Saturday, October 29, 2011

More on the Bar Exam

In the weeks since bar results were released, I've interacted with my classmates enough to pick up some gossip about who passed and who didn't. The list seems pretty arbitrary.  Many slackers passed; many good students failed. Based on these results, I do not think the bar exam does much to separate the good candidates from the poor.

You might wonder how my bar exam scores panned out. I didn't botch the essays so badly as I thought. All my essays passed, though the scores were thoroughly mediocre. This tends to confirm a theory I've heard more than once: the essay questions are intended to test one's ability to write, not so much one's knowledge of the law. Probably half of what I said about the law in my essays was made up on the spot.

My multiple choice scores were fairly strong, which made for an overall score well within the passing range. My total score was just above the midway point between barely passing and top paper. A  popular aphorism goes, "If you passed the bar by more than one point, you studied too hard," but I have no regrets about my hours of preparation. I prefer an aphorism that BarBri puts on some of its t-shirts: "Do it once. Do it right. Never do it again."

Friday, October 14, 2011

Those Who Can't, Watch

During this long sojourn in the Valley of Unemployment, I have passed some of my time by hanging around the county courthouse and attending whatever trials or hearings I can find. It's always interesting, and I recommend it to anyone who has a weekday free. I have observed a handful of criminal proceedings, but the real drama is in family court. Watching parents fight over child support or--worse--try to prove one another unfit is heartbreaking. Family law would be tough to stomach day in and day out, but I could see myself working in criminal law.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Certificates

The Arkansas attorney's license is big: 11"x17". Between this, my diploma, and the certificates I picked up for various honors and extracurricular activities, if I open my own law office I might be bankrupted by framing expenses alone.