. Let us see how an average member of the public

stacks up against a novice lawyer like yourself! :)

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

11. When I was studying for the MPRE (ethics exam) last year,

I was IM'ing practice questions to my non-lawyer sister. She was getting them all right, while I was missing them! I'm sure you'd kick butt on the bar!

[dorktv]

16. that is weird.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

4. Don't sweat it

I did it - in Virginia - in 1976 (before I graduated from law school, by the way). Before you were born, no doubt.

Just sign up for a good bar review course, where they'll teach you everything you thought you learned in law school, and get your rest. I cannot stress enough to you how important sleep is. That, and a good, high-protein diet.

Then, ignore everyone around you, and have fun with the exam. I still hold the record for finishing both parts of the VA exam - state and Multistate - in under two hours each.

And, I was absolutely certain that I got the right answer ONCE in the Multistate portion. ONE QUESTION that I knew, and it was about "the golden rule" in litigation.

I passed. You will, too. I wish you the absolute best of luck. The practice of law has been an utter and unrelenting pain in the ass and complete joy every day since I got my license. I wish you the same rich professional life that I've had.

Just keep in mind that, in human beings, the will to fail is much stronger than the will to succeed. Sounds strange, but you'll see that it's true.

And, don't miss one Bar Review class. Not one.

[flvegan]

5. Tell them that you're a Repug

and hope the grading machines are made by "the fair and unbiased" folks that made our election rigs.

I know that it's not like that, just a chance to try (and fail) to be funny.

Best of luck. Do you have the whole Bridge the Gap thing in Texas, too?

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

9. LOL

[LSdemocrat]

6. In 2.5 years I'll be taking the Missouri bar exam

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

8. Hey 1L - how'd first semester go?

[LSdemocrat]

10. Don't quite know yet (grades not yet in)

It was certainly more academically strenuous than anything I've done before, but not overwhelming.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

12. Second year is MUCH better

Although it's true that they "work you to death" (actually I've been worked to death in third year, too). Feel free to PM me if you have questions about anything!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

14. If I had it to do over again,

I'm not sure I would.

But, being one of the first women admitted because of Affirmative Action, I had a very different experience, I believe.

I'm sure you were never referred to as "lawyerette" when you were called on to brief a case......................

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

17. Funny you mentioned that term, "lawyerette"

One of my professors just mentioned that the other day. No, I've been fortunate; neither I nor any of my female classmates have ever been made to feel anything but respected. I don't even think about being female; I just think about surviving!

Thanks to you for paving the way!! If I may say so, :yourock: