As soon as the bar exam was over, at the end of July in 1986, I checked out of my motel in Jefferson City, Mo. and drove to Kansas City. Twenty-five years later, I don’t remember exactly where I parked when I got there.
My best guess is that it was in the parking lot of Rockhurst College, where I’d taken the bar review course and stayed in an on-campus dorm while doing so. But it could also have been at KCI airport.
In any case, I didn’t tarry long in KC. My parents were waiting for me in Valparaiso, Ind., where I’d graduated from law school at the end of May. They had driven out from Minnesota, out of the goodness of their hearts, to help me clean out my apartment and get packed up for my move to Kansas City.
Kansas City was where I was due to begin a judicial clerkship at the beginning of August with the Hon. Charles Shangler at the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Showing posts with label bar exam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bar exam. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
A Bar Exam Journey
How in the world did I get back to Valparaiso, Ind., after taking the Missouri bar exam in Jefferson City, Mo?
Emotionally dazed and confused after a grueling two days of the highest-pressure exam I’d ever encountered, I left the motel in Jeff City and got into my 1980 Olds Omega. Though this car was only six years old, it had already seen better days. Thankfully, it had somehow gotten me to the exam site on the day before bar, huffing and puffing in the 100 degree heat.
Now it was time to head for Valparaiso, where my parents were waiting for me. I had graduated from law school there in May and left my stuff, such as it was, in the apartment I’d been renting. My folks were there to help me gather it all up and transport it to KC, where I was scheduled to begin a clerkship for the Hon. Charles Shangler of the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Part One of the Jefferson City-to-Valparaiso trip was to return to Kansas City, where I’d left said 1980 Olds Omega in a parking lot at Rockhurst College. Rockhurst had hosted the BAR/BRI bar review course, and I’d stayed in a dorm there in June and July, studying intensely.
Emotionally dazed and confused after a grueling two days of the highest-pressure exam I’d ever encountered, I left the motel in Jeff City and got into my 1980 Olds Omega. Though this car was only six years old, it had already seen better days. Thankfully, it had somehow gotten me to the exam site on the day before bar, huffing and puffing in the 100 degree heat.
Now it was time to head for Valparaiso, where my parents were waiting for me. I had graduated from law school there in May and left my stuff, such as it was, in the apartment I’d been renting. My folks were there to help me gather it all up and transport it to KC, where I was scheduled to begin a clerkship for the Hon. Charles Shangler of the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Part One of the Jefferson City-to-Valparaiso trip was to return to Kansas City, where I’d left said 1980 Olds Omega in a parking lot at Rockhurst College. Rockhurst had hosted the BAR/BRI bar review course, and I’d stayed in a dorm there in June and July, studying intensely.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Missouri Bar Exam, Plus 25
Twenty-five years ago I was in Jefferson City, Mo., taking the Missouri bar exam.
It was one of those times in life of heightened awareness, when one knows one needs to be on what Tiger Woods used to call one’s A Game.
As the results turned out, my game was at that level. At the time, however, everything seemed like a matter of mere survival.
As I posted previously, my second-hand car, a 1980 Olds Omega, barely made it to Jeff City, huffing and puffing in the 100 degree heat.
At my motel, I remember trying to relax a bit in the evenings by watching TV news. For me, the two main stories were the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Antonin Scalia and the status of the World Football League’s antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
The fact that both of these stories were legal in nature shows, I suppose, how immersed in the law I was in that summer of ’86.
It was one of those times in life of heightened awareness, when one knows one needs to be on what Tiger Woods used to call one’s A Game.
As the results turned out, my game was at that level. At the time, however, everything seemed like a matter of mere survival.
As I posted previously, my second-hand car, a 1980 Olds Omega, barely made it to Jeff City, huffing and puffing in the 100 degree heat.
At my motel, I remember trying to relax a bit in the evenings by watching TV news. For me, the two main stories were the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Antonin Scalia and the status of the World Football League’s antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
The fact that both of these stories were legal in nature shows, I suppose, how immersed in the law I was in that summer of ’86.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Up To Date In Kansas City, Summer 1986
The temperature hit 102.9 degrees Fahrenheit today in the Twin Cities (39.4 Celsius). Bizarre, for this time and place. What is the import of this whim of Mercurius?
