Congratulations to all who passed the February 2008 Connecticut Bar Exam.
If you click on the link above you will see the names of those who passed the bar exam.
The page is nothing more than a list of names.
I was there and I’ll never forget it. This list is the way test takers first find out whether or not they passed.
Literally, you click on the webpage and if your name appears then you are in and if not, it’s back to the books.
The judicial branch sends you a letter along with a bunch of information when you sign up to take the bar exam that provides the date and time the results will be posted. Usually, it is 10 a.m. on a Friday in either late April or September.
Finding out that I passed the bar exam was one of the great moments of my life. Looking at the list, I can see the smiles and hear the phones ring. I can feel the pounding of the F5 key that was going on Friday morning. I can see the joy on the bartender’s face when he or she realizes that a group of people who have passed the bar have stopped by for “lunch.”
I empathize with those who opened that link on Friday only to come up empty in the search for their name. For those test takers, they deal have to deal with both failing the bar and knowing that everyone knows that they failed. It’s real harsh.
When I look at that page I get the same feeling that I get when I am reviewing someone’s birth or death certificate. The paper is cold. Nothing but names and numbers. Death certificates list the decendant’s occupation which usually reads something like: teacher. A death certifcate does not come close to telling the story of a person’s life.
And this cold webpage, doesn’t come close to telling the stories of those who logged in early Friday morning.