A Law Graduate's Worst Nightmare

Obviously, when so many have lost their lives, and have lost everything, it seems almost petty to Sweat the Small Stuff.

But this lawyer still feels the blood running from her veins in horror seeing this tiny article this week from the Times Picayune:

Case Far From Closed for Law School Grads

Every lawyer who has gone through the nightmare known as the State Bar Examination knows that it is not, I repeat, NOT an experience that anyone wants to do twice unless one absolutely positively has to. Root canal? Far easier and at least when it's done your teeth don't hurt.

On the other hand I know lawyers who have been practicing for 20 years who still, at moments of extreme stress, wake up in cold sweats from nightmares in which they relived the Bar Examination. I never had those, myself, but 14 years later I still can recreate with not much memory effort the sense of disembodied shock I faced when I realized that despite all joking reassurances of our bar class instructors that it was almost certain not to happen ever again, my class faced the first pure Remedies question asked by the California State Bar in 11 years - and that neither I nor the 250 odd other people in the room were even remotely sanguine about our ability to answer it.

I can't go on. It's just too much horror for an early Saturday morning.

So, even though this article is hopeful that most of the exams have been recovered or are recoverable, in the spirit of empathy, I shall send at least a few of my prayers to the 700 law graduates who sat for Louisiana's bar examination who are now playing the waiting game.