Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> caligulawyer

Law Students

: caligulawyer

The Wizard of Bar

By kellyfair

I saw this movie once, "Clean and Sober" with Michael Keaton, who is probably neither, but that's beside the point. He plays this alcoholic guy who is getting his life together and there is a set of scenes where he's arduously writing down all of his past wrongs and, running out of breath, reading the extensive list to his sponsor. Filling out your bar application is like this. They want everything down to the spitball incident in third grade. There are all these cloaked suggestions that they will find out about the spitball incident and every other wrong thing you've ever done and you'd better have written it down, too.

And now, to completely mix metaphors and movies, having written down all of your wrongs and read them out Michael Keaton style - who, dammit, was NOT a good Batman!! - the whole application process starts to look like going to see the wizard. Switch channels with me, folks. We're all kicking around our dirt farms in Kansas or Wilmington or whatever and got swept up in this idea of going to law school and next thing we knew, were following what seemed to be the yellow brick road of law school, reading cases about the guy with no heart and defending the scared lion in a mock trial, assuming the yellow bricks were gold which we'd pick up with these phat jobs at the end of the road, meanwhile sweaty and exhausted and living off of corn chips with the wicked witches of exams harassing us. But then, at the end, haha! You have to go before what seem to be these cloaked figures with mind reading powers who can mine all of your secrets and imply they will find out absolutely everything because they are the wizards and are secretly hooked up with the FBI. Whoa! Where is my dirt farm? Well, either you get a pass and then get to sit for the bar, a mental obstacle course fraught with swamps of reason then go wherever you can get a job writing memos in a corner 80 hours per week, or (b) you get dragged before a hearing, which means you have to ask your friends to come vouch for you, but that you have to let your friends listen to you defend all the stupid, embarrassing things you've ever done, which means they'd beter be true friends, then either (a) or (b), you get kicked back to the dirt farm with an expensive degree unable to practice law because the wizard says you smell.

This, my dear fans, is called taking the bar. Look out, sports fans! (We've changed channels again, keep up!) Will she be able to jump the bar or fall on her ass? Only the wizard knows for sure! Now, those of you who haven't applied to law school yet, well, now you know. So take a close look at that dirt farm, man, because it might not be so bad.

Full post as published by caligulawyer on September 06, 2007 (boomark / email).