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A Bar Exam Story

Jul 26, 2012
By .
Law Practice

Please join me in congratulating another horde of aspiring lawyers who completed California's three-day bar exam today. That includes frequent commenter and friend of Popehat Adam. I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the nation in general, and California in particular, needs more lawyers.

By the grace of God Adam will be already too drunk to read this, but I'm going to commemorate his endurance with a story.

I took the California bar on three days in July 18 years ago. I was using an electric typewriter with ribbons. Yes, I'm old. Screw you. Any moment Scott Greenfield will be in here to one-up me by talking about how his powdered wig fell off during his exam or something.

Anyway, I got to the third day of the three-day bar and my typewriter ribbon broke about ten minutes before the lunch break. I looked in my bag and saw I had forgotten the replacement. I finished the morning's portion of the exam by hand. As soon as the lunch break started, I climbed in my car for the short drive to my apartment to pick up the spare.

Several minutes into the drive a voice started talking to me. You could just go home and not come back, Ken, the voice said. You've probably done well enough to pass even if you blow off the last session. You'll pass even on 5/6 of the test. Just decide. Decide, and you're done with the bar. All you have to do is decide. If you decide, it's ALL OVER RIGHT NOW.

I pulled to the side of the freeway just by the rock that gives Eagle Rock its name and took a long, healthy series of very deep breaths. I told the voice to shut the fuck up. And I went and picked up my ribbon from my overlooking-the-trash-bins back apartment and went back and finished the last session of the bar. Because (1) no, I probably wasn't that good, and (2) you've got to finish what you start.

Then I went home, indulged myself on my very small budget by ordering HBO (if memory serves these were the days when they had to physically run cables to your house), and ate an epic takeout meal from Panda Inn.

I REGRET NOTHING.

So congrats, Adam and many others. Welcome to a profession that will . . . you know, never mind that now. Just enjoy yourself for a night.

Last 5 posts by Ken White

49 Comments
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49 Comments

  1. azteclady  •  Jul 26, 2012 @5:58 pm

    *standing*

    HOOOORRRRRAAAAYYY, Adam!!!

    *throws confetti she won't have to pick up*

  2. TJIC  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:01 pm

    > you've got to finish what you start.

    This is taken from the speech you give your vanquished enemies just before you raise the axe high for the killing blow, isn't it?

  3. Ann  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:03 pm

    Congrats, Adam!!!!!

  4. Roscoe  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:08 pm

    Congrats, Adam.

    Me, I made the mistake of consuming a Tijuana burger at Barney's Beanery the night before the multi-state portion of the exam. Numerous stomach problems, numerous trips to the head (i.e. the bathroom for you lubbers).

  5. Chris R.  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:12 pm

    Now because of all the old talk, I'm going to picture Ken running like Fred Flintstone bare foot by Eagle Rock forever.

    Congratulations Adam.

  6. Pete  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:15 pm

    *Cracking open a cold one*

    Cheers, Adam!

  7. Adam Steinbaugh  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:17 pm

    Heyc, don I knoww you from somewhere r

  8. Tsarina of Tsocks  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:19 pm

    Oh dear, Adam. You are now barred from using IANAL in your comments. And you're not an amateur gossip/slander-monger any more.

    (Srsly – mazel tov!)

  9. Christine  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:21 pm

    I just finished the CA bar and this story made me smile because I kept wondering through the three days of testing if just making a run for it is worth it, too haha

  10. VPJ  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:23 pm

    Congrats Adam. Enjoy the increased respect and adoration that comes from being a member of the bar, you ambulance-chaser, you.

  11. Chris R.  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:23 pm

    Yep, God's grace shown down on Adam.

  12. Wick  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:24 pm

    My bar exam story:

    After my first night of the bar exam, I was at my parent's home when my girlfriend called. The conversation went something like this:

    Her: How did it go?

    Me: Grunt

    Her: Are you OK?

    Me: Affirmative grunt.

    Her: Do you want me to come over?

    Me: Negative grunt.

    Her: Are you monosyllabic?

    Me: Antidisestablishmentarism.

    Her: Good Night.

    She understood. She had already passed the bar. We've been married for 25 years now.

  13. Adam Steinbaugh  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:25 pm

    Just kidding, not drunk yet. But soon I'll be drunk off of one beer and smoking a 100% legal, definitely-not-Cuban cigar while I reflect on my poor life decisions.

    That said, thanks! It really means a lot — I stumbled across Popehat during finals way a year or two ago and I've been an admirer ever since, so… Yeah. This means a lot.

    And thanks to everyone else for providing sanity-preserving entertainment and comments along the way.

    Now… Time for drinking, hopefully some travel, and then finding gainful employment.

