Whew! It feels good to be done!

Well, after a long vacation from the blogosphere, I’m finally making my return to updating this online journal. But, as the 3 or 4 regular readers of this blog know, my absence was not because I was sitting in front of the TV eating bon-bons. The overwhelming emotion I have after finishing the bar exam is one of relief. After studying harder than I ever have in my life, it’s so nice to be able to return to “normal life.”

Here are a few common questions I’ve received about the bar exam:

How did you study for the exam?
Like most people who sit for the bar exam, I took a preparatory class from Barbri. I think the class was 6 or 7 weeks and we really rushed through 19 different subject areas. From the law school in Eugene, I would watch a DVD lecture that had been delivered the previous day in Seattle, Washington. The lectures were between 3-4 hours. When I wasn’t in class, I would study the material by creating subject outlines and writing lots and lots of essays. The Washington Bar Exam is unique in that it is all essay, whereas most states have a combination of essay and multiple choice questions. I also worked hard to try to memorize the material, both by writing it out over and over and over and by creating flashcards.

What was the exam like?
The actual exam itself was held at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue and there must have been 900 – 1000 people taking the exam. I wrote the exam on a borrowed laptop (thanks John and Robyn) because they don’t allow Macs, and I was seated at a table with another student (who, ironically, was one of the people I took the class with in Eugene). The exam was 2 days of essays on the “substantive” law subjects – property, criminal law, torts, contracts, civil procedure, etc…followed by a half-day of essays on ethics, or, as it is known, “professional responsibility.” I felt like the exam was pretty fair, but it was certainly grueling to exert that much mental energy over a continuous period.

How do you feel about it?
You can never be certain about exactly how you did, but I feel OK about my performance. I studied really hard going in to the exam, and I think I studied the right material. I just hope I put down the right stuff in the eyes of the graders!

When do you find out how you did?
The results are released by the Washington State Bar Association on October 13.

What’s next for your family?
It looks like we’re on track to close on the sale of our house here in Eugene on August 15. We are going to “rent back” from the buyer until September 21 or 22, when we’ll move to Seattle. We have found a house in Newcastle that we’re hoping to close on on September 19. I’ll post a picture of the house in another blog post.

Thanks so much for all of the support that me and my family have received during this time. Everything from offering kidcare, dogcare, support for my wife, or an encouraging phone call. It all helped and it was all appreciated!