Hazing 2010: the dreaded Bar Exam

For most professional degrees, "they" decide that years of undergrad, torturing you with entrance exams named only letters, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MKAT, and exam after exam over several grueling years in grad school are not enough. There must be hazing. You must suffer as all those who came before you suffered. In fact, maybe worse if "they" (the hazy, smoke filled room with fuzzy faces kinda "they") want less people cluttering up their profession.

For my doctor friends...it was their Boards, followed by residency--certainly they have it the worst with their years of hazing (sleep deprivation, crippling fear of killing someone).

For my kind, the ones about whom jokes that involve death (often by drowning) are told, it is the Bar Exam. This multiday hazing ritual started back in the late 1700s. In 1980, a bunch of the states got together and created the multi-state bar exam. This allows them to transfer folks around the country more easily. Washington doesn't play well with others, but Alaska does. Great for the long term nomadic prospects :)  Anyways, the Bar is at least two days long everywhere. Adam is now on day 2 of 2.5. It is a test (part essay part multi-choice) that essentially requires you to know basically everything about everything in the common-law by knowing the "black letter rules", aka the rules thou shalt not break regarding any subject. Like all other tests in law school, it is curved so only part of it is based on how good you do...you still have to wish everyone else would fall flat. We study for this little monster 8-12 hrs a day for 6 weeks leading up to the test. If you take a bar prep class, the give you the books to study from:

http://www.rumorsdaily.com/brd/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc08192.jpg

Don't worry, when i take the Bar, i will post pictures of all the things you can do with these books that isn't studying.

Side effects of Bar taking include: General hatred of all things good and Specific hatred of everyone not taking said Bar. Other effects include: lack of sleep, spontaneous crying, caffiene overload (which may lead to the spontaneous crying and lack of sleep), inability to speak about anything other than the Bar, loss of all friends and loved ones, and general apathy towards the universe.

Then, you get to wait 90 days to hear whether or not you either passed or failed said beast of exam.

Anyways, good luck Adam---go kill it.