I have good moral character

Or at least that's what the state bar of California thinks. To get bar privileges you need to basically tell the state where you've been and what you've been doing since birth, and then give references who will basically say that "yes, it's true, chardrian has never been convicted of a felony." I remember the Wisconsin one being worse than California's but California took longer to determine that I am in fact morally qualified to practice law here.

Now, whether or not I am legally qualified (by passing this stupid test) is a whole other question. At this point I am feeling very overwhelmed, which is a rare feeling for me (I am generally verrrrrrrrrrrry laid back). Mostly because there is just too much stuff and I haven't memorized it yet, but also because I keep turning in these damn practice essays to my Bar/Bri course and keep failing them. Not only did I never fail an exam in law school, but I was usually towards the top of my class and now I keep failing which is not very good positive reinforcement.

Mostly, it's because I need to dumb it down a bit. You are supposed to use a system called IRAC where you first spot the issue, then you state the rule of law that applies to that issue, then you apply the facts to the rule and issue, and finally you give a conclusion. I was taught to give a conclusion at the beginning and at the end because judges want to know up front what you are arguing so I need to stop doing that I guess. And I also will often join the rule with the facts because it makes it a lot quicker and I think easier to read. But my reader doesn't seem to like that either, so I guess I will try and break it down more.

The whole thing is still pretty dumb though I think. A huge part of the exam is simply memorizing rules and their exceptions (e.g. contracts for goods over $500 must be in writing to be enforceable pursuant to the Statutue of Frauds - and then there are a whole bunch of exceptions to the rule). But in real practice, you don't really need to have any of these rules memorized because you can always just look them up. So my law school training focused more on spotting issues and then learning how to apply facts to rules rather than memorizing rules (except for Evidence I can't think of a class where we were not allowed to use an outline). This exam, on the other hand, focuses more on memorizing the stupid rules and there are just kazillions of them to memorize.

Anyhoo, I am still hating studying. But if I pass the exam at least I am now qualified to practice here.