Law school itself might be over, but now the masochistic experience known as "BARBRI" begins.
No, not Barbie. BARBRI. The New York Bar Exam begins on July 25, ends the next day (my 36th birthday). From now until then, I take a special bar exam study course called BARBRI. Classes 5 days a week, 4 hours a day. But that's not the end of it. We were told to expect to put in 5 to 9 hours of additional study each day as well, including one day on the weekend. Eek!
But, there's really no other choice. The NY Bar Exam covers up to 22 different subjects, most of which any given law student has not actually taken (and certainly not me!). From the expected, like Contracts, to the totally off the wall, like Secured Transactions, and (the horror, the horror) Conflicts of Law. And it all requires both rote memorization and analytical ability.
The first day of the Bar is "New York" day. It is six hours long and covers various test formats, but the most important section are the five "New York essays". You get 40 minutes per essay, and each essay will raise issues that touch on up to 4 of the 22 subject areas. You have to know New York law in particular. The ironic thing about better American law schools is that they do NOT teach you the law of any specific location, but rather general principles, and perhaps, common majority and minority rules. So, it's like starting anew, with some subjects at least.
The second day is also 6 hours long, and devoted completely to the "Multistate". This is a multiple choice exam used by nearly every state (which is why all states will be having their bar exams in late July--so everyone gets the test at once). In contrast to the first day, it only covers six topics: Contracts, Torts, Evidence, Criminal Law and Procedure, Constitutional Law, and (the most dreaded subject) Property. Since the ABA requires all American law students to study all these subjects except Criminal Procedure and Evidence, you'd think this section would be easier. After all, only 6 subjects and multiple choice...piece of cake, right?
However, here's the insane part. You have 6 hours for 200 multiple choice questions. That's one for about every 1.8 minutes. Mind you, these are not short questions. Each takes up an entire column on a two column page. And usually, more than one answer is right, or none of them are right, and you have to find the least wrong answer. Cuh-razy!
Secondly, and even crazier, because laws do vary widely from state to state, you have to learn rules that might contradict the law you have to know on "NY day": what is legally correct on New York day may very often be completely wrong on Multistate day.
So what is correct on Multistate day? The correct law is the law that the majority of states follow. Nonetheless, you have to know minority rules too, because the multistate will sometimes specify that they are asking about a minority rule. Moreover, sadistic demons that they are, on Day One, the New York Bar Examiners will purposefully have tried to trip up would-be lawyers by asking questions where New York differs from the Multistate day. Eek!
The final kicker: criminal law in the US varies so greatly from state to state that the bar examiners mostly don't bother with "majority rules". Rather, they turn the clock back several hundred years, and test you on the criminal law of England as it existed around 1700.
No, I'm not making that up!
What does this all add up to? On Multistate Day, you are tested on the law of NOWHERE!
Nor am I making this up, my favorite NY bar exam anecdote. Two years ago, halfway through the multistate, a female test taker began to eat her exam, and rather loudly at that. When approached by a proctor, she jumped out of her seat, and began to run around the convention center where the test was being conducted, shouting "I am a covenant, and I run with the land!"
Like I said, cuh-razy!!
But it could be worse. The California Bar is three days!
No wonder so many lawyers are miserable human beings ;) |
Let's suppose your father, on his death, left you, your brother and your sister a beach house. Over the years you've all managed to enjoy the property, with only minimal tension over upkeep, time-sharing, and paying taxes. Now, twenty five years later, you are in retirement, slowing down due to aging, but the three of you still own this property, debt free, which has accrued in value to quite an amazing degree: from $25,000 when your dad purchased it in 1970 to $600,000 today. You don't have much actual money, only a modest pension, your own residence. This is sort of your insurance policy for an emergency.
All nice, right? Now, let's complicate things. Suppose your brother has a gambling problem that gets better and worse over the years. Suppose further that he suffers from chronic depression, bipolar disorder, and has a sort of "Jackie Gleason" syndrome: every few years he falls for get-rich-quick schemes. Not only do these schemes never work, they always manage to leave him poorer than when he started off.
