Adam Ferber is the former Examinations Director for the State Bar of California and grader of 40 California Bar and First-Year Law Students’ Examinations. He provides intensive, individualized tutoring and coaching to applicants for both exams at www.ferberbarreview.com
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity.”
Viktor Frankl
We can stipulate that studying for the California Bar Examination is an ordeal, not to mention taking it. Can we please move on from there?
Everyone has an opinion concerning the best way to pass the exam. Only one opinion really counts though – yours!
So let me ask you. Do you have a plan – your plan and not just an imitation of someone else’s? What kind of internal training are you going to do for those three days? How are you going to find the strength to get you through?
My mentor right out of law school was the well-respected appellate judge whom I clerked for. We were close, I thought, and so one day I screwed up my courage and asked him if he had any regrets about his life in the law. His answer surprised me, and it stayed with me. He wished, he said, that he’d been braver from the very first day of law school; that he had trusted himself more.
There’s a clue there. While you battle through your studies and those three days this July, picture the you of the future. What attributes of character are you going to bring to your profession? What attributes of character are you going to bring to your preparation for this examination? The answers to those questions are every bit as important as any rule of law.
Copyright 2010 Adam Ferber and www.ferberbarreview.com. Reprinted by permission.