The easy answer, I suppose, would be global warming. My topic in this post, however, is not suspicions about manifestations of climate change.
It is, rather, an occasion to recall those balmy summer nights in Kansas City in 1986 as I studied for the Missouri bar exam. To someone reared in South Dakota and Minnesota, those June and July days in KC were at times oppressively hot. The nights, though, after my evening bar review course let out, were beautiful.
The heat of the day had abated and I had done my bar exam study. This meant I was now free to enjoy the rest of the evening in an intriguing new city - the one which the cowboys in Rogers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma" had sung of as being all up to date.
The easy answer, I suppose, would be global warming. My topic in this post, however, is not suspicions about manifestations of climate change.
It is, rather, an occasion to recall those balmy summer nights in Kansas City in 1986 as I studied for the Missouri bar exam. To someone reared in South Dakota and Minnesota, those June and July days in KC were at times oppressively hot. The nights, though, after my evening bar review course let out, were beautiful.
The heat of the day had abated and I had done my bar exam study. This meant I was now free to enjoy the rest of the evening in an intriguing new city - the one which the cowboys in Rogers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma" had sung of as being all up to date.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Missouri Bar, July 1986
When I read the results in the Kansas City Star, on the first Sunday in October of 1986, I felt a profound sense of relief. I had passed the Missouri bar exam, administered six weeks earlier in Jeff City − as Missourians are wont to call their tiny, rather obscure state capital,
The drive from Kansas City on a 100-degree day in late July was stressful. I had picked up my little hand-me-down 1980 Olds Omega in the parking lot of Rockhurst College in KC, after flying down from Minneapolis-St. Paul. The BAR/BRI course hosted by Rockhurst had ended a week or so earlier, so I’d gone back to my parents’ home in Minnesota for the last week of study before the exam.
In such heat, I was concerned that the decidedly-not-young Olds would boil over, and indeed it was making problematic noises as I made my way down I-80 toward Jefferson City. Somehow it held together, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled into the Ramada Inn where the exam was being held and checked in without incident.
The two or three days to follow were a blur of exam taking and coping. The two news stories catching my attention were Antonin Scalia’s nomination to the Supreme Court and the outcome of the United States Football League’s antitrust case against the NFL. Never before or since, even during the Iowa bar in February 2000, have I experienced such 24/7 immersion in the law.
Interesting as the USFL’s anguish was, the Scalia story really stood out. Only a little over a year later, Robert Bork let it all hang out in his confirmation hearings and − it became a verb − got borked, Scalia was able to play it coy as coy can be. Any question that might raise even the most reticent of ideological eyebrows was met with the same, on-message response: “I’m sorry senator, I can’t answer that because it implicates an issue that might come before me on the Court, if I am privileged to so serve.”
When I finished the exam, I drove the Olds back to KC and caught a flight to Chicago. From there, I got a shuttle to Valparaiso, Ind., where I had graduated from law school two months before. My parents were waiting at my apartment, after driving out from Minnesota. My mom saw my crestfallen face and feared the worst.
As it turned out, however, I had stayed strong throughout the exam. My multistate (nationally applicable multiple-choice) score was so high that, a year later, I was admitted in Minnesota on motion, without having to take the Minnesota exam. I was sworn in as a member of the Missouri bar in the fall of ’86 by the Honorable Charles Shangler, the judge I was clerking for at the Missouri Court of Appeals.
The drive from Kansas City on a 100-degree day in late July was stressful. I had picked up my little hand-me-down 1980 Olds Omega in the parking lot of Rockhurst College in KC, after flying down from Minneapolis-St. Paul. The BAR/BRI course hosted by Rockhurst had ended a week or so earlier, so I’d gone back to my parents’ home in Minnesota for the last week of study before the exam.