Now, let's REALLY complicate matters. Suppose your daughter is married to EVIL FUCK, a guy who has turned screwing people out of their life savings into an art form. So evil that none of his brothers will speak to him, because of all the times he has conned them and made their lives miserable. Over the years, your daughter has had four children with this guy. She once had her own career but now has been worn down by said EVIL FUCK. She is the perfect enabler: always finds excuses for her husband's behavior. It is always someone else's fault. Deep down she knows her life is miserable, but how will she ever support four children on her own? Plus, the EVIL FUCK has at least provided a million dollar home over her head, your daughter probably thinks. She always was selfish and fairly materialistic.
Now, imagine that EVIL FUCK's luck has been running dry of late, and he is having problems making mortgage payments. You here all about this. You despise him, but pity your daughter. You tell EVIL FUCK that if he loses the house, he can move his family into the beach house. EVIL FUCK however has a counterproposal: why not take a mortgage out on the house instead, and just give him the money. That way, he can actually use the cash to get back on his feet and support your daughter.
You refuse. Things quiet down. Months later, you note that the house is still in their possession. Was EVIL FUCK conning you? You doubt it. EVIL FUCK seems to have no visible source of income. Must have conned someone else in the meantime.
Or, so you thought. Because last Friday, your bipolar, Jackie Gleason like brother drops a bombshell: A year ago, he took a mortgage out on the beach house, because he felt bad for EVIL FUCK and your daughter. EVIL FUCK swore he would pay back the loan. He did make nine payments. However, he has missed the last three, and gullible bipolar brother has been having to pay out of his own pocket...however, he can't do it for much longer, and fears that eventually the beach house might be lost.
By the way, bipolar brother forged your signature and that of your sister, to get the mortgage for EVIL FUCK. He knew you would never agree to it otherwise, but also wouldn't want to see your daughter thrown out on the street.
One final complication: bipolar brother still runs your father's family business, which does not support you, but does support your sister's family (her husband works for your brother, and isn't bright enough to run the business himself). Also, you fear that EVIL FUCK will cut you off from seeing your grandchildren if you try to do anything to him. For all you know, EVIL FUCK does have organized crime connections (so maybe we shouldn't hold the Mafia).
QUESTION: WHAT WOULD YOU DO? |
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Feb. 10th, 2006 @ 12:56 am
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Wow, it sure isn't easy to get through a semester of law school when you are falling in love.
His name is Tom, we were friends before this started, and our mutual friends still don't know about it. Not the way I expected to spend my winter, but I'm not complaining! |
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Jan. 12th, 2006 @ 11:07 pm
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In response to a meme I just read on Linnelleth's blog:
The rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
(A) In General--This subsection shall not apply to any issue if more than $250,000 of the net proceeds of such issue are to be used to provide depreciable farm property wtih respect to which the principal user is or will be the same person or 2 or more related persons.
(from "Federal Income Tax: Code and Regulations" by Uncle Sam)
Welcome to my world! Fortunately however I will never be required to read page 123! ;) |
Okay, so a break from the serious entries. There is, after all, my inner superhero and all . . .
 | You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.
Batman, the Dark Knight | | 71% | Indiana Jones | | 67% | Neo, the "One" | | 67% | Lara Croft | | 67% | Captain Jack Sparrow | | 63% | James Bond, Agent 007 | | 63% | The Terminator | | 54% | William Wallace | | 50% | Maximus | | 50% | El Zorro | | 46% | The Amazing Spider-Man | | 42% | </td>
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com |
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| » History of Violence |
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I just got back from seeing it. I don't have much to say at the moment. But this will sit with me for awhile, even more than many other movies that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Viggo's character very much reminded me of my dad. His adolescent and young adult past was never as extreme as Joey's, nor was the domestic life that I remember ever as saccharine as Tom's, but I do know a lot about my dad's earlier years to know that the man he later became was very different than the way he started out. Not unlike Tom, he had a past and a way of behaving that he too had to very consciously shed.
