Kristen passed the bar exam on the first shot.

Today she was admitted to practice in Connecticut.

In the words of the she-better-be-immortal Chion Wolf, “the life that Kristen Marcroft led to get to this point is remarkable.”  The remarkable story of Kristen’s remarkable life is Kristen’s story, and I won’t presume to tell it.

But she is remarkable.  And that’s really the whole thing about her.  Every attorney’s swearing in is special.  Mine was terrifying and wonderful and I still remember what my Dad ordered for lunch afterward at Bin 228.  I still order it (white bean and sage brushetta), in a sort of tribute to the club that allowed me in that day, and the family that got me to that day, and the life that I’ve been given the opportunity to lead because of that day.

But the judge that swore me in didn’t know me, and couldn’t say what Judge Kaplan said when he swore in Kristen: “You are terrific at what you’ve done and all of us are very proud of you.”

Kristen went through the fire to get to this day.  And her beautiful family went with her.  The Marcrofts are a lion pride.  They are smart; they are fierce; they are loving; they are loyal.  Their willingness to include me in their ranks is one of my greatest joys.  (And accomplishments.)  They are the most important force and thing to Kristen.  They are also our best friends.

Today Kristen gave our niece, Caroline, her bar certificate.  Caroline is now its Keeper, and it lives in her drawer of Very Important Things.

Kristen has also assembled a band of brilliant, funny, devoted friends who are each responsible for a piece of what happened today.  When you become Kristen’s friend, and she lets you in to her story, you find yourself part of her tribe, a knight vying for her favor.  Some are servers, some are educators, some are journalists, some are therapists, some are leaders, some are advocates.  All are her advocates, and her chosen extended family.

But this is remarkable Kristen’s remarkable day.  Her army of love didn’t do this, she did it.  And she did it her way, dammit.

Kristen Marcroft is engaged in the practice of law in the State of Connecticut.  I get to practice with her.

Luckiest.

This is what I would say to you, you, the person I get to sleep next to every night, the person who is (blessedly) now tonight breathing the measured in out in out in out of sleep.

I would say, I say, I love you.

I would say, I say, you will pass.

I would say, I say, we are lucky to have you.

I would say, I say, I am proud. And privileged.

And more than anything, I say thank you.

And, Oh.

I love you. To the moon. To the farthest star.

In case I didn’t mention that.

It is a month after the bar exam.  The day after the test Kristen and I hightailed it to the beach.  We spend a couple of days just the two of us in Provincetown and then a week higher on the Cape with her (our) wonderful family.  Kristen’s re-acclimation to “normal” life wasn’t without its bumps, but she managed it with her usual grace.

When we returned from vacation I had a little more than a week to finish out at my old job.  Meanwhile Ryan and Kristen plunged head first into FreedMcKeen, our new law firm.  I wrote about leaving over at A Connecticut Law Blog, where we are also documenting the transformation of our office from “There’s Potential” to (we hope, we hope, we hope) “That’s Beautiful.”  (If you are interested in the design or progress of the build-out of the office, we are documenting it visually on our Pinterest page.)

Starting a law firm is a lot of work.  Building a law office is a lot of work.  Doing both simultaneously is, well, a lot of work.

And one of the best things Kristen, Ryan, or I have ever done.

This past month has been a time of transition for all of us.  I am no longer Counsel to the Hartford Steam Boiler — a great job with greater people.  Kristen is no longer a law student or a full-time-plus bar exam studier.

Together with Ryan, we are now entrepreneurs, lawyers, kitchen designers, certified letter mailers, small business owners, lawyers, bathroom designers, check writers, general contractors, lawyers, website designers, almost daily bank visitors, Ikea regulars, interior designers, lawyers, stationary designers, wood rosette buyers, paralegals, shower door connoisseurs, PDFers, administrators, plumbing consultants, Quick Books specialists, bannister builders, lawyers, and painters.

And we are doing it together, and in our dining room.  Which is in our living room.  That over on the left is Ryan and Kristen at our “satellite office.”  We have a full, functional office in our condominium in large part thanks to Ryan’s lengthy, skilled, in-depth research on computers, programs, and assorted complimentary devices,  and Kristen’s unmatched organizational skills.  (I mean that.  Un.  Matched.)

