The Five People You Meet At Bar Review

Based on the immensely popular book by Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, we would like to present a guide to those who are taking the Bar this Summer (or who want to re-live the Bar experience) to the folks you are already meeting and how to best deal with them:

The Harvard Person/The Law Firm Bag Person – There is at least one person, and most likely more than one person, in your bar review class who has managed to wear a Harvard t shirt to every class.  Close by (or sometimes the same person) is their related cousin, the person with a bag embroidered with their white shoe, soon-to-be-employer. Really?  You made it through college and law school without a law firm logo on your bag, but all of a sudden you can only find your law firm bag for bar review?  Secretly we like that intimidation factor, but it still makes you sort of a douche.

The Front Row Gunner – This is the guy or gal (or 40 of them) that gets to 9 am class at 805 am to get the front row seat for the video lecture.  It is good for focus so we respect that, but just know that law school is over and now you are just making strangers, instead of just classmates, dislike you.

The Latecomer – By week 3 of Bar Review it is going to be clear that this person has no intention of ever being on time.

The You Went To Law School ? Person – For ladies this is the legally blond looking woman who still believes that bar prep is a chance to impress with her fashion or begin/continue husband/boyfriend hunting (the official policy of CAL is “If you Got It, Flaunt It”).  For guys it is the shaggy haired, hemp necklace guy who seems far too earthy and granola for law school (but it is most likely a last front of desperation before he starts working for Big Law to pay off his crunchy loans).

The Person Who Wants to Re-Do Law School and Make More Friends At Bar Review – This guy or girl is going to want to have a standing lunch appointment with you by week 2 because law school did not work out as college 2.0. This is their last chance to forge a friendship before life-consuming work begins.  So what the hell – be nice to them.  Odds are they are social misfits because they were too busy getting kick ass grades.  In 20 years, sharing a few sandwich breaks now may pay off for you.

comediansatlaw.com/the-five-people-you-meet-at-bar-review

The Things You MUST Know Before and After the Bar Exam

 

(from Comedians-at-law)

                    To all of our fans and friends that recently said goodbye to the nonstop party of law school we offer our condolences as you battle sweltering heat and endless hours of BARBRI lectures for the next several weeks.  But look on the bright side: you will be done with the exam at the end of July and then you get to go off to work, possibly conduct more job searches and if you are fortunate enough to be employed this fall, it will only be three nerve wracking months til you know if you passed.  We at Comedians At Law would like to offer you some tips on how to cope with this grueling 6 month process from studying all the way to finding out your results.

PART 1: STUDYING TIPS

• Pay Attention.  Back in our day (which was only 7-8 years ago for some of us) there was no Facebook and no Twitter and no sexting.  We recommend that you shut down the first two til the end of July and only do the third if you are very attractive, even after the bar is done.
• Find a Comfortable Place to Study.  When this writer was studying for the bar it took going to three different public libraries in NYC until finding one that did not have a homeless man washing his genitals in the bathroom sink. But discovering that perfect library made all the difference.
• Take this time to be extra rude to your family and friends.  This will be one of the few times you can be irritable and rude and it will be forgiven, so ham it up.  This one was mainly for the gentlemen. Ladies, continue to do so every four weeks. HEY-O!
• Still get a good tan (if you tan) going for the Summer.  It may seem like a waste of time, but if you fail and find out in November you still want to look decent when you have to study all over again.

PART 2: EXAM TAKING

• When in doubt make stuff up.  Seriously, rather than leave an essay blank just start acting like Brick from Anchorman if he had gone to law school.  Just throw out how many legal terms you love in a paragraph.  You may get a point or two and that may make all the difference.
• Wear adult diapers.  Only losers take bathroom breaks.  Or are you vomiting like Eminem in the beginning of 8 Mile?  Either way it is never too soon to separate yourself from the lawyers who will become middle management or stand up comedians.
• Get drunk after day 1 of the Exam.  Nothing psyches your fellow exam takers out like seeing you let loose halfway through.  It is the legal equivalent of calling your Babe Ruth shot.

PART 3: POST EXAM

• Apologize to people for following Part 1 of this strategy.
• Tell everyone that you thought everything was easy.
• Get to the gym ASAP fatty.
• Continue job searching if applicable.

PART 4: WHEN THE RESULTS COME OUT

• Check them by yourself.  Important for step 2
• Tell everyone you passed, even if you did not and ESPECIALLY if you do not have a job lined up.
• If you did pass – congratulations. Make someone buy you drinks at the end of the day.
• If you did not pass – still say you passed and then disappear for about 4-6 months as you do it all over again.

comediansatlaw.com/the-things-you-must-know-before-and-after-the-bar-exam

The business of a business plan

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                 Aaaah, the business of making a business plan for a prospective business. I guess it has relegated into planning the business of making a business plan for a prospective business. It has been roiling in my mind all these years; YEARS, mind you. Not months, but years. Plan, plan, plan. I now got to writing about it but not yet executing it: the writing of the business plan itself; don't even get me started about turning that plan into reality. That would take a whole new different universe of problems all its own. And perhaps more time, hopefully not years. (Toink, jeez, gee whiz, haler, whatevah: these are the voices I'm hearing in my head right now.)

                  For now, i'll put under wraps what type of business i'll get into (no, it's not monkey business smart ass , wink; also not show business), although i'll hazard to divulge as far to say that  it involves media services. But if you're interested in financing it, i'll give you a presentation, with handouts de rigeur, cocktails, dancing lights, background orchestra optional. Please keep in touch with me in Comments. Or let's do lunch. I'm not being facetious. 

                 For now cryptic information will suffice, lest my ideas might be stolen ha-ha.

                    Ideas, or more appropriately, facts and figures are what I have been scouting around in a local library. But the information I'm looking for is very specific and localized; by specific I mean hard numbers, by localized I mean something that applies to this part of the world. I haven't found the exact information and data that I really need. All the more the writing of my business plan gets delayed.

                     I have actually started writing it, now on my second page. There is no expected number of pages I have in mind: I just want all the information I need to be there, and supported by figures and projections.

                 If you have to get down to it, business plan consists mostly of projections, whether assumptions, surmises, or future figures.  This is where it gets tricky. It's really creating on paper what might be; putting into words and figures a yet-to-happen reality. This involves creative imagination, analysis, and perhaps, alchemy. My Business (and Legal) background may help, but I probably need more than that. 


                  And that more than that is what I need to fast track this endeavor: a spark, an inspiration, a stoke of genius! Where are theeeeeeese?!

                 In my future blog post, I'll share my  own business plan template (the parts, structure, what to include, what not to include, and all that stuff) and the how-to once I got mine going beyond this amorphous jumble of paragraphs and figures. 


                    Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some thinking and writing to do.
                    

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