Bar Exams I'm Glad I Didn't Take

Despite the accompanying agony, I am glad to have taken two bar exams. It was a challenge, an opportunity to prove myself, a validation of my strength and fortitude--sort of like childbirth, only with longer gestation.

But there are a few I'm glad I missed out on. Like the February 2001 Washington Bar Exam, which I had applied for, but my application was delayed while the Board of Governors considered whether I was qualified to take it. That was the year of the 6.8 earthquake in the middle of the exam. And I understand the earthquake was even more exciting in Seattle than it was in Olympia, where I was trying to stay awake at my desk that day and needed a little excitement.

Then there's this year's California Bar Exam at Pasadena (where I took it back in 2000). Apparently the room where they laptop users were taking the test flooded Thursday morning, preventing them from starting the last essay session until 11:30 a.m.; this meant they had to cancel the afternoon performance test. What this will do to their scores no one knows yet. Poor souls. I had many scary hypotheticals as to what could happen to prevent the bar exam from going on, but somehow floods in Southern CA did not occur to me.