Bar Exams

The Creepiest Case Of Bar Exam Sabotage Ever

An aggrieved lawyer goes to extreme lengths to make sure his estranged girlfriend fails the bar exam.

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Last week, after publishing a report about a woman who allegedly hired a mariachi band to play outside of her cheating boyfriend’s apartment in the hope that he’d fail the bar exam (he did), we asked readers to submit their own stories of bar exam sabotage. Almost every single one of the responses we received had to do with a romantic relationship gone awry — i.e., unhappy spouses dropping divorce pleadings on their significant others during the exam — but one of them stood out above all the rest. This was so creepy that we needed to share it with readers as a cautionary tale.

I was a 24-year-old law grad, he was a successful 45-year-old plaintiffs’ attorney who considers himself some sort of local celebrity. Most people think he’s a douchebag who primarily advertises for car wrecks with billboards and commercials. You know the type. Lots of Botox and hair gel.

Our relationship was primarily long distance because I had gone away to law school. It lasted approximately 4 years. And in those 4 years, he must have cheated on me at least a half dozen times with different women — including a secretary. Why I remained in the relationship? I’ll chalk it up to stupidity and blind love.

Finally, in the 4th year of the relationship, I was about to graduate from law school and begin studying for the bar exam. NOW he wanted to put a ring on it. Well, I managed to get my head out of my ass and discovered that perhaps there’s more in store for me than settling for a cheating douche who is twice my age. I began to have serious doubts about staying in the relationship. Plus, I always suspected he was possibly bisexual.

So, I began seeing other people. My change in behavior was obvious and drastic and he immediately grew suspicious. Because we lived in different cities, he couldn’t follow me around or figure out why I was suddenly dodging his calls, avoiding him, not wanting him to visit, etc.

I told myself I needed to prolong the explosive breakup until after the bar exam so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the distraction of the drama. I told him, “Just give me some space. I just need some time to focus on the bar exam.” He didn’t take that for an answer. Nothing I could have done would have prepared me for the amazing real life soap opera that would ensue.

It was 3 weeks before the bar exam. He decided he wanted to visit me for “moral support.” 11:00 p.m. rolled around and I had closed the books for the night. He waited for me to get in the shower before he began to unveil his evil plot to sabotage my prospects of successfully passing the bar exam.

11:20 p.m.: I step out of the shower and notice that his toiletries were all gone. Odd.

I peaked out of the bathroom and called his name. No reply. Strange. So I wrap a towel around myself and search for him in my apartment. It appears he has packed up and left. As I look around my apartment I notice certain things missing. Clothes, shoes, jewelry, purses, ski gear — you name it. Everything he had ever bought me was gone. I was so confused.

Then, I notice the package. It’s sitting on my coffee table and it’s gift wrapped with my name on it. WTF?! When I opened the package, the first thing I saw was a letter from him. It read, “By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone and out of your life forever. I took the liberty of taking all of the things I “shared” with you because clearly you don’t deserve them. Enclosed you’ll find copies of all of your text messages, emails and phone calls. You’ll also find a USB drive which contains hours worth of recordings of conversations between you and these men you’ve been seeing. You’ll also hear yourself talking to your friends and to your mother about wanting to breakup with me. I’m moving on to bigger and better things. I don’t think you can say the same.”

I thought I was going to faint.

HE HAD BUGGED ME! For weeks on end. He somehow had gone to a spy shop and purchased an audio recording device. He had planned this breakup for weeks and waited to drop this bombshell on me until just before crunch time. I was clueless. And, apparently there is software out there that extracts all of the things you THINK you have deleted from your phone. He downloaded these erased messages while I was away from my phone during his visits in the weeks leading up to this fateful night. There were hundreds of pages.

I panicked and called him but his phone was off. Then suddenly I get a text message from him and my stomach flips. I open the message and it’s a video. A breakup video. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve attached it to this email for your viewing pleasure. It’s amazingly bad. If there was ever a question that he might have actually been gay the whole time — I think this solidifies it. What a bitch!

Needless to say I was a confused and shaken wreck for the rest of the time I had to study for the bar exam. I was unable to pull my shit together and focus by the time test day came and I ended up failing it.

His plot to destroy any chances I had of successfully taking the bar had succeeded. I never understood what an invasion of privacy felt like, until my most intimate conversations with friends and family came back to haunt me. For weeks afterward I was paranoid that I may still be bugged. I would whisper inside my apartment and I wouldn’t talk in my car because I was afraid I would still be recorded.

He had hours upon hours of recordings. He had even heard me singing in the car! I was mortified. Never mind that I had never cheated on him prior to this period of rebellion. But I had finally had enough! When the tables turned on him, he lost his marbles and spied on me.

All in all it worked out for the best and I ended up passing with flying colors on my second try. I’m now working at one of the most successful plaintiffs’ law firms in the state. Things really do work out for the best. I can say with great relief that I definitely dodged a bullet.

I bet you won’t hear of a more dramatic bar exam sabotage.

Be careful if you choose to date someone within the legal profession. They know the right way to screw you — in more ways than one — which can be scary after a breakup.

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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