To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
Speed typing this morning, because apparently I left the power cord to this computer in the plane. Or in the Uber in Tallahassee yesterday. Let's hope for the plane.
Yesterday went blessedly according to plan. Depositions actually ended a little early, allowing me to leave Tallahassee just after four and arrive at KELM a little after eight. And other than some light rime ice over Greensboro and unusually high cylinder head temperatures climbing out of KTLH, it was all completely uneventful. Mostly I read a book on my Kindle and looked out the window.
The book was Red Notice, in case you're curious. My friend Doug recommended it. The author seems awfully self-congratulatory about making hundreds of millions of dollars on the privatization of the assets of the former Soviet Union, but the story is mostly well-written and a fascinating look at how the ridiculously rich got that way. Lots and lots of intellect and drive, with a heaping helping of luck and timing.
Speaking of self-congratulation, a letter was waiting for me in my email when I landed last night, informing me that I had passed the New York Bar Exam. Although I don't need a bar card up here to make a living, the outcome of this exercise weighed on me for reasons that say a lot about this phase of life. A long, long time ago, I over-studied for the Florida Bar Exam, spending every waking moment I wasn't at work (I couldn't afford to take the summer off to study like most of my friends) crouched over a Barbri outline or tackling a battery of practice questions until the big trip to Tampa in July of 1997. I ended up getting what turned out to be a very, very high score, and in a town the size of Panama City everyone knew it because the score landed me a spot on the agenda at the swearing-in ceremony at the Florida Supreme Court, giving five minutes of remarks on behalf of the newbie lawyers.
So around the courthouse I was always that guy who aced the bar. Why risk that label by taking another bar exam a quarter century later? A lot of my sense of identity was all rolled up with that first exam score.
And to make matters worse, this time around I was the managing partner of one of the firm's offices, billing and worrying about personnel and receipts while flying the Columbia between Corning, Panama City, and Wyldswood. I bought the fancy bar review course, which included a tracking function that reminded me whenever I logged on that I'd completed maybe 20% of what the course prescribed at any given time. The bar review nanny even emailed me every now and then, asking what in the hell was going on because they hadn't seen me in a while.
I finally hunkered down in the last week or two before the exam, skipping the lectures and taking practice exams with automatic scoring and explanatory answers unpacking why I missed the questions I missed. The first time through I passed, but barely. Toward the end I was passing with maybe eight points of slop, which on a scale of 200 was not much cause for comfort. I traveled to Buffalo for the exam with a fair amount of trepidation.
But yesterday's letter informed that I passed with 46 points to spare, not a home run as in 1997 but a solid double, or maybe a triple. Not bad for an old, scattered guy who didn't really get to study.
Of course, all this is just so much moonshine; every point above the passing score reflects wasted effort preparing. I could've billed during that time and made a little money instead.
Unfortunately, my travails with the New York Board of Law Examiners aren't quite over. The BOLE requires that one pass two tests, the Uniform Bar Exam and the New York Law Exam (NYLE). In order to sit for the NYLE, one must complete the New York Law Course, which is comprised of maybe forty hours of online lectures with little practice questions laced in between to make sure you're watching. If you've had to go to online traffic school for a speeding ticket, you know the drill.
I completed the NYLC all the way back in November of 2020, figuring I'd take the NYLE that December and the UBE the following February. Then the BOLE decided that us oldsters were not eligible for the UBE because Covid had forced them to administer it online, resulting in fewer slots that were, in turn, reserved mostly for kids right out of law school rather than practicing attorneys. The catch here is that the NYLC is only good for a year, so I spent an excruciating forty or so hours this past January, watching the whole damned thing again before taking and passing the NYLE last month.
But apparently the BOLE didn't update the fact that I'd re-watched it, and sent me a nasty-gram last night along with the congratulatory letter, informing me my NYLE score was invalid because it had been more than a year since I took the NYLC. So, I can take the course a third time and re-take the exam in June, or petition the court for some sort of good cause reason to let the score stand. Or both--knowing that the wheels of justice turn very, very, slowly, the most likely scenario entails filing the petition and then re-taking the test while I wait for the court to rule. I've been practicing law for a long time. I know the drill.
But for now I'll just relish the fact that I passed the tough part--the NYLE was a very easy, open-note test, but the UBE was a bear. No matter what, it's all downhill from here.
Time to pull myself together for a quick case management conference by Zoom, then maybe an executive session with a condo board, then hopefully out to the airport to find the power cord for this computer in the backseat of N223SM. Still a little muddy-headed after staying up way too late talking with P, savoring an evening neither wanted to end. I'll rally, however, and maybe reward both of us after P gets off work with a trip around the links at the CCC on an absolutely gorgeous spring day here in the Southern Tier.
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