A Poem for Nancy Grace

A Poem for Nancy Grace

Blonde bob like the helmet of some childhood superhero
Although it's hard to imagine this wingless, clear-eyed human Scales of Justice as anything like a child
Righteous indignation congeals behind the eyes of this people's Cassandra; wrath roils off the tongue of this TVland cyclops of the missing, the murdered and the mute.

The female murderer is Nancy's prey: every gesture, sigh, smile, frown, word, sentence and mumbling prove guilt.
Witness Nancy Grace, more than merely judge, jury and executioner, but the levying officer on the defendant's very name,
For to be renamed "the Tot Mom" is the death even of Death.

How to pass the California bar exam

(I wrote this in 2008 shortly after I passed the bar exam, and am republishing it now on my legal blog.)

I'm writing this for all you out there who may at some future date be wondering if you passed. All I can say is, if I can, anyone can. I only completed half of the final performance test - there were 2 questions - each worth 50% of the grade of the last performance test, and I wrote a full answer for the first question and then exactly one sentence for the second one.

And I'm not good at MCQs - I only scored 53% on the Barbri practice test that they give you, but I did attend the lecture by that smart-alecky guy on how to approve one's score. Also, 3 weeks before the exam I spent a week in hospital for a serious medical condition and had to cope with daily physical therapy sessions for the next 3 weeks. So I missed the final week of BarBri classes. But I did drag my laptop and a duffel bag full of the barbri books with me to the hospital and just focused on the areas that I was weak on.

OK - here are some stats on me - I went to a first tier ABA law school; my undergrad GPA was 4.0, law school GPA a little over 3.0 - and of course I did Barbri. I studied intensely for about 6 hours each day during Barbri, but never kept up completely with the schedule - I did my best but Volume 2 of the MCQs and the essay questions went untouched. However, I did concentrate on the stuff I didn't know - using the Study Smart software for MCQs helps in this regard as you can get summaries of your scores broken down into specific subject matter areas - e.g., easements and CC&Rs. Then you can concentrate on that stuff.

Also, another tip: work hard, do what works for you and do take breaks. Have a day off once a week. Exercise, even if it's 20 minutes walking around the block. Get enough sleep. Apparently our brains actually organize information while we are sleeping, so lack of sleep will impede your efforts to stuff chunks of property or wills and trusts into your brain.