Bar Exams

Old Lady Lawyer: Misery Does Love Company — Bar Exam Horror Stories Edition

The bar exam, wherever taken, truly is a shared nightmare that we still recall way too vividly.

By Jill Switzer on December 02, 2015

For readers of last week’s column on the misery that was my bar exam, I asked those with similar horror stories to share them, and I have some great ones. It’s not just in California that bar horror stories happen; it seems to be a nationwide rite of passage. So, here, in their own words (edited for brevity and clarity and to preclude any libel claims) are some tales of bar exam woe. I don’t have room to share all of them, so this is just a representative sample. No, I am not making these stories up, since I don’t think I could be that imaginative.

First, recalling the July 2012 Virginia bar exam:

Nearly every would-be lawyer in the entire state of Virginia was crammed into one room in the Roanoke Convention Center. About half-way through day two of the exam I start to hear noises coming from somewhere in the middle of the otherwise dead quiet room. Moments later I hear someone yell “Call 911” (to a room full of people that were told to leave their phones in their cars). It turned out that someone started having a very violent seizure in the middle of the exam. He had fallen, hit his head, and started bleeding. Paramedics showed up incredibly fast and the poor guy was quickly taken to the hospital. The story wasn’t all negative. First, the proctors later announced that they found out that the guy was going to be okay. Second, the proctors were so impressed with how the room handled the situation (the room was surprisingly calm) that they gave us all an extra 20 minutes of test time to make up for the commotion.

An extra 20 minutes of time? Probably not what the Committee of Bar Examiners would have done here in California, if another tale from California is any example:

I took it in San Diego, where we happened to have a rare heavy rainfall. I was in the typing room with my own Selectric, pounding out the last sentence when the proctor called, “Time.” I looked up and discovered that the dropped acoustic-tiled ceiling had collapsed over the table next to me, apparently due to a leak in the roof. Tiles and water had cascaded over the table, typewriters, and test-takers, who were cursing and sputtering. All I had heard was the word, “Time.”

Another California bar examinee describes how surreal the bar exam experience can be, given the varieties of humanity sitting at the testing site. I think we all recall certain tics, habits, whatever you want to call them, that fellow test-takers used to get through the exam:

To my left, a 60’ish year old man who said he had failed 6 times, but was sure he was going to pass. On my right, was a 20 something with a constant habit of tapping his fingers on the table and audibly grunting about every two to three minutes.

During the second half of the first day, the older man to my left suffers a computer failure and he calls for help. Now having three proctors in my personal space trying to fix a laptop is distracting, but the kid on my right does not like it. His grunts are increasing to every minute or so and his head is swiveling back and forth. Finally, the older gentlemen just quits, packs his bags, and leaves.

But at least I didn’t have the final day experience that my buddy had sitting toward the rear. I guess two seats down a guy puked on the table. They used paper towels and pushed it on the floor, but everyone kept typing!

So, I guess the moral here is that neither rain, nor snow, nor digestive upset can keep the test takers from pushing forward.

Here’s a New York lawyer’s tale of woe:

You can stop collecting bad bar stories. I win. Trust me. I took the NY Bar in July 1985. I was assigned to a room on the West Side Piers next to the Intrepid Museum along with a couple of hundred other test-takers. After the exam, I went off to Europe, feeling good that the exam was over and hopeful that I had passed. Imagine my horror when I returned and my then-fiancee (now wife) picked me up from the airport and told me that the Regents had announced that they lost all the Multi-state Bar exams taken in my room. I was in total disbelief until she handed me a copy of the NY Times announcing the story.

After several weeks of back and forth the Regents agreed to give us a make-up MBE in September. Lots of folks had trouble getting any time off of work as those of us with jobs had all just started. I took it and passed so it had a happy ending. It was the first time and the last time that any part of the NY Bar was lost or stolen (we never learned which by the way).

Okay, he wins the prize (so to speak) for the Worst Bar Exam Experience Ever. Words cannot describe how I would have felt in identical circumstances. Wait, words could describe those feelings, but my ATL editor will not allow them.

These stories show that the bar exam, wherever taken, truly is a shared nightmare that we still recall way too vividly. Thanks to all of you who submitted their personal horror stories. After I read a draft of last week’s column to my test taking buddy, he confessed that he still occasionally wakes up in a cold sweat. I, on the other hand, still fear the doorbell. I open it and there’s a representative from the Committee of Bar Examiners telling me that it made a mistake almost forty years ago. And no, that’s not my doorbell that you hear ringing.

Jill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at[email protected].