Frst

poopin' in a hat

First

grow a pair

No #2, NOT "frst"

Start smoking, or if you smoked in the past, rekindle that flame. I went from a no smoking to a pack a day in about a week. Smoking is the perfect study break--you have to go outside and it's timed. I passed the bar and now I have another fun habit--trying to quit smoking.

suck it up like the rest of us. we're all procrastinating and having anxiety attacks. it comes with the territory-- see you at the testing site next week!

man up

Co-sign 12:59.

Read the full Salon column. The writer is not cut out for the practice of law.

Definitely just poop in a hat. Cures procrastination everytime.

Oh yeah.....and have a bar exam orgy.

I genuinely dislike people like NAL who can't handle a little bit of pressure.

It's not like it's going to get any easier. If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

I'm a rising 2L and during 1L before our first semester memo was due, some kid had a mental breakdown and had to drop out......THE SCHOOL RESERVED HIM A SPOT FOR THIS UPCOMING YEAR. wtf?!?!

If he can't handle a freaking memo, how can he handle being an attorney where people will be paying him lots of money and depending on him.......granted, he won't be getting paid that much, I'm guessing.

#12,

I genuinely don't like people who went through one year of law school and think that since 'they made it' they suddently grew a pair. Yes, the guy who had a 'break down' needs to chill. However, if you think you have handled the 'heat' and are a big timer now - because you took some 1L tests, ha, you are pathetic.

If you can't handle taking a relatively easy test (over 80% passing rate for first-time test takers seems like its yours to lose), then you can't handle being a lawyer. How did this girl even take the LSAT?

You know what it takes to close the bar?

It takes BRASS BALLS!

We're adding a little something to this summer's bar exam. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?
[Holds up prize]
Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

#13,

Did I ever say I thought I was a hot-shot?

In fact, I admitted that it's going to get harder for me and everyone else who goes through law school to become a lawyer, and if someone can't handle a simple memo, I think it's safe to say they are going to have a tough time handling being an actual attorney.

#13,

Did I ever say I thought I was a hot-shot?

In fact, I admitted that it's going to get harder for me and everyone else who goes through law school to become a lawyer, and if someone can't handle a simple memo, I think it's safe to say they are going to have a tough time handling being an actual attorney.

-#12

Lat,

Please stop posting interesting stories. You aren't helping us procrastination-prone bar studiers.

The bar exam and all its preparation (necessary or not) and drama are a challenge. I vividly remember the terror I felt the night before the first day as well as the night before results came out.

HOWEVER, this person's myriad of psych problems coupled with two consecutive bail outs raises real concerns - UNEMPLOYABLE.

My advice - Go to grad school, where procrastination thrives and is rewarded with federal grants.

This post was just what I needed to get my ass back into practicing multistate questions.

Damn.

The bar exam and all its preparation (necessary or not) and drama are a challenge. I vividly remember the terror I felt the night before the first day as well as the night before results came out.

HOWEVER, this person's myriad of psych problems coupled with two consecutive bail outs raises real concerns - UNFIT to be an attorney.

My advice - Go to grad school, where procrastination thrives and is rewarded with federal grants.

Any update on Paula Bandy? I would much prefer blog posts from her, than the authors you hired Lat.

Any update on Paula Bandy? I would much prefer blog posts from her, than the authors you hired Lat.

Incidentally, does anyone have any advice on what to pack for lunch? In Georgia, we're only allowed to bring non-crunchy foods that will fit in a one gallon clear ziploc. No refrigerators or microwaves either obviously. I need something that gives me energy and won't slow me down for the afternoon exam.

i cannot imagine going through the pre-exam stress more than once. of course i would have had to do that if i had failed, but this behavior defies explanation.

Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat, yogurt, banana.

My ex was the same way. Didn't have the licks to be a lawyer, but was in denial ... probably due to 3 years wasted and $150 in debt. Too bad, so sad.

24: Why don't you just have your mom come to the testing site at lunchtime with something nutritious, like a turkey sandwich with the crusts cut off?

Every single trial attorney I've ever dealt with runs into this problem sooner or later. Really, they all do. Go see a doctor about anti-anxiety medication or beta blockers. And avoid carbohydrates.

24,

Clif and Luna bars.

1:49 PM, why is that even a question?
1:56 has it right, obviously peanut butter and jelly!!

