Three days in Riverside

I have a confession to make. I haven't been completely honest with you, readers. I've been keeping a secret. I haven't done a very good job of keeping this secret, but it has been something of a secret nonetheless.

Based on the advice of a close friend, who shall remain nameless (his nickname rhymes with Puke Fog, or Poop Log), I decided to take the California Bar Exam last week. Some of you may know the California Bar Exam is the most difficult bar exam in America. How difficult is it you ask? Check out this story from The Wall Street Journal.

"Kathleen Sullivan is a noted constitutional scholar who has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Until recently, she was dean of Stanford Law School. In legal circles, she has been talked about as a potential Democratic nominee for the Supreme Court. But Ms. Sullivan recently became the latest prominent victim of California's notoriously difficult bar exam. Last month, the state sent out the results of its July test to 8,343 aspiring and already-practicing lawyers. More than half failed -- including Ms. Sullivan.

"Although she is licensed to practice law in New York and Massachusetts, Ms. Sullivan was taking the California exam for the first time after joining a Los Angeles-based firm as an appellate specialist.

"The California bar exam has created misery for thousands of aspiring and practicing lawyers. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown passed on his second try, while former Gov. Pete Wilson needed four attempts. The recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio R. Villaraigosa, never did pass the bar after failing four times."

Editor's note: All but one of these people are Democrats. At any rate, in 2004, just 44% of those who took the test passed.

I didn't want to put a lot of pressure on myself to pass, so I tried to keep it a secret. I'm not sure how good of a job I did, but I tried. I also didn't want to let you all down, since I really didn't study very much at all... for the hardest bar exam in America. How I did on the three-day test remains to be seen. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the week that was.



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The Ontario Convention Center. 1,500 people took the bar along with me, and that is just one of several locations throughout the state.

Here's the pad where we stayed all week, owned by my generous inlaws. Their second house just so happened to be vacant, and about 14 miles away from the test site. It was incredibly convenient. Attentive readers will remember that last year, when Luke and I took the Michigan Bar, my brother Jeff had just purchased a house adjacent to that testing location and had yet to move in. We have been very blessed with empty houses owned by relatives in close proximity to the bar exams we take.

This was our dining establishment of choice all week long.
James took good care of us.
Let's see: is burglery a specific intent crime or a general intent crime? I better have another shot of the nectar of the gods to clear my head.

Luke Dawg's a multistate bandit. These pictures, by the way, were taken about an hour before the beginning of day two. And we're studying. Does that give you an idea of our level of preparation?
Breakfast of Champions. We got up each morning at 5:30 to guarantee we would make it in time. You simply cannot be late. And there was tons of traffic every morning. Amazing.

You're now leaving the secure zone. Thanks for taking this trip with us. Now I get to relax and concentrate on wasting time without feeling guilty.

Many of you know that I'm still in California on vacation until August 13. Naj is meeting me in San Francisco on Thursday (hold your breath, close your eyes and punch it). We're going to spend about 10 days driving up the Pacific Ocean coast to Seattle and back down through the Sierra Nevada mountains. To say I'm excited would be an extreme underestimation. I'll try to blog along the way when we get near a wireless hotspot.