Bar Exam Horrors

         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.