I might write more about this later. Suffice it to say that a few years ago I had the rather unpleasant experience of being recognized as his son by a woman whose husband my father had, many years before, put into a hospital, in a coma. And that's just one story about a frightening person who, in the guise as my dad, would read to me from the encyclopedia and would draw or paint the covers for my book reports in elementary school.
I can't believe this movie is being condemned in some quarters the way it is. I suppose it shows that we all potentially live in wildly different realities.
Oct. 27th, 2005 @ 01:05 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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I began this journal to specifically be my meditation on living in New York, a fact I still find somewhat remarkable, given the three decades I spent in New Jersey. This fact is ever on my mind, and I'm still sorting out my relationship with this very strange place I now call home.
One thing I love about New York is the subway system. Many people hate it, or they fear it. I have at times as well. But I love to observe, and there are few better places to do that in NY than underground.
When I take the subway, I am always fascinated by the variety of faces that I see. I've lived here long enough to be able to detect the subtle differences in people depending on the line, the time of day, and the day itself. The A and C trains are heavily black; the evening downtown F train is filled with Russians and a hilarious number of smarty pants who have mastered the art of holding and turning with one hand the pages of long novels; Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and white Republican-looking people (in NY, you can tell by looking) take the evening Uptown 6 when they want to go home (the latter all are off the train by 96th street); the E is filled with Asian Indians, Latins, and, well, just about everyone under the sun.
Timewise there are also interesting variations. At 2:30pm it's retirees, tourists, the poor and jobless, and the rich and jobless; at 3:30pm the trains are filled with very rowdy school kids; at 4:30pm the trains shuttle blue collar construction workers; from 5:30 to 6:30 it's a flood—no, a tsunami—of suburban and "outer borough" commuters, at 7:30 people are packing in the West Side trains to get to the theatre (the trains are never whiter than at this hour); and at 12:30 in the morning they are still crowded, with a hodge-podge of drowsy second shift workers and drunks of all ages, ethnicities and income levels. Over the years I've participated in both those roles.
What I love most about the trains is how democratic they are. Unlike elsewhere in the US there is no class stigma in NY against mass transit (or not much stigma, at least). Our billionaire mayor famously insists on taking the train to work (and it's not just some political PR stunt). If he wasn't the mayor you'd think he was just another fifty-something working stiff on his way to some job in the financial district. The aforementioned 6 train is the best example of the city's very poorest and its very richest (well, perhaps not quite either extreme, but close to it) having to sharing the same tiny space.
The subway is the best place to have the piss taken out of you (I think I'm using that phrase correctly). And I like that alot.
Oct. 13th, 2005 @ 08:55 am
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| » Hello, LJ |
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I'm not very good at follow-through, and so it's no wonder I never followed up on developing my lj. I've been living so much in the present for months now (which is certainly a good thing for me), that I really have taken no time to reflect or write, even in my private journal that I used to keep.
But when fall arrives, I always grow reflective. I tend towards reflective rather than prospective thinking as it is; it's no wonder that this fall, with its abrupt change in weather from sultry to distinctly autumnal, has triggered my propensity to reflect on the past.
Mik brought up an interesting subject in his LJ. Grandparents. Those wise elders we know so little about who themselves are in the autumn of their lives. I too wish I knew more. In what little I know of their lives I see pieces of a puzzle in how mine came to be the way it is. Plus, their lives are fascinating in and of themselves.
I have memories of three grandparents, plus a great-grandfather (see below). A great-grandmother, my father's grandmother, who I very much rue never having met, died when I was an infant. Her name was Victoria, she was born in 1888, and was among the very first children born of Italian immigrants in the city of Newark (a city that might as well be the homeland of my family). She had flaming red hair and was fluent in Italian, English and Polish, which she picked up from neighbhorhood children. She never had a music lesson in her life but could play many songs on the piano by ear. My father inherited that amazing skill. I, on the other hand, am fairly tone deaf.
