I've just clicked the button to apply for the February 2007 California bar exam. Five hundred twenty-nine dollars later (not including the $144 initial registration fee), the deed is done. Tomorrow I'll go register for BarBri and I'll be all set (at least until it comes time to start studying for it).
Admittedly I procrastinated on this. I started the application process a while ago but just couldn't bring myself to commit to finishing it. But tomorrow was the deadline to apply, lest there be a $50 late fee. The hestitation: there's still no word from NY and NJ. It will probably be about two weeks before I hear from them. In the meantime, I'm beginning to crawl the walls. What happens if I don't pass? It took a lot of soul-searching to click the submit button for California, because my plan to take its bar is largely contingent on the idea that I successfully passed NY and NJ first. I was therefore tempted not to enroll, and wait until the results came in to decide the next move.
But in the end I decided I needed to believe in myself and go for it. Besides, I've done everything else to make the CA bar happen in February. Moved here, registered, started my moral character application... Worst case scenario, if I didn't pass NY, I'll just have to do it in July. Or perhaps not do it at all.
So from now on it's the California exam, full speed ahead. I did think it interesting the "Northridge" clause in the application:
I fully understand that the Committee of Bar Examiners is the sole judge of the validity of the examination and, at its discretion, may determine that the result of any test or any part of any test or any individual's score is not valid. Should the Committee invalidate any part of the test, or if any individual's test is declared invalid or cannot be graded, the Committee may, at its discretion, decide to make a pass/fail decision on the basis of the valid portion of the applicant's test product available to the Committee. Should the Committee at any time determine that an insufficient test product is available upon which to base a valid pass/fail decision, the Committee may require the applicant to present himself/herself for re-testing at a place and time designated by the Committee.
At least I presume that's what it's in reference to, the year that the bar exam was disrupted by the Northridge earthquake. They told us about it in BarBri or PMBR this summer, because apparently it was the year that the MBE questions got released. Seems that everyone had to take the exam with them when they evacuated the building, and then, according to someone I met whose wife was sitting for that exam, they finished up in the parking lot.
As if the bar exam didn't already suck enough...