Taking the Well Traveled Road?

Dear Fellow Bar Exam Takers:

I've come to that fork in the road, the one made famous by Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken." Do you know it?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

As I attended a holiday party for an attorney whom I worked for, and after having won his cases that had been continued for nearly a year for a pure lack of due diligence, I was introduced as a "litigation paralegal" to the guests while his intern was introduced as a "future law school student." The term, "paralegal," had the immediate effect of isolating me from the attorneys in the room, one of whom I had mentored in law school. I watched while the attorneys flocked around the intern, pretty and with her freshly-minted B.A., buzz around her with advice.

I found myself serving appetizers and drinks to these attorneys, a shadowy outsider. But, then the attorney whom I had mentored in law school engaged me in conversation and complimented me for winning my first argument in the California Court of Appeals. He took me aside and said, "Don't be discouraged. I didn't pass the first bar exam, either. I got a great tutor and I learned what I did wrong and what I needed to do right. I passed the bar exam the second time."

And, then another attorney, one who graduated from a Ivy league school and whom I did not know, approached me, quietly, and took me aside and confessed that HE did not pass the bar exam the first time and that I was in good company. He encouraged me to dust off the books, and begin anew.

That moment was my fork in the road…

Last August, I found myself living in a room in a friend's house, my belongings in storage, working two long-term positions, 7-days per week, one where my loyalty was dismissed for lack of a license, and the other where my loyalty was returned with appreciation.

I left my $15.00 per hour job after 5-months, a job where I had spent nights and weekends, burning the midnight oil, with pure passion for the law, applying my business skills and MBA toward building a new practice for the attorney.

Having taken a hiatus from the bar exam, and worked a schedule that would exhaust many, I now must squarely face my own demons and rise to meet the challenge of the exam again, as I have met and succeeded in many challenges before.

I pledge to you that I WILL succeed again. . .on the July 2010 bar exam.

And a confession -- I took the MPRE three times. The 3rd time, I put the rule books away and simply practiced a few hundred MPRE questions, making flash cards for each question that I missed and why. I listened to the free PLI lecture and did the workshops. And, that was all.

I walked in to the exam --with confidence--and passed with a score of 103 when I had failed with previous scores of 79 and 62.

I make one final pledge: I pledge to serve my clients, when I am an attorney, with respect, diligence, and with empathy. I pledge to serve my profession with a passion for the law, for justice, and to treat my employees with respect for their career choices and for their contributions.

I can’t wait to be a licensed attorney, can you?