Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Studying for the Bar....Good Times

As many of you have noticed there haven't been any updates to the blog in a while. In the past several weeks I've graduated from law school, moved, and am now studying for the Bar. Right now I don't have the time or energy to post any brilliant stories. However, the blog will not be silent forever! In the coming months we'll be making some cool changes and the blog will be better than ever! So in the mean time just be patient and be glad you're not studying for the Bar.
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Posted by Clint Dunaway at 4:35 PM
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9 comments:

  1. Well I hope you pass the bar, thats what we need is another Mormon Lawyer
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  2. Oh, I am! It's lucky I passed the first time, 'cause I don't think I could go through that again. But, on the bright side, I'd be happy to provide you with a few funny bar-related stories. If it'd make you feel better.

    And, Anonymous, go suck an egg.
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  3. C.J. I could use a good laugh from anything bar-related!
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  4. I have a few good studying-related stories (and a couple of horror stories--including a really bizarre one about this guy I went to law school with, who turned out to have made up his entire personal history)--but here's one from the actual exam.

    Now, first off, having waited a really long time (oh, maybe 15 minutes) to call and make reservations at Boston's Seaport Hotel (the exam being at the Seaport Convention Center), I was SOL. In fact, the only room available (talk about no room at the inn) was at the trendy and ridiculously expensive Langham Hotel. Jim and I got a room. You know, if we hadn't been about to take the bar exam, it would've been romantic. The night before, I didn't sleep at all. I laid awake thinking about how I was going to fail, and it was going to be so embarrassing.

    Day of, we were both awake at, like, 4 in the morning. This was a huge achievement for Jim, who, left to his own devices, doesn't get up before noon. We walk to the convention center (about 1/4 of a mile away), and are greeted with this huge crowd of sweaty, smelly people. BO is a crime; invest in deodorant.

    We go in. In MA, we have the multi-state on the first day. I finish the first section. I think to myself, "well, that was like getting kicked in the head, but it wasn't that bad." Honestly, I think that if you do everything Bar-Bri tells you to do, you're OK. As an aside, the people I know who've failed have been "too smart" for the exam. I leave. There's a poor son of a bitch banging his head against the floor repeatedly. Another girl is lying flat on her back in the lobby, sobbing...
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  5. Part II

    Jim and I finish. I always finished with time to spare; he always came out with the stragglers. We both passed. Anyway, we head back to our room. I ordered a chocolate ice cream sundae (with toasted coconut and sliced strawberries, for a grand total of almost 20 bucks) and it was, to this day, the best thing I've ever eaten.

    We do the essays. Again, I think, well, could've been worse. We got a lot of securities regs and UCC questions our year. Outside, there's a group of people bawling their eyes out, some dude standing staring at the wall (he looked like he should've had a dunce cap on), just mute. It reminded me of the time Jim fed our retriever sudafed by accident, and it was high all night.

    One girl is literally dancing in circles, screaming "I left question three BLANK!" I'm like, really, dude? Blank? Another friend of mine was wicked psyched that he'd done such a good job on the federal procedure question, until I pointed out that it'd actually been a state procedure question. He passed, too.

    This same friend insisted that we go out with him afterward, to see a friend who was about to deploy to Iraq. We go to this bar, where I sit, comatose, in the corner for awhile. Then, my friend is like, come on, you guys, join in! How he got the energy, I don't know. Anyway, I tried, but ultimately I fell asleep on the pool table. Yes, really.

    The moral of this story is, it was horrible, but it was horrible in a Parris Island kind of way. I passed, Jim passed, and our relationship survived. In fact, honestly, I'd say it's stronger for it.

    Did that help? I can tell you the one about the exploding marshmallows...
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  6. Phew, been there, and done that. All I can say that it was an incredible relief when it was all over. I was one of the stragglers on the multistate, BTW, I used every available minute to get through all of the questions, and only left myself 10 minutes at the end on the essays.
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  7. C.J., I enjoyed your previous story it had me laughing out loud. With only 20 more days until the Exam starts I could use another laugh:)
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  8. Jim and I had been studying non-stop for weeks, to the point where we were both sick from stress and exhaustion. We were, around this same time, trying to close on our first house (I do not recommend this course of action), and the stress was just too much. So Jim's dad suggests that we take a weekend to go up north. We can bring our study materials up with us! he says. At the time, I was trying to do Bar-Bri's practice multi-state, so I figured I'd bring that up with me. We had a certain length of time to mail it back, in order for it to be scored.

    Well, I finish it, and walk down to the post office--only to discover that the post office is closed. I walk back up to the cabin, feeling really dejected. Never fear! says Jim's dad, we'll find another post office. So we consult the internet, find the nearest open post office (I thought all post offices were open on Saturday, but evidently not) and off we go. And go. And go. Pretty soon, we are in the absolute middle of nowhere--which, considering that we started out in the middle of nowhere, was quite an accomplishment.

    We're bumping up and down on dirt roads. We're lost in the mountains. We're menaced by toothless men with shotguns. We see more road detritus than I've ever seen in my life. It's like Deliverance, but worse. Mostly, people just watched us from the side of the road, comfy on their floral print couches.

    Finally, we reach the post office--or, rather, the post office window in the local general store. There is, I kid you not, a horse tethered to an actual hitching post outside. The screen door is hanging off its hinges. Nobody's around, except some toothless men (who are probably 35) on benches. Jim, of course, refuses to get out of the truck.

    So I guess you could say I was *really* committed to finding out how I'd done on my practice multi-state. The good news in all this was that we laughed all the way home--and was, indeed, a tremendous stress reliever. And, compared to being menaced by toothless crazy people, I have to say, studying civil procedure really wasn't so bad, after all!
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  9. Before we moved into our house, we lived in this horrible little apartment. The heat never worked properly, it smelled, and there were centipedes the size of donkeys in the pipes. But, it was cheap, and we were saving to buy our current house. Now, of course, we're trying to build a different house, and that's going equally poorly, but nothing in life that's worth doing is easy to do! Or so I keep telling myself...

    At any rate, we'd been eating an awful lot of pizza lately, and not much else, so I decided I'd cook Jim this fabulous dinner. Now, I'm really not such a great cook. The last time my sister came over for dinner, her grace included a prayer that my food be edible. (But I do like to think that, over the years, my cooking skills have greatly improved. Practice makes perfect, and all that).

    So a new oven was recently installed by the landlord, and I couldn't wait to use it. I preheat it, and I'm talking to Jim as I prepare everything to actually go in to the oven. Which I hadn't looked into yet. Jim sniffs. He sniffs again. Finally he says, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but what IS that godawful stench?" Turns out, it's the burning plastic in the oven. 'Cause, being the brilliant woman I am, I'd never removed the wrapping.

    As Jim starts scraping the melted plastic off (and muttering under his breath that we're going to die of cancer), I figure I'll cook the rest of the meal. For dessert, I'd planned this (according to the recipe, absolutely awesome) coconut pineapple pie. There were, at some point, marshmallows involved. Well...

    Somehow, and I'm really not quite sure how, I boiled everything on the stove (which is what the directions said to do!), and poured what was supposed to set into a fabulous custard into the crust. Or tried to. It exploded before I had a chance.

    We spent the rest of the night not only cleaning out the oven, but washing gloppy lumps of marshmallow goo off the ceiling. Or, really, pulling them off. It was disgusting.

    My sister on marriage: "oh, it's OK, the first thousand years are the hardest".
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