There is no avoiding it. From that very first day of law school, every potential lawyer is aware of, and in dread of, the inevitable and accursed Bar Exam. Not even graduation can be fully enjoyed. I clearly remember sitting in my cap and gown, waiting for my J.D. degree to be bestowed, and thinking, "Damn. Now comes the Bar Exam!"
Graduating from law school is like
finding a strange combination lock attached to your locker. You know there is
something worthwhile ahead, but a complex task has to be successfully completed
first. You have to crack the safe to get in.
You have paid your tuition, bought
your books, studied alone and in groups, successfully passed myriad difficult
finals, received your diploma – and now it's time to start the Bar Review
Course. It appears that, notwithstanding that unique law school experience,
there is more to learn. And it costs a considerable sum to sit and listen to
more lectures preparing you for the ordeal.
The Bar Exam has evolved some over
the nearly 44+ years since my classmates, graduates of other law schools across
the country, and I sat down at desks in the basement of Veterans' Memorial Hall
in Columbus and plowed through three days of essay exams. In the interim,
something called the Multi-State Bar Exam, a computer-scored, multiple-choice
survey of basic law school subjects such as contracts, torts, and criminal law,
has replaced one day of essays. But the Bar Exam is still an ordeal, a rite of
passage through which every laborer in the vineyards of the law must pass.
Our instructors in the Rossen Bar
Review Course told us not to discuss the questions we had just answered during
the break for lunch or at the end of each day. They told us that to do so would
only upset us when we found out the question we thought involved negotiable
instruments, everyone else thought was actually about intentional interference
with contractual relations. We needed to be ready for the next set of
questions; we couldn't afford to waste mental energy worrying about the last
set.
And then there was the constant fear
that the Rule Against Perpetuities would raise its ugly visage and drive us all
to distraction. Ask any lawyer and he or she will tell you all about that Rule.
I think the evening after we
finished the exam was the occasion of the drunkest I have ever been. A few of
my law school buddies and I explored the bars on South High Street, combining
the drowning of our despair over how we had done with celebrating the
completion of the ordeal. Divine Providence made sure we got so drunk we forgot
where the car was parked. We had to call a wife to come get us and come back
downtown the next day to find the car.
Next came the waiting. The Bar Exam
is administered twice a year, in February and July. Far more graduates take the
July Bar. Results are announced in late October. At first, you are so thrilled
to be over the exam, you force it out of your head. But, as summer turns to fall,
you can no longer avoid the inevitable – your future is at hand.
I took the Bar Exam long before the
advent of computers, email, and online information access. On the appointed
morning, the only way to find out whether you had passed or failed was to
either try to get through the busy signals while trying to call the Clerk of
the Ohio Supreme Court to ask about your score, or by going to the Clerk's
office in person to discover your fate.
Today, privacy regulations prevent
the publication of scores that individuals obtain on the Exam; however, in
1970, that was not the case.
When a candidate arrived at the
Clerk of Court's office, he or she went to a long counter and picked up one of
several copies of the press release issued by the Supreme Court concerning the
results of the Exam. The names of those passing were organized by county and
then alphabetically. If your name wasn't on the list, you did not pass.
I picked up a copy of the list that
was already open to the page containing the Franklin County results. My eyes
flew to the "S" names, and my worst fears were realized. My name was
not there! How could that be? I caught the eye of one of the women behind the
counter. "I can't find my name!" I whimpered.
A look of sad sympathy passed over
her face. "Let me check," she said. "What's your name? I
stammered out, "Solove, Ronald." Her reaction was not what I expect.
She smiled. "Read the first paragraph of the press release," she
said.
There it was. "The Ohio Supreme
Court today announced that Ronald L. Solove of Columbus, Franklin County,
received the highest score on the July, 1970 Ohio Bar Examination. Others
passing are listed below, by their county of residence."
I stepped out in the hall to find a
pay phone and call Donna, by then my wife of five years and the mother of our
two boys. Tears rolled down my face. "I passed," I said, when she
answered. And so it began.
