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    I failed the New Jersey Bar Exam. Back in the day, the pass rate was something around two-thirds, but that meant that there was a certain amount of people that failed. Don't ask me to do the math. Its hard. But, I was devistated. I was embarassed. I was out a couple hundred bucks to take the test, a grand for the bar prep class, oh, and had obtained law school loans of a small South American dictatorship which I shall be paying off with Social Security checks.

 

    Don't get me wrong, I studied. I studied harder for that thing longer, and harder than anything than I ever studied for in my life. Which, actually, is saying something. For about two months, every day, every hour, every thought - was directed at that god-damned test. I had flash-cards. I had wall charts. I had notes over the toilet, which, I have no shame to tell you that to this day, I become "pee shy" any time anyone mentions the Rule Against Perpetuities.

 

    I grew a goatee. I listened to lectures from BarBri on the treadmill. I watched the Rocky series, over and over and over. When the weekend of the test came, I was mentally ripped, psyched up like a caged animal and ready to release a can of whoopass all over that bad boy. Do you smell what Jersey Todd is cooking? Yeah, right, I know - I do hard-core macho like Paris Hilton does intellectual.

 

    Now let me explain to you my bar exam story. I first drove from Wilmington, Delaware where I lived at the time, having graduated Widener University School of Law down to Valley Forge, PA, the site of the PA bar exam. 

 

    I get there and in the parking lot of the hotel that everyone who is taking the test, there is a car all trashed looking, and someone had spray-painted the word "NAFA" all over it. I had no idea what that meant. Bizarre. "NAFA" didn't ring a bell. And you must remember, that I am like over nervous at this point. I am on edge. I am caffinated. I am just 100% raw. Let me take a step back and explain what I was wearing - because its relevant. A year earlier, my parents had gone on a vacation, and they bought be back a t-shirt from a bar that said "Fat Cats." Comfortable shirt, and I hadn't thought anything of it. Now this was the type of hotel, where you had to take the elevator to the main desk to check in. So, I get into the elevator and in walk three of the biggest women that I think I have ever seen in my life. I mean not just chubby. Not just pleasantly plump. I mean buffaloes. I mean I think I heard the cable to the elevator say, "oh shit" when it saw them. But the worst part is that they are staring at me like I am like a fried-ham dipped in chocolate and then refried in happy juice. They looked like they were about to devour me. Again, I didn't get it, but that was the most uncomfortable yet oddly flattering 30-seconds of an elevator ride in my life.

 

    We get out of the elevator, and the sign at the front desk says, "Welcome PA Bar Exam and National Association of Fat Americans Conference." And me, with my "Fat Cats" T-shirt realized at that very moment that there is indeed a god, and they find great amusement in torturing me.

 

    The next two days was the PA bar exam, and I was rocking. One whole day of multiple choice questions for 8-hrs, and another day of essays covering something like 32-subjects, of which you were expected to be an expert in each, and for the most part, those two days, I was. Don't ask me to do it again. I doubt that I could. Following the second day, since most of the room was taking the PA and NJ exams, we all had to check out of our hotel in PA, and travel down the Turnpike, over the bridge, into New Jersey.

 

    Let me explain, how this Cannonball run went. We had over a hundred, burnt out, exhausted lawyers, who haven't slept in say - two months - whose, in their addled mind, believed that there entire future rested solely upon their actions this weekend. And then, they told us to drive. I am proud to say that I made it, but at least five people got into serious car accidents which precluded them from taking the test. One guy ended up at a Hooters somewhere in Cherry Hill, and was never heard from again.

 

    The next morning, having failed to eat anything for fear of puking I took the next 8-hours of Jersey specific bar exam. No it had nothing to do with Mobsters or toxic waste. That's too easy a joke. But again, I was rocking. I was arrogant. I even went as far in my essays to question the validity of some of the questions themselves. To say that I was on fire, would be an understatement.

 

    And just like that, it was over. It was done. It was out of my hands.

 

    Four months of agony later, my results came. I had passed the PA exam. To this day, I still am in shock that I pulled it off. However, I had failed the New Jersey exam. To make matters worse, I failed it by .5 - less than half a point.

