Welcome, to those of you who've never been here before.

Others have seen this blog -- a very select few. I was just waiting for my last grades from law school to trickle in, 'cause I really wasn't eager to send out an email inviting you to watch me take the bar exam and then retitling it Watch Me Retake One Lousy Class, or somesuch. That would have been bad enough it had happened, but damned embarassing if I'd had to do that.

Well, the good news is, I have my grades, I've survived all my classes, and a UT College of Law diploma should be on its way soon. (There are two other obstacles -- one of which is I have to turn in a revision on a paper to a professor, and the other is I need to alert the College of Law to send the diploma to my new home address.) Then I'll be set to take the bar exam.

The nuts and bolts of the bar exam go something like this. It's held in Columbus, July 27-29. The first day, you start at approximately 9 and go until around noon. (It's three hours of testing, but the administrative necessities for 1,500 people will probably hold us up for fifteen minutes.) You are given two essays every hour, and expected to complete them in that time. (So, thirty minutes to an essay.) One hour lunch break, then return for something called the MPT, which I believe stands for Multistate Practice Test. That works with you getting a "file." The file contains all the applicable law, and the problem, and you are supposed to prepare some sort of "real life" document - a will, a brief, a closing argument, a client letter, or something along those lines - using only what is in the file. So, it's not so much a knowledge issue as an application of knowledge/problem-solving issue.

On the second day, you take the MPRE, also known as the multistate, because most every (perhaps every) state uses it. I don't know what MPRE stands for (Multistate Professional Readiness Exam, perhaps?), but it's two hundred multichoice questions (100 in the morning, 100 in the afternoon, three hours in each sitting.)

The third day is only the morning-- six more essays, basically a repeat of the morning of the first day. Then, if still capable of actual thought, you get to go home.

I already took the PMBR "early bird" class to teach us how to cope with the multistate. (If you're interested in that endeavor, check my earlier posts.) I'm now enrolled in the Barbri bar preparation class. Barbri involves eight bar preparation books (outlines, mini outlines, questions et cetera); a study schedule (more about that in a moment); and a three and a half hour lecture every morning on a particular subject. You are given a workbook for that, where you fill in answers in an outline as you go, which helps you pay attention.

The first day of the class, we got an introduction to some of the mechanics of the bar exam. Several stories to relate from there, but my favorite is that the bar exam and the annual International Longaberger Convention occur at the same time, every year, in Columbus. So, according to the instructor for the class, you have a bunch of incredibly nervous law students and a bunch of little old ladies who are so nice and so polite you could scream. "They may try to sell you baskets, just move on," said the instructor, "they mean you no harm."

This could give a whole new meaning to comments such as...

Well, I took the bar exam in Columbus and was a real basket case.

Or,

At the end of July, I'll be taking the bar exam and going to hell in a handbasket.

Anyway, it'll be an experience. The whole studying process will be an experience, I suspect. We received a suggested study schedule from BarBri, which will slowly turn the heat up on and, I think, will be a pretty good way of keeping me on track. At least I hope.

So, too, will this blog. I hope to report my progress, or lack thereof. The "comment" section is there for a reason -- so you can comment...give me encouragement, make me laugh, give me suggestions, remind me why I decided to do this. You may have to do the latter frequently.

And fear not; while you might be misled by the title, this blog is NOT meant to be just about taking the bar. I'll also comment on other things related to the law, politics, or life in general, and probably in about that order.

It should be a wild ride. I hope you'll come back frequently to see how it's going.