A great-grandfather, Thomas, my mother's grandfather, died when I was 19. He was born in 1896, immigrated from Italy when he was three, and served in the American cavalry in the First World War. How incredible is that? He raised three daughters in a two-family house that he owned in East Orange, New Jersey. I remember that house. By the time I was born two of his daughters (but not my grandma) lived in either apartment. He lived with the youngest, Aida. I remember that house well. We went their every Christmas until the day Aida died, at the age of 61, of AIDS. Great-grandpa Thomas unfortunately had to live through that, at the age of 90. He had always been a very quiet man. Legendarily quiet, in a family that was extremely loud. After his favorite daughter died I never heard him say another word.
My mom's mom, Mary (Thomas' oldest daughter), is still alive. She has always been like a second mother to me. She's 82, her mind is in perfect shape, but unfortunately she is hobbled by severe arthritis, and can barely walk anymore. Until she hit 75 or so, she was an extremely chatty woman. Now, though, she is mostly silent. Is it out of sadness, or inner peace? Probably it's both. Nearly her entire family of her generation is dead. Both her sisters (and yet she was the oldest) and both her parents. Nearly all of her cousins, of whom their was once many, to whom she was very close, and by whom she was both beloved and the universal favorite.
I do know many stories about her. Of her three sisters, she was the most naive and least world-wise. They cherished her and considered her "a saint" for this. What this apparently meant, in fact, was that she was the only one who didn't "have to" get married due to a pre-marriage pregnancy.
Life was not easy for her. Here's one story. She loved school and wanted to go on to college to be a teacher. For a daughter of Italian immigrants in the 1930s, however, this was considered shocking. Her mother, who could not read or write, had never gone to school, put a stop to this. She was allowed to graduate from high school, but immediately thereafter sent to work in a factory. A cigar factory, it seems. During the Depression this was one of the few industries that didn't suffer much, and any job at the time was considered extremely precious. However, she would come home smelling of tobacco, and when she took the bus home, as an Italian immigrant who reeked of tobacco, she was forced to sit in the back. And this was the North, not the South.
It's no wonder she let this last only a few months. She married nearly the first man who asked her out on a date. That's my grandfather.
I could go on, but I'll end with this. I wonder if it is the nature of being old not to discuss much of the past? My parents told many, many more stories about their youth than they do now. I wonder what my nieces and my nephew know of my parents, to whom they are closer than they are to their own father. Do they know that their grandmother, my mother, used to play the accordion, used to type 150 words a minute, and almost married her first boss, who went on to own a major American professional basketball team? That their grandfather, my father, was headed for a life of crime and poverty before he met my mother and she saved him from himself? It makes me wonder, if I know this, what are the things that I don't know? Most assuredly, there are many.
Oct. 12th, 2005 @ 10:30 pm
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| » Memes |
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The use of the word meme is a meme itself. It infiltrates the enclosed little world of the online community, its use growing in frequency. Like a tasty piece of meat inside a pressure cooker 'meme' rises in heat. Will the pot explode? Will one start overhearing the word being used in a restaurant by those women at the next table? What about the guy behind the counter at the dry cleaners'? One's uncle? From grandma in the nursing home?
Meme. An idea in motion. The zeitgeist in transit. A paradox of a word denoting both thought and action.
It's a stupid fucking word. Too precious for its own good. I want to resist using it. Then again, I wanted to resist cell phones, and how long did that last?
Is there a word in German for "something nauseating, yet irresistible in its attraction"?
Will someone please meme this meme on 'meme'?
Mar. 4th, 2005 @ 07:58 am
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| » Launch Party |
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Can you escape Tony?
Can you escape, Tony?
I aimed for Escape to NY. A sales pitch, as it were. Like "Come to Jamaica", or "Virginia is for Lovers". But now I am unwittingly stuck with Escape Tony. Or, perhaps, "Escape, Tony!"
Well, I know Tony. And trust me, he's someone to stay clear of. Knowwudimsayin?
Mar. 3rd, 2005 @ 11:36 pm
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