Judgment Day

    For thousands, July marks the taking of the dreaded bar examination.  I recall sitting for that comprehensive test about 30 years ago.

    The questions may have changed; the emotions have not.

    Being recently married, I worked full-time until just about a week before the two-day test.  So I had to have a system; every day I allotted a certain time period for each subject, and I stuck with it.  For example, I would schedule studying for contracts from 6 to 8 p.m., and then 8 to 10 p.m. would be civil procedure.  And I did.

    The first day of the exam, immediately after we opened our test booklets, someone behind me vomited.  I was so focused on what I was doing that I never even turned around.  I can’t tell you if the person was male or female.  That type of focus is what is necessary to pass courses ranging from contracts to property, civil procedure to criminal procedure.

    So it was with a bit of nostalgia and a great deal of interest that I watched a new DVD recently released entitled, “A Lawyer Walks into a Bar.”  The 92-minute movie, which is more of a documentary, won several film festival awards last year.  It follows six students for 12 weeks in 2006 as they prepare for the California bar exam, which boasts the lowest passage rate each year, hovering around 39 percent.

    Among those who have flunked in California, as the movie boldly notes, are Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School; Jerry Brown, former governor of California, ans well as former governor Pete Wilson, who flunked it three times.

    But the movie focuses on six ordinary people from various walks of life.

    Don is a Vietnam veteran who failed the California bar 41 times.  There is also Magda, a Hispanic woman who attended a California law school taught by volunteers.  There is Tricia, who says she devoted 40 percent of her law school days trying to break into acting and its shown partying on a weekend when everyone else is cracking the books.

    There is Cassandra, a driven young mother who is able to overcome the guilt of leaving her young son to recuperate from an infection in a hospital while she studies.

    Sam is a young man who has failed it twice and dreams of going to court or partnering with his friends who already are practicing law.


    And Megan, an artist whose father passed away while she was in law school, “wants to change the way society works and how we interact with each other.”

    The movie builds to reveal results that really are not all that surprising.

    Viewing the movie confirmed the premise that those who studied with focus passed.  Those who were overly confident, riding on their previous success in school, or testing with a take-it-for-granted attitude, would not succeed.

    One also realized, though, that those who psyched themselves out did not do well either.

    Hiring personal tutors, going to hypno-therapists, and drinking round-the-clock triple shots from Starbucks may be extreme or even unconventional approaches to pass the bar, but perhaps are becoming more commonplace as the profession becomes more competitive. 

    And it is that aspect that the film seemed to concentrate on.  Personal-injury attorney in particular.

    The film is peppered with pithy comments from various nationally recognized lawyers.  From Joe Jamail (the DNA of a trial lawyer is “75 percent courage”) to Scott Turow (“the number-one thing that the American public has against lawyers is that they feel they make too much money and have too much influence, and they’re right”), the movie really became more of a reflection on the profession.

    Opening with a speeding ambulance, hearing stand-up comics repeat oft-heard lawyer jokes, and watching late-night commercials by lawyers who tell you to “pay up and you’re on your way to getting rid of that vermin you call a spouse” only served to reinforce stereotypes, myths, and cliches.

    Overall, it was unbalanced, portraying lawyers as greedy, unqualified, uncaring and even despised.

    Yet, it did present the notion that lawyers are most appreciated when they are needed.  Most parents still desire their children to become lawyers.  Lawyers are smart, hard-working people.

    I commissioned a study in 2002 with a respected national research firm that found those same notions to be true.

    I don’t apologize for what I do – helping people through a tragedy.  None of us should. 

    The movie presented some frightening statistics: alcohol and substance abuse by lawyers is nearly twice the national average.

    Many suffer for trying to take on the problems of others because they firmly believe in what they do and in those who they represent.

    The pressures of lawyering can be great and it is not for the faint of heart.

     For me, the movie makes me work harder to improve the public’s perception of who we are, and to brace myself once again, because my oldest daughter will be starting law school next month.