2:00 pm: lol, I'd love to be only $150 in debt

anyone know what exactly a "rising 2L" is? (1:17)

3 words: Envision yourself failing....

A few things about the letter-writer:

1) Anyone who doesn't think most lawyers are procrastinators hasn't been paying attention. Where do you think partners with fire drill assignments come from? Why do they assign things last minute? BECAUSE THEY ARE PROCRASTINATORS. Many of the briefs I've seen as a appellate clerk are also the work of procrastinators. This is not a good thing, but it is far from uncommon. Also, procrastinating on bar study is different than procrastinating at work.

2) We work in one of the most depressed professions. If depression was really such a bar to being good at the job, I know a few judges, and tons of lawyers, who should quit.

rising 2L = Finished 1L year so they aren't a 1L anymore, but haven't started 2L year yet because it is now the month of July.

Reminds me of a question ive sometimes asked peopel who are learning disability/ADD/retard advocates:

If you could take your child to a doctor who did the MCAT and the medical boards the regular way, or to a doctor who got extra time because he had a "learning disability", which doctor would you choose?

Maybe you should wait until Feb 09.

32, is that a real question?

Anyway, this person should immediately quit, as she should have done before lawschool or sometime in law school when she should have realized she is a crazy person. Unless she wants to be a staff associate, better quit now

32, is that a real question?

Anyway, this person should immediately quit, as she should have done before lawschool or sometime in law school when she should have realized she is a crazy person. Unless she wants to be a staff associate, better quit now

You do not want to fail. If I were taking the exam now, I would be studying 24/7. This is one thing you do not want to mess up. Failing will stigmatize you for a long time, and affect your career and how you are perceived by others. You do not want to be the one person in your first year associate class who fails.

Wasn't this an episode on grey's anatomy?

1:27 Nice Glengarry reference!!
As for lunch, how about a "baconater" from Wendy's, that should keep you awake during the afternoon session.

The author has a problem that goes way beyond procrastinating.

"Procrastinating" is when I waste 15 minutes on ATL while Im at work and should be doign something boring.

Putting off the bar exam repeatedly, not to trivialize the problem, deserves a completely different label.

The author has a problem that goes way beyond procrastinating.

"Procrastinating" is when I waste 15 minutes on ATL while Im at work and should be doign something boring.

Putting off the bar exam repeatedly, not to trivialize the problem, deserves a completely different label.

28,

Why don't you have your mom come down to the testing site at lunchtime and let me give her something nutritious?

If the sheer embarassment of failing such an easy exam isn't enough to get you going I don't know what could help.

I believe I actually know the advice seeker. The firm she is currently employed at (and on leave from) is REALLY ecstatic that she has backed out on taking the bar...twice. So, so ecstatic.

suggestion: why not a post or open-thread on law review since most rising 2Ls are getting calls about offers?

Um... therapy? Therapy therapy therapy. Lots of therapy. Preferably with a classical psychoanalyst, on a couch, at least four times a week. Perhaps in conjunction with pills, but certainly not pills alone.

What is truly scary is that there are people with these sorts of psych problems all throughout our profession.

Being a lawyer isn't for everyone. We need to do a better job of policing who is allowed to practice. Her problems will get worse before they get any better.

More important than the procrastination is the justification. I finished in the top 10% at a T10 school and am going to a T4 firm. Please tell me that my attendance at all BarBri classes and 2-3 hours per day of earnest studying outside class plus 5-6 hours per day of earnest studying since July 5 is sufficient.

I am roughly in the same boat as 51, but with maybe half that amount of studying, and am also curious whether I should still be ok

I am roughly in the same boat as 51, but with maybe half that amount of studying, and am also curious whether I should still be ok

24, you can go out to your car at lunchtime, so you can bring anything you want for lunch and just leave it in your car. Also, all of the bigger law schools have free lunches for their students. If you went to UGA, Emory, Georgia State or Mercer they should be there providing lunch for you for free.

She should take the Bar, but reconsider whether she wants to (1) practice as an attorney, there are lots of other careers out there having a bar lic. will be helpful for many or (2) practice law for the gov. or in some other lower stress law job.

3:06, 3:38,

You'll be fine. I found the studying and weeks leading up to the exam more stressful than the test. It's about discipline and putting in the time. Some people need to put in more time than the other. I put in more time than 3:06, but only because I took hour and a half lunches and worked-out at night. Good luck next week.

