More Bar Exam Blues ....

[Ed. Note: This was sent by a loyal reader in California, AnkleBone, who submitted it in the comments section of one of our posts. As some of you may not read the comments, we thought we'd share it with you on a main page. Thanks for thinking of us, Boney!]

Hi Sass -

Seein' as how you're a lawyer lady and all, I thought you might get a kick out of what a columnist in a local rag here in SF reported this morning - reminded me of the great post you wrote about your bar exam travails... Thanks for making me smile almost every day - keep up the great stuff!

By P.J. Corkery
Published: Tuesday, December 6, 2005 11:39 PM PST
From The Examiner San Francisco

Some of us really flub. Dig this: Kathleen Sullivan, who had been dean of Stanford Law School, just flunked the California Bar exam! That’s right, Dean Sully, for 25 years a top constitutional lawyer who had often been mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee — flunked the bar exam!

This news comes as part of a Wall Street Journal story last Monday, on, not surprisingly, how tough the California Bar exam is, even for top lawyers like the eminently respectable and brilliant Dean Sully. She’s in good company. The Journal reports that Jerry Brown failed on his first try many years ago. And former Gov. Pete Wilson had to take the exam four times.

Sullivan, a Harvard Law grad, is licensed to practice law in Massachusetts and New York, but those tickets are no good in the Golden State. So, after leaving Stanford to practice with a Los Angeles firm, she took the grueling three-day exam last July. … The Journal speculates that Dean Sully, under the pressure of business, didn’t spend enough time prepping the more arcane of the 15 areas of the law that the exam covers. She’ll try again. …

The record for flops followed by a win goes to Maxcy Dean File of Compton, who took the exam 47 times before passing in 1991. … Meanwhile, down on The Farm they’re trying to figure out who leaked the confidential info about the dean’s flub.

[Sassy says: Well, it proves my point, eh? Bar exams are a complete and utter waste of time. And money. But y'all knew that ...]

Tags: Sassy Travels; Bar exam; California bar; law