Before I get to the point I want to get to, you have to know two things:

1) There’s this thing called the “Rule Against Perpetuities,” which (aside from being impossibly complex in application) is, judging by how many questions on the bar exam deal with it, the pillar upon which the entire American judicial system rests.

2) If, on the bar exam, a high enough percentage of test-takers get a multiple-choice question wrong, the bar will throw the question out.

NOW, I’m not taking the BarBri bar review course, so I’m getting this story second hand, but HERE GOES:

BarBri says that if a long Rule Against Perpetuities question comes up on the multiple-choice, you should just pick ANSWER (A) and move on. The idea is, if enough people get it wrong, they’ll toss it out.

Not sure how this will work out. Seems like there’s a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation going on here: if you suspect that a question is going to be thrown out (because it’s long and tough and you think others will all pick (A)), and if you think there’s a slightly-greater than 25% chance that one of the non-(A) answer choices is right, then you have the luxury of picking that particular non-(A) answer, banking on the other test-takers not following suit. BUT if other test-takers realize this and they too go for the non-(A) answers, banking on other test-takers guessing (A), then the whole system won’t work.

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On Friday night at 1AM, I ran into one of my classmates at Sigara, which is a hookah lounge in Wicker Park.  I’m pretty sure this guy was at the very top of our graduating class.  Here’s the story he recounted to me:

“My cousin took the bar last year.  He said he did barely any studying in June.  He constantly left the BarBri review lectures early, and got wasted every night.  A week before the exam, reality hit; he got serious and spent every single hour studying.  And guess what?  He passed.  He told me this: “If you just study for one hour every day, you’ll be fine.”

And now, a somewhat related statistic: Last year, of all the students in the upper-half of DePaul’s graduating class (of 220 or so), all but six passed the bar. 

So what the hell am I supposed to do with this anecdote and statistic?  Using them as an excuse to study less?  Probably not.  Any suggestions?

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There’s an old saying that goes like this: “I once complained that I had no shoes, but then I met a man who had no feet.”

My classmates are doing a lot of complaining about how much studying they’re doing for the bar exam.  And yes, I myself occasionally indulge in the art of complaining on this blog.  But maybe I have no right; I spent the night hanging out with my friend Samir, a recent med school graduate who’s about to begin his residency…working 80-hour weeks.  Plus, he’s going into plastic surgery, which means he won’t get a paycheck until he’s like 34 or something. 

More med school fun here: HawkeMedSchoolBlog, and here:AnotherGoodMedSchoolBlog. 

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I’m moving into week three of my bar exam studies, and today I learned about secured transactions…which was good because as of yesterday, I HAD NO CLUE WHAT A SECURED TRANSACTION WAS.  Swear to God.  I thought it was some sort of bank transfer that was carefully monitored. 

I’m excited to learn what a “commercial paper” is next week.  Do any non-lawyers have any guesses?  Is it a memorandum regarding a television advertisement?  Is it a sheet of paper for sale?  Who knows?!  (Well, all my classmates, for starters.  And most of the people who are reading this blog, I suspect. And these guys: MichiganLawyerBlog, CooleyLawBlog, NYLawBlog.)

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Last night I was doing some midnight bar exam studying at the Peninsula Hotel. (It’s not as impressive as it sounds; I’ve been waking up around 10:30 and going to bed around 3:00.)

Walking out of the hotel, I saw two guys in their early 30s taking photos of each other with digital cameras.

“Would you like me to take a picture of you two together?” I offered.

“No,” one of the guys said, and he said it as if he were offended. And then, as I walked away, he added, “It’s not like we’re f#*kin’ gay.”

So the lesson of the day is this: apparently asking people if they want to be in a photo together is very presumptuous.

Woke up and went to the Hyatt hotel to study for the bar exam. Came back to my apartment for lunch. Went to the Peninsula hotel to study for the bar exam. Came back to my apartment to work out. Went to the Intercontinental hotel to study for the bar exam. Came back to my apartment to write this blog entry, watch LOST, and go to sleep.

Wait...this is probably the sort of day I shouldn't be blogging about...sorry!

I’ve got my Wills, Trusts, and Estate final on Monday…and the studying isn’t going well. Rather, it is going well, but there’s not much of it. In the past week, I’ve had to make one 9-1-1 call, file one Missing Person Report, speak to two police officers (one at length), and two detectives.

Long story short: I got involved with somebody who had gotten involved with the wrong people.

And I’m supposed to focus on studying…how?