CA '03

If you just attend the BarBri classes and either attend the PMBR classes or do a few hundred practice MBE questions, you should be fine for the bar exam. That is all I did, other than listen to PMBR CDs in my car a couple of times, and I passed easily.

what state #57?

David Mamet rocks the pond and the bar.

Beta blockers + suck it up!

AK

#12 needs to be compelled to go to a mandatory Title II Americans With Disabilitiles Act CLE/MCLE sensitivity/awareness/and compliance requirement.

#11, sounds like a capital idea!

Add: #36 can accompany #12 to the ADA scofflaw school. Two peas in a pod.

Lets make it a mandatory ADA party: there's also room for 38, 39, 49, 50 & 55.

No wonder nincompoops are still in charge of drafting Federal Judicial Application questionnaires ... a deep aversion to the concept of sharing Bar and Bench membership with disabled Americans.

The whole Bar/Bench system needs an overhaul. With input of the disabled.

I've been on a nice combo of an SSRI, Xanax, Ambien, and 1 hour of talk therapy/week for my test anxiety since 1L year. Totally helps during the bar. I am actually sleeping, eating, and my anxiety attacks are gone within minutes.

I don't advise starting these drugs right now because it takes about 6-8 weeks for them to actually work.

I also don't think I will be any less of a lawyer because I take them. I think it is very important for someone to realize that they need a little help and it actually makes me a much more productive and pleasant person to be around. I don't plan on being on these drugs forever, but until I decide to stop taking them I am going to keep on trucking.

Bar exam=6 days away. 7-8 hours of sleep/night, healthy meals and the occasional gelato, and a quickie with the boyfriend the morning of day 1. yup. taking the bar feels pretty good.

Omg, people are crazy, e.g., 65.

Hey 64, I hope your lawyer takes all of his meds and isn't feeling the effects of his PSYCHOLOGICAL disability (read defect) when you have a large scale legal issue.

I'm just sayin' - Physical disabilities and mental defects are VERY different.

63 and 64 - and anyone else advocating for mentally afflicted law students. NO ONE is entitled to become a lawyer.

This is an elite profession and there is little room for error when representing the lives or livelihoods of clients. With that said, I think what people are trying to convey a message not of hatred, but of common sense.

Other fields may be better options for those not suited for the pressure.

LMAO 65!! I'm glad i read you post at home, I'm cracking up!! Thanks for the good laugh, i really needed it!!!

If you are Cravath Material you do not have any problems.

65: better living through chemistry. i love it! of course lawyers wouldn't understand because they couldn't pass chemistry in college. that is why they are lawyers.

68: i would rather have a lawyer who is chemically balanced, however that is achieved, rather than someone who is in denial about having a mental illness. you have to be a little crazy to want to be a lawyer in the first place.

also, i would venture to say, in my very professional and experienced opinion, that anyone who enters a profession that is premised on the representation of some important right whether it is legal, financial, or health related, has to be a little nervous, a little ocd, and have a sense of humility in order to be good at their job. i guess for some people, however, these qualities take over and that person needs a little help to get through a hard time.

besides, for all the summers who are anxious about getting offers, tell your office manager--not a hiring partner or mentor--if you suffer from some diagnosed depression or anxiety or other mental or physical illness. the office manager is required to disclose that you have a disability but is not allowed to disclose what that disability is. that way, when it comes to offer time, they will have to think long and hard about no-offering you so that they don't violate the ADA. just a thought.

#67's stated theory: " Physical disabilities and mental defects are VERY different"

You need to put on a red T-shirt sporting your theory, go to Cure Autism Now, and strut around. Autism is an entire system disability encompassing a narrow range of genius that includes physical and so-called mental disabilities. In sum, an autistic may be a savant MENSA IQ who cannot eat gluten. These may not in fact be "VERY different," but instead all part of the whole. Sometimes the failure of a theory results from a defective style of compartmentalized thinking where there is no categorical division.

Moreover, #67, your theory that all disabilities involving the human brain are "defects" cannot overcome cutting-edge scientific findings regarding the abilities of savatism. I guess "defect" is your way of screaming for help when you are can't keep up with those who you mistakenly perceive to be retards with a higher IW than yourself. Nice try, but an exceeding weak form of argument.