  14. Mike  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:27 pm

    I passed it on my first attempt. I had to take it again. (Life is often not fair.)

    When checking online for my results, I typed the code that was listed on my admissions ticket.

    "The above name does not appear on the list of successful applicants."

    That was almost the worst feeling I've ever had.

    After a few minutes of feeling like crap I thought, "Maybe the 3 is really a faded 8."

    Sometimes wishful thinking is true. I passed.

    May Adam only have to take that wretched exam once. Congrats!

  15. VPJ  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:30 pm

    I just finished the CA bar and this story made me smile

    Oh, and congrats to you, too Christine. You ambulance-chaserette, you.

  16. James Pollock  •  Jul 26, 2012 @6:45 pm

    They charge money, and a lot of it, for the software that installs on a laptop to make sure you aren't cheating, so I hand-wrote the whole thing (and I can type about five times faster than I can write, too.)

    But… the bar exam isn't that hard. I took a course in every bar subject except two, criminal law and wills and estates. I spent my time between last-semester-finals and the bar exam reading criminal law… and got two different essays on wills (out of 9) on the bar. I found that I had plenty of time to answer the questions I actually knew something about…

  17. Grifter  •  Jul 26, 2012 @7:29 pm

    Congrats to Adam and all the rest!

    On the subject of typewriters: I just obtained 4 today, and then spent an hour using serial numbers to estimate the month of manufacture, because I am a NERD.

  18. AlphaCentauri  •  Jul 26, 2012 @7:30 pm

    Congratulations Adam and Christine, and good luck with the gainful employment bit. I hope your student loans aren't so high as to prevent you taking the most personally satisfying choice available to you.

  19. JLA Girl  •  Jul 26, 2012 @7:44 pm

    Congrats to Adam, Christine and all other new members of the bar!!!

    Three days of testing?!?! That's just cruel. Here we have a six week course, nine months of indentured servitude, then a three hour exam. I'm not sure which is worse.

  20. Look at that  •  Jul 26, 2012 @9:07 pm

    Congrats to Adam, Christine, VPN and any lurkers out there. *sparklers and fireworks*

  21. Look at that  •  Jul 26, 2012 @9:08 pm

    Ahnn VPJ, sorry, been up for 30 hours.

  22. M.  •  Jul 26, 2012 @9:19 pm

    I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the nation in general, and California in particular, needs more lawyers.

    Snork.

    Welcome to a profession that will . . . you know, never mind that now.

    *asphyxiates*

    Congratulations, Christine and Adam, for getting your right to practice law from somewhere other than the usual five-and-dime so popular these days.

  23. GrimGhost  •  Jul 26, 2012 @10:21 pm

    Adam and Christine, I hope you've passed the California Bar Exam, so that you may join the ranks of people like … well, Charles Carreon.

  24. Thorne  •  Jul 26, 2012 @11:04 pm

    " I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the nation in general, and California in particular, needs more lawyers."

    I see what you did there.

  25. Hughhh  •  Jul 26, 2012 @11:25 pm

    Congratulations to Adam and Christine. :)

  26. Linus  •  Jul 27, 2012 @12:45 am

    I also finished the California Bar Exam today, although mine was only 2 days, with an "off day" in the middle, where I did nothing but sit in my darkened hotel room and think up off-color riffs on The Rule Against Perpetuities. I am…glad it's over.

  27. Adam Steinbaugh  •  Jul 27, 2012 @12:50 am

    Wait, the rule is AGAINST perpetuities?

    Uh oh…

  28. S. Weasel  •  Jul 27, 2012 @2:42 am

    Congratulations to all who have earned them. I still haven't passed my British driving exam yet. All's I have to do is drive for 40 minutes without doing anything positively dangerous, and I can't quite manage it.

    Not a good test-taker, me.

  29. Bill  •  Jul 27, 2012 @5:07 am

    I can't really say if we need more or less laywers, but you and Bill Handel are both CA Lawyers so that's enough proof for me that the country needs more of you guys

  30. Miranda  •  Jul 27, 2012 @6:41 am

    Congrats Adam and Christine!
    And James Pollock – screw you!

  31. Nance  •  Jul 27, 2012 @8:25 am

    I'm jealous you got to type! I had to handwrite the whole damn thing.

    I figured I failed, so I went home, cried, and then got drunk and ate sushi with a friend. Good luck to everyone who finished the bar. Enjoy your 3+ month wait for results.

  32. SPQR  •  Jul 27, 2012 @9:07 am

    Passed California bar sixteen years ago myself.

    Typewriter? That's so geeky.

  33. En Passant  •  Jul 27, 2012 @9:47 am

    Ken wrote:

    I took the California bar on three days in July 18 years ago. I was using an electric typewriter with ribbons. Yes, I'm old. Screw you.

