Taking the Bar

News

by Joe Wilhelm Jr.

Staff Writer

The Florida Bar examination has been striking fear into the hearts of law students for decades. The latest round of testing took place July 26-27 in Tampa.

The general Bar examination includes four three-hour exam sessions over two days.

The first day included a morning session requiring answers to three essay questions and the second offered 100 multiple choice questions on general and Florida law.

The second day was the Multistate Bar Exam and featured two sessions with 100-question multiple choice tests.

After the two days, potential members of the legal community must pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination before being accepted into the Bar.

The Florida Bar is the organization of lawyers who are licensed by the Supreme Court of Florida to practice law in the state.

Any lawyer wanting to practice law in Florida must be a member of The Florida Bar.

The Florida Bar reported that as of June 1, there were 91,450 lawyers licensed to practice in the state.

Men were 65 percent of the membership and women were 35 percent.

The Daily Record asked members of the local legal community and law students to share memories of the Bar exam.

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“I was scared to death. I had worked all my life to pass this exam. I had a wife and two children. I think it was the first time I truly appreciated the term ‘pressure.’”

Howard Coker
Coker, Schickel, Sorenson & Posgay
Former president of The Florida Bar
Admitted: 1972

“I took the bar once in Maryland, where I was first admitted, and then in Florida when I moved here in 1995. I was sure I failed both times, and was wrong in both instances. I took the test in Florida with a good friend of mine who was pursuing a second career, having retired from practicing medicine. He asked me before the exam what he should do if someone has a medical emergency during the exam. Sure enough, during the afternoon session, someone sitting right near me had a seizure and my friend was called upon to administer medical treatment. We were both distracted considerably and assumed we would fail the test as a result, but we both somehow were successful.”

Mike Freed
Brennan, Manna & Diamond
The Jacksonville Bar Association president
Admitted: 1995

“I took it the last time it was administered in Jacksonville. I was living in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment in Arlington with no money to buy a Bar review course. Four days before the exam, two friends move in from elsewhere in the country who have Bar review materials which I can borrow late at night. The friend from D.C. brings a young woman he met that morning in D.C. Let’s just say it was crowded and awkward and not a recommended study atmosphere.”

Hank Coxe
The Bedell Firm
Former president of The Florida Bar
Admitted: 1973

“Walking into the Convention Center on Tuesday, I had the feeling of being in an ant colony. Every examinee was stressed, nervous and wandering around carrying nothing but a laptop and a cord. When I actually walked into the exam room, I finally saw the wood tables that I had been warned about (I actually remember saying ‘it smells like Home Depot in here’ because of the tables).
The exam itself was difficult, but I have to say the anticipation leading up to the exam was much worse than the actual exam. Florida Coastal School of Law provided lunch Tuesday and Wednesday for its alumni taking the exam. I felt this was a great benefit, and one less thing to worry about.
Overall, my Bar experience was good ... as best as it could have been. Yes, the chairs were uncomfortable and I may have a splinter or two in my arm from those tables, but I was prepared, the exam was administered well and that’s all you can really ask for.”

Catherine Scott
Boyd & Jenerette
Admitted: Taking the Bar

“I took the Massachusetts and New York Bars back to back, and rode with a classmate in her old Volkswagen for the ride between Boston (following two days of taking the Massachusetts Exam) and Albany, stopping for chicken croquettes and mashed potatoes and ice cream on the Mass Turnpike at the old Howard Johnson. Nothing was going to get in the way of comfort food eating, including sleeping. We had a pact to not discuss the exam, but both spent our time trying to look more confident than the other. When I took the Florida Bar it was almost like a vacation: I only had to take one day of the exam, and Smith Hulsey (now Smith Hulsey & Busey) insisted I take the study course and gave me time off to study, which was a real treat. Even with that, I could not follow the directions for the thumbprint and held up the exam for everyone while I tried to make a decent print multiple times.”

Cindy Laquidara
Office of General Counsel for the
City of Jacksonville
Admitted: 1984

“My most memorable Bar experience was having dinner with my friends from law school the night after the Florida portion of the exam. It was great because it provided an opportunity for us to spend time together as a group one last time before we went on our separate paths.”

Will Ourand
Boyd & Jenerette
Admitted: Taking the Bar

“The spring 1972 exam was the first to include a multistate aspect, and through some scheduling quirk our class at Florida State (and other law schools, I presume) took it before graduating. That may well have helped manage any stress, as we were still in the law school headspace when we took the exam in Jacksonville. It also meant that many of us were licensed to practice law promptly after graduating. For me, that meant going straight into six months of trials and appeals in the Tallahassee-based Public Defender’s office before heading to Fort Benning.”

Wayne Hogan
Terrell Hogan
Admitted: 1972

“All I remember from studying for the Bar is one night, a few days before the exam, I tried to open a can of spaghetti sauce to make dinner and I couldn’t get it to open and I just sat down and cried.”

Elizabeth Howard
Boyd & Jenerette
The JBA Young Lawyers Section President
Admitted: 2002

“I can remember taking the Bar exam like yesterday. The night before, my friend KC and I were staying in a hotel in Tampa along with lots of other exam takers and someone kept setting the fire alarm off. After our first evacuation from the hotel, we tried to sleep through the fire alarms. Needless to say, not a very restful evening. The next two days proved to be just as stressful. After the first day of exam taking, I was sure that I had already failed the exam and wanted to bail. A delicious meal at a nearby Mexican restaurant convinced me otherwise and I spent the evening ‘reviewing/cramming,’ which was useless. The second day could not have come and gone quicker. I was still convinced that I had been unsuccessful in my efforts but was elated to have the experience come to an end — just to have to wait close to two months for my true fate.”

Courtney Grimm
The Bedell Firm
The Jacksonville Bar Association past president
Admitted: 1992

“If I could sum up my feelings about the bar exam in one word, it would be ‘stressful.’ First, the amount of information that can be tested is enormous. On just the Florida portion of the test, roughly 15 subject areas are fair game to be tested. And on the multistate exam, six subject areas are tested. There is overlap between the Florida and multistate exams, but all of the Florida specific distinctions in those areas must be memorized.
The second reason that the exam is stressful is that there are high stakes associated with passing it. Many people have jobs that require Bar admittance, and no one wants to tell an employer that he failed. Even if a person doesn’t have a job riding on the Bar exam, the prospect of having to go through all the studying again is terrifying. So the months of studying all culminate on 12 hours of testing. If you choke, you will be back in February.
Nevertheless, it is the test that lawyers have taken for decades, and it is a rite of passage of sorts. I’m just glad it’s over.”

Nate Edenfield
The Bedell Firm
Admitted: Taking the Bar

“Most of my graduating class from UF converged on the same St. Petersburg hotel to take classes that were part of a Bar review course. We worked hard and enjoyed each other’s company, knowing that after the exam our careers would disperse us to cities across Florida and the nation. Rufus Pennington and I were new associates at the Bedell firm and had met the legendary Chester Bedell during the short time between graduation and the Bar review course. We could not know that that brief acquaintance would be the only time we were to have to learn from him, as he died while we were taking the exam.”