Bar Review Diaries: To Celebrate or To Study? That Is the Question

Introducing the 2012 Bar Review Diarists!

It’s that time of year again. Graduation, graduation parties, beer, beach parties… and studying for the bar exam. Fun times. That being so, it’s finally time for us to unveil the three winners of the 2012 Bar Review Diaries Contest. Our winners will receive free Themis bar preparation in exchange for providing us with weekly updates on their lives as they study for the bar.

Without further ado, let’s meet Andrew, Jeanette, and Nathan!

Up first, we have Andrew Fontanarosa. Andrew just finished his studies at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law:

Dear Diary,

Next to getting a job before I graduated, I consider winning the Themis-sponsored Above The Law Bar Review Diaries contest my greatest accomplishment in law school. When I got the email letting me know I had won, my first thought was… FREE BAR PREP. My second thought was, “No matter what I say, the commenters on Above The Law are going to rip me apart.”

I won’t argue with you there. Sorry.

My third thought was, “Who cares, my bar prep is FREE.”

I graduated from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, accredited by the American Bar Association and a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools. First. Moritz has a long and storied history of appearing on the pages of Above The Law: Like here. And here. And, of course, for robbing a Dairy Queen. I figure if I don’t embarrass myself, at a bare minimum, the Dean will name a bathroom after me.

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Crazier things have happened.

Like many of my classmates, I’m staying in Columbus to study for the bar exam. No Vermont pastoral farm for me. I’ll be living in the same cheap apartment, eating the same cheap meals, and studying in the same library study carrel as I have the last few years. Law school graduation, the most anticlimactic event of my life. But hey, when you get the chance to rent absurdly overpriced Emperor Palpatine hand-me-downs, you have to take it right?

Am I worried about the bar exam? No. Why am I not worried about the bar exam? Themis. What will I name my first born? Themis. Seriously though, at this point, I’m not worried about the bar exam. One of Themis’s introductory videos makes the point that the bar exam is a “minimum competency” exam. As much as law school tried to beat it out of me, I still believe that I qualify as minimally competent. I’ll watch the Themis videos, study the Themis outlines, and practice the Themis questions. And if that doesn’t work… there’s always BarBri.

I see what you’re saying, Andrew, but watch what you wish for! The Bar exam giveth and the Bar taketh away.

Next we have Nathan Viehl, a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Chicago Law School:

This is the worst time of year for University of Chicago students. We have finals this week, and my formal legal education should end with my Land Use final this Friday afternoon if everything goes as planned. Meanwhile, my Facebook feed has been filled primarily with graduation pictures for a solid two weeks now, and I spent this past weekend in St. Louis for my brother’s graduation from undergrad. I had a lot of fun down in St. Louis celebrating my brother and his accomplishments, but here I am on Monday morning and I feel a lot like I had a beer and too much to eat at lunch. The rest of this week is going to be particularly painful.

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Nothing better than a school with absurdly late graduation dates. Loving every minute of it.

On the bar review front, I’m somewhat proud to say that my box of course materials from Themis has been sitting on my desk, unopened, for about a month now (postmarked April 20). Somehow a binder from a course I took a year and a half ago made its way on top of the box and Themis is now a comfortably established figure in my general desk-mess. The bar gets slightly more ominous every day, of course, but for now I’m fairly focused on finishing school and definitely focused on the celebration that will accompany that. In about a week, I’ll probably open the box in some sort of half-baked ceremony and bar summer will officially begin.

Whatever works. Rituals are important. Even panicky, hungover ones. But for now, it sounds like Nathan has his priorities right place. First things first. Get those finals done.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Jeanette Kang. Click through to learn more about Jeanette and her glamorous summer plans in sunny Southern California. Or something like that…