In such heat, I was concerned that the decidedly-not-young Olds would boil over, and indeed it was making problematic noises as I made my way down I-80 toward Jefferson City. Somehow it held together, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled into the Ramada Inn where the exam was being held and checked in without incident.
The two or three days to follow were a blur of exam taking and coping. The two news stories catching my attention were Antonin Scalia’s nomination to the Supreme Court and the outcome of the United States Football League’s antitrust case against the NFL. Never before or since, even during the Iowa bar in February 2000, have I experienced such 24/7 immersion in the law.
Interesting as the USFL’s anguish was, the Scalia story really stood out. Only a little over a year later, Robert Bork let it all hang out in his confirmation hearings and − it became a verb − got borked, Scalia was able to play it coy as coy can be. Any question that might raise even the most reticent of ideological eyebrows was met with the same, on-message response: “I’m sorry senator, I can’t answer that because it implicates an issue that might come before me on the Court, if I am privileged to so serve.”
When I finished the exam, I drove the Olds back to KC and caught a flight to Chicago. From there, I got a shuttle to Valparaiso, Ind., where I had graduated from law school two months before. My parents were waiting at my apartment, after driving out from Minnesota. My mom saw my crestfallen face and feared the worst.
As it turned out, however, I had stayed strong throughout the exam. My multistate (nationally applicable multiple-choice) score was so high that, a year later, I was admitted in Minnesota on motion, without having to take the Minnesota exam. I was sworn in as a member of the Missouri bar in the fall of ’86 by the Honorable Charles Shangler, the judge I was clerking for at the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
In February 2000, I was seated at a writing table in a ballroom at the University of Iowa, waiting tensely along with dozens of others for the Iowa bar exam to begin.
Before we could start, the examiners asked us to write something in our test booklets - as a writing sample, they said, in order to avoid fraud. Wouldn't want someone borrowing someone else's ID and taking the test for them under false pretenses.
The two sentences we wrote have stayed with me ever since.
"Don't sweat the small stuff," went the first sentence. "What a good reminder," I thought.
The second sentence went even farther: "It's all small stuff."
Really? Three years of law school study, thousands and thousands of tuition dollars spent, seemingly a career on the line - and it's small stuff?
Well, in a way, yes. Though the words "dont sweat the small stuff" weren't nearly as eloquent as the serenity prayer, to me they hinted at a similar idea.
After the exam, I tried to take this notion to heart as I awaited the results. Easier said than done, to be sure.
Finally, one day in early April, I walked over to Drake Law School from the duplex my wife and I were renting a couple of miles away. Thankfully, the posting on the door of the law library showed I was among those who passed. A few days later, I was sworn in to the Iowa bar in a ceremony held in a grand old auditorium in Des Moines called Hoyt Sherman Place.
Hoyt Sherman Place is about a mile from Methodist Hospital, where - almost ten years ago now - our first son, Micah, was born.
Before we could start, the examiners asked us to write something in our test booklets - as a writing sample, they said, in order to avoid fraud. Wouldn't want someone borrowing someone else's ID and taking the test for them under false pretenses.
The two sentences we wrote have stayed with me ever since.
"Don't sweat the small stuff," went the first sentence. "What a good reminder," I thought.
The second sentence went even farther: "It's all small stuff."
Really? Three years of law school study, thousands and thousands of tuition dollars spent, seemingly a career on the line - and it's small stuff?
Well, in a way, yes. Though the words "dont sweat the small stuff" weren't nearly as eloquent as the serenity prayer, to me they hinted at a similar idea.
After the exam, I tried to take this notion to heart as I awaited the results. Easier said than done, to be sure.
Finally, one day in early April, I walked over to Drake Law School from the duplex my wife and I were renting a couple of miles away. Thankfully, the posting on the door of the law library showed I was among those who passed. A few days later, I was sworn in to the Iowa bar in a ceremony held in a grand old auditorium in Des Moines called Hoyt Sherman Place.
Hoyt Sherman Place is about a mile from Methodist Hospital, where - almost ten years ago now - our first son, Micah, was born.
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