And just like that...

...it's done. It's all over. Fin. The end. Well, hopefully. We won't know for sure for another 4 months, but it is no longer in my hands. A few hours ago I walked out of the NY Bar Exam, having completed it. What a wonderful feeling! I couldn't help but grin as I made my way home. I know some of my friends are taking the NJ bar and so they've got one more day, and I really don't envy them. So, I thought that I would offer a few thoughts and insights to the NY Bar Exam from my perspective while it is fresh in my mind.

First, they give you little wrist bands (like the ones you get at a concert or a waterpark) that you have to wear for two days. It's their way of tagging you so that you can be easily identified. I don't know if they do it every time, but no one told me about this. It ended up being a sort of little status symbol. It was bright, neon green and it said NYS BAR EXAM- THIS IS VALID FOR 2 DAYS, DO NOT REMOVE. When I was riding the train home, I tried to make sure the words were facing out to help people understand why I was wearing a bright green bracelet and carrying my stuff in a clear-gallon sized bag.

That's another thing. You can easily spot the bar applicants, by their silly little plastic bag (85% of which say Barbri). They are filled with the following items: pencils, sharpeners, pens, highlighters, tissues, candy, earplugs, a piece of paper that is your ticket into the exam, and a few other odds and ends. Everyone was wearing a watch. Pretty much no one had their cell phones. Now, I did have my ear plugs in, but I think these two days of testing are the longest I've been in public without hearing a cell phone ring in years!

Things I would consider indispensable for the exam: earplugs and immodium. The ear plugs are obvious. You're in a room with a lot of other people and even the silence is loud. You will hear every turn of the test booklet pages, every squeaky chair, every person walking who carelessly chose to wear heels. Good ear plugs take you to a quiet place, a place where contracts are always breached, burglars are always caught shortly after their crime, and spouses regularly kill each other in a jealous rage. As for the immodium. I think that is self explanatory, but apparently it is one of the bar exam secret tips that no one shares publicly. Everybody's doing it, but no is talking about it and it could be the difference between finishing all the questions with time to spare or randomly guessing in the last minutes.

I also have to add peanut butter sandwiches as bar exam must have. I saw more of these during the lunch break that I've seen in years. I, of course, had one in my bag too. Peanut butter is good for protein, which is good for energy to get through these exams. If you take this exam, you will put a lot of thought into what you eat before and during the exams. I followed Barbri's day before exam instructions nearly to the letter, but I didn't eat out with my friends. No siree, I couldn't risk eating at a restaurant and getting food poisoning. I stuck with what I know and trust--peanut butter.

The bar exam itself was not as terrible as the two months of review leading up to it. The two months of isolation, memorization, and huge amounts of guilt far outweigh the damage done by two measly days of exams. For the New York day, I felt like I knew more than I needed to know, which was exactly what I needed. You don't know what will be tested so you learn a little about everything, and if you're lucky, the examiners will make the first question on the exam about the one topic that neither you, nor 85% of the other candidates really studied. Oh, say like commerical paper, like they did for us for example! What a great feeling! I knew enough to make up a little bit and could take comfort in the fact that everyone else was doing the same thing. The questions ended up being more clear cut than all the practice questions, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Training to spot the issues on harder questions, made this easier and boosted my confidence. Time management is probably the hardest part of the NY day. In the afternoon, when they gave us the 15 minute warning, I was taken by surprise.

On the MBE today, the questions were different than the practice questions from Barbri and MBRE. In general, I thought they were more straight-forward than the practice questions. You generally didn't have to read through tons of crap to spot the issue. Some questions were very easy, while others were harder. There were many times where I could get it down to two choices, but would have to guess. Other times, I could only arrive at the answer through process of elimination. How I did on the questions today is anyone's guess. It was so hard to guage since it was a little unfamiliar.

One important thing to have for the bar exam is vacations plans for the near future. This will give you something to talk about with people while you're waiting to get into the room or waiting for the proctor to give you the exam. (And don't expect the proctors to be any younger than the ones that do your exams in law school.) Many people say to choose your lunch time companions wisely, I agree but for a different reason. Barbri said don't choose people who talk about the exam, because inevitably they will point out an issue that you missed. I say suck it up and talk to those people. It's too late to do anything about it at that point. The good thing is that a little analysis at lunch can help prepare you for the afternoon. Yesterday, we figured out during lunch what issues had been covered in the morning essays and what topics were likely to come up in the afternoon. We were pretty much spot on in guessing what the topics were. In fact, when I was waiting for everyone to file in from lunch, I opened a file on my computer with corporations notes and brushed up right before we began, and lucky me, there was a corps question. Talking to others can also make you realize that you're not the only one that is making stuff up or guessing wildly, but this is what works for me, your results may differ.

The best piece of advice I can offer is to not give up on the exam or the whole bar review process. I don't know if I passed yet, but I know that I would be kicking myself if I had quit last week and knew what I know about the exam now. You can do it. It's not impossible or so unbearable that you can't do it. Once you're done with it all, for a moment, you can just enjoy that sense of accomplishment--just for a moment or two. Then, you can go back to worrying for the next four months whether you passed, where you are going to find a job, and how in the world you're ever going to be able to pay off your student loans.