Cursed With Ambition

I Coulda Been a Contenda

Wanna know what it's like to take the Multistate Bar Exam?

Imagine you're a boxer in contention for the world title. You've been training for over three years, more if you count your amateur days. Countless hours in the gym, on the weights, measuring all of your food intake in ounces. Gallons of sweat and blood lost. Broken noses, cuts above the eye, cracked ribs. And your training crew tag-teaming you to suffer and suffer some more all for the big prize someday. You've gone hundreds of rounds against other hopefuls on your way to the big dance. You've got a good enough record. You've paid your dues. And the last few weeks have been the worst. Now you get the title shot for all the marbles. You've got to beat the champ now. You've got to beat the champ or else everything was a total waste. All of it for nothing. The champ has a reputation. The champ is feared. The champ is strong and fast. The champ fights dirty. Moreover, the champ's got lots and lots of experience with chumps like you. He knows how to beat you. He knows you better than you know yourself.

But you've trained hard. You've eaten right. All of your relationships have taken a back seat for this singular opportunity so that now you feel like it's all you got. You've done all you think you could possibly do and more. Your body is a highly trained machine. Rock hard, battle tested. You've devoted your whole life to this. You believe in yourself. You know in your heart that you can beat the champ. Not just stand in, but actually win. You can't lose because you've worked so hard and you want this so bad.

You get to the arena. They play your song over the loudspeakers. You're wearing your red silk robe as you stride to the ring. All the lights are shining.

The referee takes an eternity to recite all the rules that you already know and that you know won't matter. You stare across at the champ unflinching. You know you are going to beat him.

The robe comes off. You see your family and friends in the front row. They are cheering for you. They called last night to give their words of encouragement. But they don't know what you're up against. They can't help you now. But you're glad they are there all the same. You'd be disappointed if they weren't. You see guys you've trained with mixed in the crowd and in the shadows. They know.

The bell rings. You move to the center of the ring to meet the champ. You dance around, nimble. You dodge and weave. You throw a couple of easy punches. You see an opening. You think the champ got lazy. He's underestimated you. You take advantage. You throw your biggest haymaker right hook, the one you're known for. The blow lands squarely on the champ's jaw. It's lights out, honeypie.

But the champ just grins. You just threw your best punch and it didn't even phase the champ. At that moment, you know you are in over your head. The best you can hope for is to simply survive. Winning is out of the question. Impossible.

If I hear "X" One More Time...

Weak statement of encouragement to bar examinee: "You'll do fine."
Why bad: I'll do fine? There's absolutely no guarantee of that. Even the indicators that I have at my disposal (practice MBE questions, amount of time studied, practice essays), which I have spent hours trying to interpret, don't tell me whether I'm going to pass. What does "do fine" mean anyway? Live through it? Pass? Not shit my pants? Besides, how the fuck would you know?

Weak statement of encouragement to bar examinee: "It'll be over soon."
Why bad: Yes. Yes it will. Is that supposed to be a good thing? At least with it looming in the future my fate is not yet sealed. Once it's over there'll be nothing I can do about it except to hope that the equipercentile method of scoring somehow works in my favor.

Weak statement of encouragement to bar examinee: "You can do it."
Why bad: What is this, a fucking Adam Sandler movie? Sure, I CAN do it. But the real question is WILL I do it?

Weak statement of encouragement to bar examinee: "I'm praying for you to pass."
Why bad: Well shit! Why did I even bother to study at all? In fact, fuck it - I'm going to St. Anne's and lighting some fucking votive candles right now so that I don't have to look at any MPT shit.

I know you people mean well and I appreciate the thought. And honestly, what else are you supposed to say? I guess it's better than, "Hey man, don't fuck this up or you just, like, wasted a hundred grand on law school."

Wald and Kitster Are Dead

Plan B if I don't pass the bar is to write a script entitled, "Wald and Kitster Are Dead." The whole thing is a ripoff of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" except that Wald and Kitster are friends of Anakin Skywalker who come to visit him after being summoned by Obi Wan Kenobi after Anakin starts acting strangely after having horrible nightmares. Kenobi thought the visit from his childhood friends from Tatooine would do him some good.