#68, you seriously believe yourself that excluding disabled Americans from the Bar and Bench is "common sense," and not a form of hatred? I disagree. And if you are concerned about "little room for error," I am sure you would rather be represented by a person with autism who has a 100% photographic memory ability who NEVER makes a mistake akin to an encyclopedia, than a verbal left-brainer who operates on false generalities predicated on gists of verbal memory intertwined with emotion with a fairly high error rate.

Thank you for your invitation for disabled AMericans to be relegated to second class professionbal status, but no thanks. I am not buying the ideas of discrimination you are selling -- and trying to institutionalize by the claim no one has a right to attorney licensure.

In this modern day and age when huge amounts of federal dollars finance disabled Americans to bring them into the economic mainstream of American society integrated wherever such persons can perform the essential functions of a job or profession, I would say there is an overriding federal interest and argument could be made and succeed that would recognize the attorney licensure to be a right, not mere privilege. But, even under existing precedent, an attorney licensure program cannot be operated in a fashion that contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment. Different ways to the same result. No one is entitled to PREVENT a qualified disabled American from attorney licensure to reasons constituting discrimination. But as for your REAL argument, which is you *just don't like it*, well ... too bad. DEAL WITH IT.

And #71, you are a real crack-up: "68: i would rather have a lawyer who is chemically balanced, however that is achieved, rather than someone who is in denial about having a mental illness. you have to be a little crazy to want to be a lawyer in the first place."

I guess the verbal left-brained thinkers have a real worry about the right-brained autistics with 100% photographic memories who don't make a mistake, when there are so many left-brained verbal ALCOHOLIC licensed lawyers running around getting drunk off their ass, stealing from client trust funds, forgetting to make statute of limitations and other deadlines when they are having hangover (which is for some of them every day), belching in the law office, and in general being real fuck-ups.

Now now many ALCOHOLIC lawyers are in denial of THEIR mental illnesses? Perhaps we need an accounting of all those lawyers for whom "i guess for some people, however, these qualities take over and that person needs a little help to get through a hard time."

corr: "with a higher IW" - with a higher IQ

Some people can't see, either. I guess we should exclude all the blind lawyers, too.

Isn't it a bit late for people to be studying 24/7 when the bar exam is less than a week away? It doesn't sound like a good idea to study at full steam the days leading up to the exam. Shouldn't people be tapering off at this point?

I'm too busy kicking ass in my fantasy baseball league to be bothered with reading through the barbri outlines again! Also, thanks to the GA commentators... I had forgotten about that little detail and was planning on finding fast food somewhere... lol apparently not the best plan!

Hey 72: STFU, Too long, browsed, it was stupid, didn't read the rest. GTFO.

Just because mute autistic kinds are awesome at putting together puzzles doesn't mean that they're fit to be attorneys.

76, hilarious

I don't think it's so much procrastination as it is your soul telling you not to make the jump to the dark side.

#76, how so? You just *don't like* the idea an autistic muke can pass the same bar exam as you. Gets in your craw a bit, and you can't take it. Just wait until you have to go to court w/piles of paper notes, and the autistic lawyer conducts an etire jury trial w/o need of notes but only the 100% photographic memory. I've seen it, makes the ones like you break down crying and run out of the courtroom.

#76, how so? You just *don't like* the idea an autistic muke can pass the same bar exam as you. Gets in your craw a bit, and you can't take it. Just wait until you have to go to court w/piles of paper notes, and the autistic lawyer conducts an entire jury trial w/o need of notes but only the 100% photographic memory. I've seen it, makes the ones like you break down crying and run out of the courtroom.

Hahaha dumbest argument evar!

Typical lawyer-types, getting into a _really_ heated and personal argument over some stupid crap that will probably never come up in real life :)

:P

Yall craaaaazy.

get over it 36, Lawyers are not in the same universe as Doctors- Lawyers push paper (most of them) Doesn;t matter if you got a 155 or 175- a monkey can do it.

Show me a guy who passed the bar exam on the 3,4,5,6,7 . . . try and I will show you a person with the courage of Napolian.

Anyone with the perseverance to finally pass a bar exam after first failing over and over is the attorney I would want in my corner. That's the SOB who would never, ever give up.

86 - its better to get it right on the first try than having to try over and over. This applies both to passing the bar AND the transaction costs of having to litigate and negotiate over and over.

who is Napolian?