 

    Life went on. The New Jersey Judge that I was working for at the time was decent about it. My friends and family were sympathetic. I looked around at getting a job in philly, and I went back to work at passing the thing. Six months later, I went back to the same convention hall and took the god-damned test again, played the thing a whole lot more conservatively, and almost a year to day from when I graduated law school, I found out that I had passed the New Jersey bar. The rest of the story, well, that's been going on for nearly ten years.

 

    I tell you this story not to toot my own horn, or to educate you about the bar exam. In fact, trying to condense the universal panic and terror of the bar exam into a small essay is absolute misnomer. Unless you've been through it, its impossible to explain fully. I tell you this story, to tell you another story -that of the bar exam story of Shannon Kelly.

 

    In 2003, Shannon Kelly graduated Barry University School of Law, in Florida. Last year, he took the bar exam in West Virginia. In response to his stated disability, the State of West Virginia allowed him to have exam booklets that were specially printed in 18-point type, let him take the test in a private room, and check this - gave him an extra day to finish. Despite bending over backward like a double-jointed limbo dancer, Shannon still, like a nice percentage of the West Virginia test takers, did not pass.

 

    He wants to try again, but this time he wants an additional accommodation. He has sued to be given all of the above accommodations, plus an additional day to finish the test. While in law school, his Barry U professors gave him twice the normal time to finish his exams. Twice the normal time for the West Virginia bar would be four days.

 

    Kelly's lawyer, Edward McDevitt, says that the Board has violated Kelly's rights as a disabled person under the ADA.

     "He has invested enormous time, money and energy to reach the threshold of the profession," explained McDevitt. "But he has severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming."

     Now, I don't want to make fun of Shannon Kelly. That would be wrong. I don't know what his deficiencies are, and I don't want to assume. At the end of the day, he graduated with a juris doctorate from Barry University in 2003. Originally, Barry U was called The University of Orlando Law School. Its inaugural law school class on Sept. 18 1995. The first year the law school had only evening and weekend courses and a full time faculty of four professors. A school whose first graduating class was in 2000 with 17-graduates, and received ABA accreditation only a year before Kelly graduated. So, I'm not going to say anything negative about Kelly or Barry University, I'm just going to leave you to your own opinion. Nudge. Nudge. Wink. Wink. Trade school. Ahem. Kinda probably shouldn't have gone to law schoo in the first place.

      But, Kelly's lawsuit to acquire additional accomodations is now pending before Judge David Faber, who originally denied Kelly's request for the July. Let me give some unsolicited advice to Judge Faber: "No, No, Nein, Nunca" or as we say in Joisey - "fuggetaboutit."

     As much as Kelly should be proud of his achievements to date, his lawyer says that he has trouble with processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming. Hey, the bar exam is a test of cognitive fluency, rapid naming and processing speed. It is a test that is partially fraternity hazing, but in most part a test to see if you can do the essential functions of the job. No Judge in their right mind is going to allow you an extra two days to write a brief. The Court Rules don't get extended just because you claim a disability. If the Rules say that you have to submit an Answer to a Complaint within 30-days, damn it, that generally means 30-days.

    I'm all for reasonable accomodations, but at the end of the day, there has to be a line where reasonable accomodations end and start being called special privileges. At the end of the day, if Kelly isn't quick enough, or smart enough, or able to retain enough it does him no good to actually pass the bar. Is he going to charge clients at a reduced rate? Is any Judge going to give him special accomodations based on his disability. Is his clients going to give him a pass when he doesn't get the results that they paid him for? Or are they just going to sue him for malpractice.  

    I'm sure I could play in the NBA if they would just give me a bigger ball, stilts, and made Shaq play on his knees. Actually, Shaq would still be taller than me. I'm sure I could do brain surgery if they just told the patient that I needed more time to complete the surgery. I mean really, look what happened when we elected a President that needed special accomodations? Jeez.

     No. I'm sorry. Its enough. Take the test a thousand times Shannon. I hope you pass, someday. I hope that you do so under the same buck-toothed standards that the rest of the West Virginia Bar had to endure. Doing so would just lower the bar for the profession. Its a hard, unfair world, and I really really respect the effort but I don't think that its fair to make an accomodation over the essential functions of the job - in the same way that you wouldn't let an airline pilot only fly with one eye.

     And if you do pass, I hear that the folks at the National Association of Fat Americans are looking for an attorney. They don't pay well, but I understand that they give a generous food allowance.