Bar Exam Absurdity Reaches New Levels.

Late night ravings usually betray someone on the verge of maniacal delirium. You, my friends, have grown accustomed to me being a delirious maniac even at high noon. To confirm your impression, I was holding pads for a friend of mine who hits like Mike Tyson, and I took a few glancing shots to the noggin’ tonight prior to writing this.

It’s not my insanity that I want to talk about tonight though. I want to talk about the insanity of bar examining administrations in general. Lawyers are supposed to be smart, or at least they have sold their profession that way. When it comes to being realistic and practical in administrative matters though, a chimpanzee would make more realistic and practical decisions than most of them. The folks who are in charge of licensing new lawyers, however, would struggle to rival a domesticated turkey – supposedly the world’s stupidest animal – in realism and practicality.

As I have previously revealed, I am an impatient man who doesn’t want to wait for the wafflers at the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee to make a decision on whether they will ever administer a second bar exam in 2020 (my prediction is that they won’t). So I liquidated some investments, pinched some pennies, and decided to take the Colorado Bar Exam this coming July. To date, they have been adamant that they will hold the exam.

On Sunday night, the Colorado Bar Examining Committee issued more information about safety protocols to applicants about the exam. One section caught my attention. There will likely be no air conditioning during the exam, and the doors will be propped open to circulate air and an urban cacophony that would disturb the Seven Sleepers.

I can deal with the noise, but the lack of air conditioning and the open doors grabbed my attention in a hurry. Colorado averages temperatures of 93-97 degrees at the end of July. Unless we get two rainy days, we’ll likely take the exam in a room with the temperature more than 90 degrees. We were told to be ready to hydrate and hydrate a lot.

Since I am fortunately equipped with remarkable powers over my bladder, I am not too worried about that part. I, however, am not too ashamed to admit that I have put on a few pounds during law school’s sedentary torture. I am not obese, but my cardio is not where it used to be. Breathing through a mask in 90 degree heat is going to, or should, make the bar exam physically taxing for me, and it will undoubtedly compromise my cognitive performance.

Consequently, I am physically training for the bar exam.

Yes, you read that right. I am physically training for the bar exam. That is absurd, but it is a situation compelled by bar examining administrators.

I am not talking about sitting still training. I am talking about heavy cardio training – the kind that makes you puke your brains out after doing it and leaves you on the verge of blacking out. I read the email from the Colorado bar examining committee, and I immediately went for a run at 10 PM in the evening followed by calesthenics. After work today, I put in a kickboxing workout with my best friend in 90-plus degree heat, came home, and did some bar prep.

The reality is that the conditions of the Colorado bar exam are going to test more than just applicants’ competence. They are going to test the applicants’ fortitude, physical endurance, and sheer willpower to defy the arbitrary assessment that a bunch of bumbling do-gooders have put in their path in the name of protecting the public. Many applicants won’t take the physical aspect of this exam seriously, and it could hurt them in their bid to become lawyers.

I am ranting like a delirious and deranged maniac, but I tell things like they are. Now, I am going to go somewhere no one else has dared to go. Remember all of that stuff that was rammed down our throats in law school about lawyers concerned for lawyers, lawyers concerned about other lawyers’ mental health, lawyers concerned about other lawyers’ physical health, etc.?

The abject silence of those snake-oil peddlers is deafening. Where are their voices now? Where is their concern for their future colleagues’ physical and mental health?

The truth is that, until you join the club, you are all equally worthless in the words of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman. The club that lawyers have formed looks after them and them alone while disguising their associations as being caring, considerate, and attentive to the public good.

Spare me the lies. I might have taken too many shots in the head, but I know how to sift through the constellations floating around in my brain and the layers of deceit that a bunch of good liars want to keep painting over the top of.