The parallels between the Hamlet characters and the ROTS characters are endless. Wald and Kitster have never been to a city larger than Mos Eisley so to come to Coruscant... You can imagine what that would be like for a couple of outer rim dust mites.

Anakin wants to impress his friends by introducing them to the powerful Chancellor Palpatine, his supposed friend. When Palpatine meets Anakin's simpleton friends he seizes the obvious opportunity and exploits them. (How do you think Palpatine discovered the content of Anakin's nightmares?)

Later, after touring the Jedi Temple and other Coruscant sites, the trio descend to the seedy surface to drink alien ales and catch up. That's when Anakin tells his friends about the nightmares. Anakin becomes intoxicated, and emotional. When Wald and Kitster try to comfort and reassure him Anakin lashes out at them in anger, whining, "But I won't let Padme die!! I can become powerful enough to stop it!!" His friends try to reassure him that med droid technology is very advanced and that he has very little to worry about.

The scene in the intergalactic opera house where that weird acrobatic water bubble show was going on could be the play-within-the-play.

Anyway, you get the picture. I've got to get back to studying just in case I still have hope for Plan A.

***Matt, quit editing my shit in your head. You made me self conscious after that last ESPN post. I'm half brain dead from studying right now and I'm not proofreading any of this because I don't have time.

Hate List

1. Character evidence
2. Division of retirement benefits formulas in marital property
3. Ann Coulter
4. Any sentence that starts, "But the modern view states..." or, "But under the Model Penal Code" or, "But under the UCC..." or, "But a minority of states apply..." or, "But in Texas the law requires..."
5. IIED and NIED
6. The mental state of recklessness
7. Eating contests
8. UIFSA and UCCJEA
9. FSD, FSSCS, POR, ROR, REV, EI (springing or shifting), VR, VRSO, CR and especially RAP
10. Public figures for a limited purpose

They've Got to be Kidding

Rumor is that PMBR's main strategy for improving scores on the MBE is the scare tactic. Among the things tested on their practice MBE:

1. Fireman's Rule
2. Tender Years Exception to the Statement Made for Purposes of Medical Diagnosis or Treatment Exception to the Hearsay Rule
3. Fructus Industriales as included in a mortgage of real property
4. Going to the emergency room and filling out the paperwork by signing your name in the space for "Person Responsible for Payment" is, apparently, an offer to pay medical expenses
5. The difference between reckless and very negligent
6. The market reports and commercial publication exception to the hearsay rule
7. The difference between criminal accomplice liability and criminal liability as an accessory
8. That under the modern view of contract consideration, a moral obligation can serve as a substitute for consideration
9. Nudum pactum
10. Discriminating against aliens is strictly prohibited (not necessary for a compelling government interest) unless the alien wants to be a teacher. Or a cop. But not a university professor.
11. It's okay to discriminate against handicapped people (Fuck the cripples!!)
12. Co-adverse possessors of land hold as tenants in common
13. A person is liable for the acts of an independent subcontractor when the subcontractor performs work for the person in a public place because that creates a nondelegable duty. But no other time unless the subcontractor is engaged in an abnormally dangerous activity (messing with dynamite or nuclear waste).
14. Police do not have to "knock and announce" when executing a search warrant for a person's home when there are exigent circumstances. One of those exigent circumstances is where there is a danger that the suspects will destroy evidence (flush the white powder down the toilet). Apparently, when police walk up to a house, then hear a "commotion" inside, there is no danger that the suspects are destroying evidence.

If the bar examiners are going to test on this obscure, hyper-detailed crap, they can take their law license and shove it up their nudum assum.

2,000 Questions

The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is comprised of 200 multiple choice questions from six areas of the law: Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Property and Torts. There are four possible answer choices for each question, A-D. The MBE counts as 40% of the total score for the bar exam.

Most people preparing for the bar exam spend well over half of their time preparing for the MBE for two reasons. 1) It is the consensus most difficult portion, and 2) It is weighted so heavily. In addition to all other types of studying for the MBE (reading outlines, doing flashcards, etc.) and studying for the other 3 sections of the bar exam the people in the know recommend that you do 2,000 practice MBE questions by the time you sit for the exam. You are supposed to take no more than an average of 1.8 minutes per question.

2,000 X 1.8 = 3600 minutes = 60 hours.

There are 16 days until the bar exam starts.

Fuck me.