Month: March 2015

Government-issued ID that is current and contains a recent, recognizable photo, as well as our date of birth

Clear plastic bag (maximum size 1 gallon)

Non-mechanical pencils with erasers

Pencil sharpener

Hygiene product

Unwrapped cough drops

Off we went this morning, bag in tow, to take the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. We left the house nearly two hours early, flagged a car driven by a nice man from Nigeria, and headed down the FDR to the 70s, where we asked the driver to deposit us at a Starbucks near the test center.

Without a smartphone or watch to guide us – both items grounds for dismissal from the test center and cancellation of our scores – we asked others for the time. “It’s 7:45,” said a woman of about 60 with shaggy hair and a service dog — a yellow retriever — without looking up from her phone. Minutes later we spied a clock – with hands and a big dial – atop a post at the corner of 75th St. and First Ave., in case you’re on the Upper East Side and want to know the time and have neither a watch nor a phone nor a woman with a service dog.

At what felt like the right moment – not too early and not too late – we headed to the test center, which doubles as a high school named for Eleanor Roosevelt. We thought that might improve our fortunes because we would have voted for her husband for president had we been alive and at least 21 years old in 1932, 1936, 1940 or 1944.

Alas, we weren’t, which may explain what happened next. The lesson, if you read no further, is to thank your proctor the next time one does right by you and your fellow examinees. Ours didn’t.

“Once time has been called, all pencils are to be put down and no more marks are to made on the answer sheet,” according to the instructions set forth in the test day summary, which runs four pages.

The reverse side of the answer sheet contains, among other fields, a paragraph that examinees must transcribe, sign and date, all in our handwriting. Transcribing the paragraph takes about three or four minutes, depending on one’s handwriting and how carefully one transcribes. We thought we should try to write legibly.

We imagined that the proctor might instruct examinees to complete the paragraph at the start of the session, as part of filling in fields for biographical information on the answer sheet. Though the proctor provided about three minutes to fill in the biographical fields, he failed to state clearly that we should complete the fields on the reverse side of the answer sheet too.

Though we intuited a responsibility to fill in the fields, when we looked up from filling in our name, the last four digits of our Social Security number and other information on the front of the answer sheet – and we affirm that we filled in the information promptly, as instructed – we saw that a student to our right who holds a Brazilian passport had opened his booklet and started the test.

We asked the proctor, aloud, whether time had begun. He answered that it had, much to the surprise of everyone but the Brazilian, judging by the gasps from a majority of students in the room, who, like us, had yet to open their test books. Of course, as soon as the proctor told us that we could start the exam, we did.

That meant that we had yet to finish transcribing the paragraph. Thus, with about four minutes remaining in the 120 minutes allotted for the test, we stopped reviewing our answers so that we might finish transcribing. We thought, based on the instructions quoted above, when the proctor called time that no more marks would be permitted on the answer sheet. That pencils down means pencils down.

Nevertheless, after calling time, the proctor announced that we could continue to transcribe the paragraph on the reverse side of the answer sheet.

Had we known the proctor would allot the time, we could have devoted at least four more minutes to reviewing answers that we might have doubted on the first pass. Sometimes we return to answer choices later and the correct answer seems clear. Thus, in a test where time is of the essence, four minutes may mean the difference between a correct or incorrect answer, which in turn may determine whether we pass and become attorneys-at-law.

The failure by the proctor to administer time as laid out in the rules of the test contravened the instructions provided to examinees. We found the experience to be maddening.

We suppose we’re sad because the day was supposed to culminate a year of study. On Friday, we took photographs, like the one above, in the library, to memorialize the time we spent in the stacks.

The time had its charms. Besides drinking coffee, we browsed whole shelves on the history of colonialism in Africa, the rise of Mao and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. We learned that Mao purged some of his fellow revolutionaries. We skimmed a history of the East India Company that included something about pepper merchants in Antwerp.

We made outlines. Though the better term might be built outlines because we layer them in over time. With successive rounds of study, the outline starts to feel comfortable in the hand. It acquires a weight, markings and wear that eventually become part of us. That stands in contrast with the start of the process, when every entry feels awkward and difficult to set down on the page.

Item in our outline: “For purposes of the attorney-client privilege, the relationship between and attorney and client starts when someone seeks legal services.” The rule is plain enough, but the process of arriving at that sentence took weeks. The words told us, finally, what we needed to know.

We hoped that Friday might conclude this latest stretch in the stacks, where we’ve been regulars the past year. “Welcome back,” the guard at the entrance to the library greeted us, smiling, when we arrived Friday. “Thank you, sir,” we answered, smiling back.

Depending on the outcome of the test, we may be reprising that greeting in the months to come.