| Wednesday, March 29, 2006 |
| Round 3: February 2006 |
By the time December rolled around I was feeling much better, centered and ready to start studying again. I found the most wonderful place, "Go West Young (Wo) Man" and the most wonderful people to study with while I was facing this last test.
I dropped some bucks for a personalized study program this test, one-on-one mentoring for writing since it looked like that was my problem. I went with The Study Group. And even though I failed, I would recommend those guys 1000 times over. They kick ass. They are completely available.
I studied like a machine. 6 days a week, 8 hours, 2 hour break, 3-4 hours in the evening for three months. I memorized NC blackletter for two solid weeks before the exam. I don't have my scores yet, so I don't know where I came up short. I'm still a little mystified......I thought I had covered all the bases this time, confronted all my scary monsters, studied every last goddamned thing that scared me even a little bit...... I did well over 150 essay questions and wrote them out.
And yeah, I am a little bitter. I have been drafting custody orders, deeds, legal descriptions and leases for well over a year now, I am competent for the love of god!!!! The actual practice of law is nothing like this test....but it doesn't seem to matter....
I thought when I first got my letter, I'm done with this. I'm not doing it again. But I've thought better of it. I will do this until I pass. Even if I never practice. No one is going to tell me I am "unsuccessful".......... |
posted by Bar Bitch @ 9:29 PM   |
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| Round 2: July 2005 |
Lots of people don't pass the first time........right? That became my mantra. It still hurt like hell that I was actually sitting for the test again. Somedays I found myself in stunned disbelief and just wanted to climb under the table when the subject of the bar exam came up. I thought that I might get another letter from the bar saying they'd made a mistake. Or maybe it was my boss who thought that......he had been pretty stunned too
By this point, my attorney-boss had taken to taking me along to lunches with all his attorney buddies. After I failed the exam, he still wanted to take me to the lunches, but I was so traumatized that I wanted to hide instead....(I swear, I became alot more enlightened as the process went on, I'm just trying to do justice to the way I was feeling then, which was pretty miserable. ) I was so ashamed.
I started researching the exam on-line. I had gone with MicroMash because I could do it from home. With a three year old and living in a rural area, there was just no Bar-Bri class anywhere close for me to even consider. What I didn't realize at the time was just how bad the MicroMash program was, at least for me. I had no idea how to prepare for the essays. The MM suggestion was to: Read the Outlines. There were practice questions, but the model answers were so ridiculous that I just gave up. I memorized a little bit of law, but not too much.
Where I really spent my time was on the MBE. MicroMash really is great for that because of the software. I spent the majority of my study time with there. Probably well over 3000 questions.
So after 6 weeks of full time study with MicroMash for the second time, another failure. Yup.
My MBE's went from 123 to 164. My essay scores actually went down. Which I couldn't figure out for the life of me, I actually had spent more time reading NC law before the second exam than I had before the first. Because the ways the scores are weighted, even with the huge jump in the MBE, my overall score only changed 2 points because my essays went down about 10 points.
The weeks that followed that second rejection were odd. For the first few weeks I was ok. Then I realized that I wanted to quit my job at the law office because I couldn't stand it anymore. I went back to SAT test prep tutoring. Shortly afterward I was sitting in my kitchen thinking that I needed to sweep and make a grocery list. I started crying because I didn't think I could. I realized that I had to find a counselor because things were getting seriously out of hand......
That was October. The counseling helped. Failing two bar exams is not something that anyone chooses. It was harder on me than I like to admit. Although my slack ass attitude towards test one really set me up for failure. Plus I had an awful lot of personal shit going on. Dealing with a disintegrating marriage while failing two bar exams and trying to raise a baby by yourself....well it all weighs on you.....but that's life, yes? None of things are excuses for not passing....... |
| posted by Bar Bitch @ 8:51 PM |
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| Round 1: February Bar Exam 2005 |
I'm a three time NC bar exam taker. I found out Monday that I had failed the NC bar for the third consecutive time. Ummmmm, yes, I am bitter about all of this. Ummm, no I really am not a freakin idiot. At least, I don't think I am......
