The California bar exam begins on Tuesday morning, less than three days from now. Tomorrow is the last full day I have to prepare; on Monday morning we are traveling to the exam site and exploring the environs. We have decided that once we eat dinner on Monday night, there will be no more last-minute studying. As a practical matter, though, I suspect the last-minute studying will end when we arrive at the hotel, check in, and lug our stuff up to the suite.
But I am tired of studying anyway. It feels pretty strange to have so much detailed, specifically organized, and potentially useful information crammed into my head. I think the contents of my skull must be something akin to a supersaturated fluid right now. On Friday, the pressure will be released, everything will fall out of solution, and I will probably never again remember eight different ways to terminate an easement (estoppel, necessity ending, destruction by other than a willful act of the owner of the servient tenement, condemnation of the servient tenement, release in writing, abandonment, merger of title to the easement and the servient tenement in the same person, prescription).
If I really wanted to waste time and chase readers away, I could probably sit here for the rest of the night and spew legal rules all over the page. Does anybody want to know what the landlord’s rights are when a tenant breaches the duty to pay rent while out of possession of the leased premises? How about all the elements of the M’Naghten, Model Penal Code, Durham, and “irresistible impulse” tests for insanity? Requirements for a corporate officer or director to recover permissive indemnification for litigation expenses? Didn’t think so.
For the last few days, there has hardly been a moment when I haven’t been thinking about legal rules for the bar exam. If you had a conversation with me during the last three days, I was probably not paying much attention to you. Instead, I was thinking thoughts like, “So the Federal Rules of Evidence allow a judgment of conviction for a felony to come in as an exception to the hearsay rule to prove any fact essential to that judgment, but under the California Evidence Code that only works in civil cases. I have to remember to note the California distinction if that comes on the exam. Remember, evidence question, criminal case, hearsay, felony judgment, California distinction. Oh, and stop forgetting about Proposition 8 every time you look at an evidence question involving a criminal case. Evidence, criminal case, Proposition 8. Remember.”
It sort of reminds me of that one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Commander Data has a girlfriend. They kiss and the following dialogue ensues:
Girlfriend Jenna: What were you just thinking?
Data: In that particular moment, I was reconfiguring the warp field parameters, analyzing the collected works of Charles Dickens, calculating the maximum pressure I could safely apply to your lips, considering a new food supplement for Spot . . .
Jenna: I’m glad I was in there somewhere.
It’s not a terribly interesting way to exist. Exhausting, too. But when I go to bed tonight, all of this will keep running, absent a pharmaceutical intervention. “Don’t forget that Congress can consent to a state law burdening interstate commerce and discriminating against residents of other states. Don’t forget Proposition 8. Don’t forget to mention every document and person referred to in the file if a performance test requires fact-gathering. Don’t forget that false light invasion of privacy can overlap with defamation. Don’t forget that when a fraudulent representation prevents a testator from revoking his or her will, the will is not probated, but the intestate heirs may take only as constructive trustees for the intended beneficiaries.” You get the idea.
It’ll be pretty disappointing if I fail and have to do this again.