No-man's land

I feel like I'm nowhere. The bar exam was two weeks ago. I get my results in a month and 11 days. And right now all I have to do is sit here and wait.

Went to a temp service yesterday and gave them my resume. Hopefully they find me something so I can pay my bills. And it would be nice to have something to do all day while I wait. Get my mind off some things.

The problem for me is that I can't really start looking for a job in the field I want until I am a member of the bar. I hate how much I think about it. It drives me crazy that all I can do now is hope and pray and wait. The biggest problem is that I just don't know. Not that anyone does. They say that the best feeling coming out of the exam is not knowing (for some reason that means it's more likely that you passed). They say that if you think the questions were easy or if you thought they were way too hard, that's not good (apparently if you thought the questions were easy, it's likely that you totally missed something). But I'm rambling . . .

The extra time has given me the opportunity to watch a lot of Olympic coverage. I love the men's soccer, and I'm so happy the Belgium has done well (I'm half Belgian; my mom grew up in Belgium and left after marrying my dad when she was 21.) They made it to the quarterfinals and play tomorrow. I the women's gymnastics all-around competition kept me on the edge of my seat last night. I'm so happy that Nastia Liukin won the gold. She really deserved it and some of the scoring for the Chinese on balance beam seemed too high.

Michael Phelps is rockin' it in the swimming and I think that's awesome.

So, I'm back in Portland now, waiting for my New Hampshire Bar Exam results, but a lot has happpened since I last wrote. Here's a short list:

I graduated from Law School
My parent's each retired
I spent two months in Concord, NH studying for the bar exam while living in my parents house (luckily they weren't there most of the time)
I took the New Hampshire Bar Exam
I took the Mass. Bar Exam
I came home to live in Portland again with my wife.

So, I've been asked, what is studying for the Bar Exam like, and what exactly is the bar exam. Well, for those of you who are curious:

The Bar Exam
Each jurisdiction's exam is different. For New Hampshire, it is a two day exam including the MPT, MEE and MBE. For Mass, it is a two day exam including the MBE and the state specific Essay day.

The MPT
The MPT is the Multistate Practical Exam. It's called multistate because it is used in several jurisdictions and it doesn't require any state specific law, just general legal principles. It actually doesn't require much legal knowledge at all. For the test, they give you a library containing all the law you will need for the problem and file with all of the factual information you will need. You are given an assignment to write a legal brief, memorandum, closing argument, will or some other legal document, using the file and the library. You must do this in 90 minutes. Generally they expect you to spent 45 minutes reviewing the library and the file, and 45 minutes writing. This isn't an easy task. There are two of these which comprise the morning of the first day of the New Hampshire Bar.

The MEE
The MEE is the Multistate Essay Exam. Once again, it is a multistate exam because you apply general legal principles and not specific law of the state you are taking the bar in. This test is taken on the same day as the MPT and features 6 essay questions. You have three hours to complete all the questions. Therefore, you have 30 minutes for each question. This is the afternoon of the first day of the New Hampshire bar exam.

The MBE
The MBE is the Multistate Bar Exam. This test is always on the Wednesday of any bar exam and is administered in almost every state. Therefore, the Wednesday of the bar exam is sometimes called "The National Testing Day." The Multistate Bar Exam is 200 multiple choice questions split into two three hour sessions, 100 questions in each session. That leaves about 1 minute and 48 seconds for each question. Some of these questions have long complicated fact patterns and you are tested on 6 legal subjects at random. The six subjects are: Contracts, Property, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Torts and Evidence. Because New Hampshire and Mass both use the MBE, and the Mass essay day is thursday, while the NH essay day is on tuesday, I was able to take the MBE in NH on Wednesday and have it count for both NH and Mass.

The Mass State Specific Essays
In Mass, they have a 10 essays that in six hours. Three hours for five essays in the morning and three hours for the second five essays in the afternoon. That leaves you with about 38 minutes for each essay. My hand was hurting after taking this exam. So, Wednesday night after the MBE in Concord, NH, I took a bus to Boston, stayed in a hotel, and took the Mass test the next morning.

On September 26, letters will be sent out to all applicants with their results. If you pass, they tell you you passed, but you only get to see your score if you failed, and you'll get a second letter about that in about a month. They also post a list of names on the Judicial Branch website on the 26th. Talk about the most nerve racking moments in my life waiting for the web site to load. I won't get my Mass results until some time in November.

Studying for the bar
So for two months prior to grueling three day exam I spent my days going to a three-hour lecture in the morning and 6+ hours of studying in the afternoon. I did practice questions, made and memorized flash cards, wrote and rewrote notes and outlines, and studied my notes and outlines. I spent entire days in one chair and attempted to learn the different exam tricks and nuances of the law. It was difficult, it was boring, and it was time consuming. Other than the occasional visit from Jess, I didn't do much other than eat, sleep, study and go for walks. It was difficult and tiring, and boy am I glad it's over.

Now comes the waiting. Wish me luck.