For any lawyer who enjoys reliving the past, pick up “A Lawyer Walks Into A Bar”, a documentary directed by Eric Chaikin, available for purchase now here. For the recent bar examinee, or those who will be taking the exam soon, this might either scare you out of it, or get you fired up. It depends on the person.

“A Lawyer Walks Into A Bar” is a documentary that primarily follows the lives of a handful of people leading up to the California bar exam. At times it is entertaining, however more often than not I found myself not identifying with what I was seeing on screen. The primary problem is that the filmmakers decided to select mostly Loyola Law School students, and did not look beyond Southern California. And any good Californian knows that the difference between Northern Californians and their southern counterparts can be as big as between night and day. That isn’t to say that the TLL staff who watched the documentary didn’t feel some connection to the student’s plight. The exam, as most attorneys will tell you, is a grueling beast of an exam. Three days long, six hours a day? That’s longer than I studied for most of my finals, sometimes combined!

Interspersed into the segments following each bar examinee, you get clips of interviews with prominent attorneys and others with some vested interest in the bar exam and law in general. One of my favorite scenes involves Robert Shapiro, who relates being a trial attorney with being a boxer, and how he trains at boxing to help prepare for battle in the courtroom. Don’t mess with a New Jersey kid. The other two memorable characters interviewed are trial attorneys Mark Lanier and “King of Torts” Joe Jamail. Near the end of the documentary, the two lawyers recall their infamous first words to each other, and it can’t be described as anything but classic.

I would suggest the film as an entertaining way of killing time for anyone in the legal field. One of my biggest gripes with the film however, is that the remarks of some of the people interviewed perpetuate this mysterious cloud that looms over the bar exam. I firmly believe that the bar, while difficult and demanding, is very passable by anyone who takes the exam seriously, studies hard, and commits to it 100%. It is a hard test, but this is the law, not rocket science. For those readers out there who have yet to take the exam, here are some friendly tips from someone who walked down that path not too long ago.

1. Remember this: The bar exam isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
2. Do not let studying overtake your life to the point where you feel completely enveloped by the material. You are a human, not a machine (though you will study like one), and thus you need some semblance of a social life. I found that lunches, coffee, dinner, or even the occasional night out drinking help keep you level headed. I went to a hip hop concert a month into the beginning of studying, had a great time, and felt more energetic about getting back to the mission at hand. Stretch your legs!
3. Flashcards are finally useful!
4. There is NO way you will learn 100% of the material. So don’t try! Figure out what your strengths are, attack your weaknesses by doing more work on those subjects than an easier one, such as torts or civil procedure (just an example).
5. The performance test is EASY points. Do not overanalyze the task in front of you. The bar examiners give VERY simple instructions. Follow them to the T and you will be fine.
6. My last bit of advice: Marathon! Not Sprint! REMEMBER THIS!

Good luck to the examinees awaiting their May results, and to the July examinees as well. It’s almost here so enjoy the wild 3L year like it’s your last, because it really is the end of school.

-J Boogie [TLL] and S1 [TLL]