My Journey to the New York Bar - Exam Day Two

Once again I was already awake at ridiculous o'clock (around 3.30am) because my body clock was still in UK time!

I did a bit of light reading the night before in preparation for the second day but it was more of a refresher, going through some notes rather than try to cram in new information on top of what I already knew.

I took my time in the morning to get ready and have breakfast and kept my mind as clear as possible. No stress and no over analysing! Sam came to pick me up again and we drove to the exam venue.

 I was pretty confident, not over confident but not in doubt or uncertain whether I was ready for the exams. I had prepared myself better this time round and focused on strengthening my knowledge on the topics I struggled with last time.

Enduring an exam that has 200 multiple choice questions which you sit for a total of six hours in one day (which is spilt into two, three hour segment), is not easy at all. Especially when the exam covers seven different areas of law and you have no idea how they will appear on the exam.

Question one could be contract law, question two evidence, questions three criminal law and question four another contracts question. You literally have about 1.8 minutes to read through the question (some are long scenarios), then eliminate the irrelevant information, pinpoint the relevant parts, understand exactly what it is they are asking you, narrow it down to main legal issue, remember the rules, apply the relevant rules to the question and from the four question answers available, choose the one that is the answer you've came up with or the one that is as close as possible to the answer you came up with in your head.

Tricky as it may be, it's a skill required to be a good lawyer and after sitting the bar exam, I understand why this exam is known as one of the most difficult exams to take within the global legal profession and why it's so highly regarded and respected, once you have it under your belt.

Fast forward to the end of the exam and I was ready to get out of there and rest! It really does take a lot out of you. I didn't take a flight back to NYC from Buffalo and instead decided to catch a bus and enjoy a nine hour journey from upstate New York to Manhattan. Yes, nine hours.

I didn't have time to do any sightseeing or get to know the area during my 7 day stay in Buffalo as my sole purpose of being there was for the exams. So, I took the opportunity to have a mini road trip and see what there was to upstate New York through the window of a bus.

The bus actually drove through Pittsburg Pennsylvania and other surrounding cities before reaching Manhattan. I took videos of places we drove through and it was interesting to see the different type of neighbourhoods there were from trailer park area to brown wooden houses by the lakes, small villages and towns.

 I left Buffalo at 6am and arrived in New York shortly after 3pm. My flight back to London was a night flight to I had enough time to get to the airport. Then it was time to go home...