PRE-BAR RESULTS BANTER

I have become slightly compulsive about checking the website for the NJ Board of Bar Examiners to see if they have posted a date for results yet. I know that it is WAY too early for that and I keep telling myself that "today" I won't check because I will just be disappointed, but then I do it anyway. Worst of all is that I have extended this futility to the NY Board of Law Examiners web site as well. For those not in the know, I didn't even take the NY bar this time around! I check the site because NJ is usually pretty consistent at posting their results one week before NY and I keep thinking if I knew NY's date I would be that much closer to knowing NJ's date.

This, of course, is all pure speculation AND since NJ changed the format of the exam this time and they have an additional essay they might report later than they have during past administrations [GAWD HELP ME].

I want that damn date because I want to know an end to all this waiting, to this horrid limbo. The truth is, once I know the date I will just have a better target for my neurotic hyperventilation exercises. I will get all hyped up and become [even more] unbearable to be around.

For those keeping score, this is my third attempt at the NJ bar. The first time I was so damn exhausted and stressed from the first two days in NY that I was barely able to stay awake for NJ. The second time I figured since I came SO CLOSE to passing the first time that I didn't need to study as much. I was DEAD WRONG.

This time I have several things on my side. I only took NJ [I can go back and take NY, the 3 days, traveling thing was too much, I really feel for you CA ppl]. I studied my a$$ off [seriously, I even complained to my mother that she was breathing too loud one night]. AND I took the exam on laptop. A really great, lawyer friend told me, after looking over my answers from the previous exam, that I got so nervous that they were almost illegible! They can't grade what they can't read, so the laptop thing was instituted just in time from my point of view.

The first time I took the exam I knew it would be close, however I held out hope that is would be close on the positive side, not the negative. I even looked up the dates for the swearing in ceremonies and looked at my calendar and stuff. Turns out I didn't need that info. FYI Since NJ does their character & fitness before the exam the swearing in happens the first two weeks of December and you just pick a county and call the person in charge of that location to reserve a spot. Needless to say I never made such a call.

The second time I, again, was guarded but hopeful. I refused to look at the dates of the swearing in. THIS TIME I looked at the old results. Don't ask me why I did that, I don't know. Instead of clicking on "most recent results" I clicked on last year's February results. Once I saw "February" I was convinced they had posted the results a day early and just left the year as "2004" to thwart people. I looked for my exam number and saw "failed" next to it. I freaked. Non NJ takers, allow me to explain: NJ assignes candidate numbers, if and when you pass the exam that number becomes your attorney ID number. Numbers of unsuccessful candidates are recycled back into the mix and the next time you take the exam you get a different number. Therefore ANYONE who looks up the results for a previous candidate with the same ID number will see that they failed because the number cannot be reassigned unless the person who had the number before you fails. So anyway, I majorly flipped out, called several friends, and even called the Board of Bar Examiners to make sure that my assumption about early results was wrong. I had a full scale freak out.

As it turned out, it was all a dismal foreshadowing to the real results. However, this time I just look at the title page. No date posted for the results yet? I go on my way and don't look at anything else. The problem, is that I check that main page at least once every 24 hours - even on weekends. Yep, slightly compulsive.