    Ditto on all counts. I was 50 at the time. So screw you too.

    Several minutes into the drive a voice started talking to me.

    I deduce that you used minimum 60 dB earplugs while in the exam typing room. Otherwise you would have not been able to hear a voice in your head or elsewhere for days, or maybe ever again.

    I REGRET NOTHING.

    Eh? Egrets not hinged? Can you repeat that, please? My tinnitus is acting up.

    And congrats to Adam. TGIF.

    True story. Happened during our mutual bizarre days of dead reckoning.

    I took the train to SF, then SF Muni bus to exam. Bunch of nervous examinees on the same bus. At an intersection on the way, bright shiny brand new fancy car (Porsche or Beemer IIRC) gets T-boned to rubble just as the bus pulls up to the stoplight.

    Shocked silence follows onboard bus, more likely induced by "Uh oh, hope that doesn't screw the bus schedule or I'll be late to the exam" than by "Omigawd! Hope those people aren't seriously injured."

    Silence is broken by some wag's voice, "Can you say Duty, breach, causation, damages?"

    Hilarity ensued.

  34. Clynne  •  Jul 27, 2012 @10:52 am

    Congratulations, Adam and Christine!

    What really prompted me to delurk, though, was the reference to the Eagle Rock. I lived 5 minutes away from that part of the freeway for 25 years until moving 400 miles away a year ago. So homesick.

  35. Clint  •  Jul 27, 2012 @11:25 am

    Mmmm, Panda Inn. Thanks for the dinner suggestion. That will work well with sitting in front of the TV and watching the opening ceremonies.

  36. Ken  •  Jul 27, 2012 @11:27 am

    Sweet and Pungent Shrimp and Panda Beef FTW. And they will still sometimes make Tai Chi Soup for you if you ask.

  37. TJIC  •  Jul 27, 2012 @11:30 am

    @Grifter:

    > On the subject of typewriters: I just obtained 4 today, and then spent an hour using serial numbers to estimate the month of manufacture, because I am a NERD.

    Oh, I've ** NEVER ** looked up the serial number on my anvil to figure out that it was made in 1914.

    Where would you even find information like that anyway?

  38. Grifter  •  Jul 27, 2012 @1:01 pm

    @TJIC:

    I had no idea anvils even had serial numbers!

  39. TJIC  •  Jul 27, 2012 @1:44 pm

    > I had no idea anvils even had serial numbers!

    When you send in a tech support telegram they need that information.

  40. Connie  •  Jul 27, 2012 @1:45 pm

    Bravo Adam! Now TC can't call you a fake lawyer anymore!

  41. Connie  •  Jul 27, 2012 @1:46 pm

    Addition: Yay Christine too!

  42. John Ammon  •  Jul 27, 2012 @2:10 pm

    Many Conga Rats to Adam, et al.

  43. Colin  •  Jul 27, 2012 @2:37 pm

    Congrats to Adam & Christine. I took the Texas Bar 17 years ago, sitting almost underneath a giant disco ball in the Alzafar Shrine Temple in San Antonio, which made the whole thing feel like something out of a David Lynch film.

  44. Robert  •  Jul 27, 2012 @4:26 pm

    I typed my bar exam. The woman in front of me in the typing room brought three typewriters. I thought she was being excessively paranoid, but in fact two of her typewriters broke during the course of the exam.

  45. Robert White  •  Jul 27, 2012 @5:39 pm

    My dad (an actual lawyer) used to say that everybody should go to law school so that they can keep from being cheated, but nobody should become a lawyer because its wrong to take advantage.

    8-)

  46. Robert White  •  Jul 27, 2012 @5:42 pm

    The AMA has declared that it will suspend the use of Rats in medical experimentation. The new preferred test subject will be Lawyers. They cited three principle reasons:

    (1) There are more lawyers than rats.
    (2) Some people like rats.
    (3) There are some things a rat simply will not do.

  47. VPJ  •  Jul 28, 2012 @12:21 pm

    Ahnn VPJ, sorry, been up for 30 hours.

    Thanks, but I'm no lawyer. I was quoting Christine and not claiming a victory over the bar. Sorry if it came off that way.

  48. Kelly  •  Jul 31, 2012 @10:01 am

    Congrats, Adam!

  49. Angus S-F  •  Aug 6, 2012 @9:09 pm

    Still looking, wish I could find the William Safire NYT editorial or column in which he pointed out that America had more lawyers per-capita than Japan, which clearly needed more. He proposed that the best way to solve the balance-of-trade deficit with Japan was to require that the Japanese accept one US lawyer for every car they sold here.

    Congrats, Adam. Hope you don't get traded to Japan for a Toyota and a Honda to be named later.