I graduated in the top third of my class from UNC at Chapel Hill in 2000. I had a chance to go in state to a private NC law school but opted against it when I got a scholarship offer from a small, newly accredited law school in sunny FL. It took me four years to do law school because I had a baby in the middle and almost died. (I swear I'm not making this stuff up) Said law school revoked scholarship for not going full time during the mandatory bedrest baby-induced drama. (apparently that was in the small print that I did not read) So I popped out the kid and finished school, at night. Super Hot Marine Hubby began having a series of one night stand affairs shortly afterwards, although I didn't know about them quite yet. When I found the damning cell phone messages, I did my best to damage to his military career, had a huge fit, (completely useless) sold our home in sunny FL, packed the 24 month old, the dog, the cat and all his possessions in a moving van, and moved back to my tiny hometown in NC about three months prior to the February 2005 Bar.
I won't lie. I was heartbroken and I was pretty damned clueless about the Bar the first time around. I needed a job more than anything so I showed up on the doorstep of the only lawyer in my one horse town and convinced him I was the best thing ever. He agreed and put me straight to work. In fact he thought I was so fabulous that he decided I was indispensable and he never really got around to giving me time off to study and I never really got the balls to demand it. So I studied a little at night and figured that since I'd had a good LSAT score and been a teacher for Kaplan while in law school that I'd do okay. I was using Micromash and maybe I put in 5 hours total.
Exam 1 was a disaster. I'm sure no one is surprised by that and frankly I got what I deserved. I was so consumed with the problems in my personal life that I didn't even bother to research the exam, I just assumed that I would "get by" like I have my entire life. It didn't occur to me that the test really would give me a run for my money. That sounds completely asinine now, but the point of writing here is to tell the truth, not make up stories to make myself feel better.
By the time I sat for the exam I had already told Cheating Husband that I wanted a divorce, even though my small town attorney job was not enough to pay any kind of bills and hubby was my only source of health insurance. Probably a bad move since his lack of ability to keep it in his pants had left me with high blood pressure at age 25 and migraines serious enough for a regular neuro man. My mother insisted that dating and looking for a "new daddy" for my baby girl was what any good mother would do and I was so jacked up that I couldn't even argue with her about it. I was stressed, depressed and not really even thinking about the bar.
My laptop had a meltdown on Day One of the test. I had to handwrite as if it wasn't enough that I was vastly unprepared. The girl across the table cried and cried (I guess because my computer broke, she was such a freak....) The proctor asked for the woman who was handwriting to raise her hand about 6 times that day and everyone in the room would turn to look at me. Yeah. It was a complete disaster.
Day Two wasn't much better. I was so unfamiliar with the MBE's I had no idea how to pace. Not only did I run out of time, I decided to wait to transfer my answers till the end. You can guess how that turned out.....
In spite of all that, I was hoping against hope that the news in that letter would be good. When I read that I'd failed, part of me just collapsed. I'm still not sure if I've recovered. I was dumbfounded. I don't know that those of us who go all the way through law school are really prepared to become failures. I just wasn't. And for me, it was so public. In my hometown, everyone knew I was taking the test. I lost track of how many people I had to tell about failing. I think even the mailman was waiting for my letter to come from Raleigh.
I had posted a 316 and had needed a 346 to pass. My MBE's were dismal, a 123. The essays were off the wall, and suprisingly I had done well on half of them. I scored 8/10 on half of them but completely blown the other half, with scores as bad a 2 on a few. Very bad news indeed.
So I did the worst possible thing.....I practiced much denial, cried a whole lot, didn't buy a new bar review and figured I had failed only because I hadn't spent enough time studying.......
I charged into July 2005....... |
| posted by Bar Bitch @ 4:48 PM |
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