From high-speed scanner to top-notch file management system we are the most technologically functional and almost entirely paperless law firm or company of which I’ve ever been a part.  And that’s before our office build-out is even complete.

We are really, really, lucky.  And although there are certainly moments where Kristen has time to stop and worry about her exam results, there are also motions to file, walls to build, and switch plates to buy.

We are learning, busy, happy, and well.

Not necessarily in that order.

Note from Meghan:  I asked Jennifer Warner Cooper, who just graduated with Kristen, to write a guest post for this blog in the aftermath of the bar exam.  She is, as you will see below, hilarious.

Dear Spring and Summer Companions,

I have a few thoughts to share with each of you about the relationships we’ve developed this season.

Property and Contracts, I’m sorry, I know that you like your individuality as much as the next guy, but in my mind you’re two of a kind. I spent so much time trying to reason with you boys and understand you but I am afraid that in the end, we are still not compatible. I find you very rigid, a little dull, and well–I’m sorry, but just not cool. It’s like you wear your pants pulled up too high. We can get together occasionally if necessary but with one little caveat: If you have an idiot that refuses to record a deed, you are on your own, fellas. I shall no longer deal with that type of flaming idiocy.

And you, Criminal Procedure. You, my friend, try hard to be fair but let’s face it, you are extremely judgmental and you make no apologies for it. (Samesies, gurll!!!)  Anyway, the only place where I see you being just a wee bit disingenuous is with that Good Faith exception to a crappy warrant. (Wink wink. We all know how THAT works.) But I’ll let you slide on that, and I hope to pass a bar exam eventually and catch up with you in the courtroom.

Ah, Evidence! Now don’t repeat this, but I’m a bit of gossip. It follows, then, that I adore you for the way you manage to get all kinds of juicy details and nasty comments made by people talking smack about one another into court. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me!”  You are indeed a sassy one. Let’s hang out!

Dear Torts and Criminal Law. Like me, you are fascinated by the evil deeds of others. (Is that wrong of us? Macabre? We should talk about this in detail over drinks sometime.) Also, like me, you are flabbergasted by the absolute NERVE some people have with the ridiculous, mean, stupid and dangerous things they do. What ARE these people thinking? Someone needs to keep the jackwagons under control, and I thank my lucky stars that you two are there to do the job. Never change. “You are beautiful, in every single way.”

Con Law, I love you. But I do understand that it is a presidential election year and that everyone in the country is professing undying love for you. You are justified in being wary and not giving your heart away prematurely. Let’s see who’s there for you after November, baby.

As for the rest of you—the  MEE posse—I have, I am afraid, some rather harsh words for you. You came crashing into my world in the darkest of nights like a marauding band of thieves. You held me hostage and robbed me of a sense of calm and control, not to mention hours upon hours of my precious time. You’re all nasty, but you, Bus Orgs, are, quite simply, despicable for that ambush you pulled on Essay 12. REALLY? What’s the problem? You don’t feel that you get enough attention? Get a shrink, dude; I cannot solve your problems for you. (Literally.) In any case, MEE subjects, now you’re just somebody that I used to know.

Allright, gang. It’s been real. I have a summer to catch up with right now. You just go quietly under the guest bed in that big Rubbermaid thing until September 28, at which time we will either get reluctantly reacquainted or have a good-sized bonfire. I’ll provide s’mores.

Best,

Cooper

I don’t know how you feel today.  Miserable?  Relieved?  Resigned?

I felt awful right after.  About a week post-bar I got to a place where I at least felt like I couldn’t do anything about it even if I had failed, and was able to go on and enjoy as much of the summer as possible until results were released in October — albeit with a low-grade case of fear that occasionally gathered enough strength to stop me in my tracks.

I wanted the comfort of a role model.  I wanted to know that even if I failed, life would go on.  I would still become a lawyer, and, with enough hard work, I would still become a great lawyer.

I googled to find really smart people who had failed the bar.  I vowed that if I failed the first time, and then went on to pass and become a successful attorney, I would always tell as many people as possible that I had originally failed.

Should you fail, it does not mean you aren’t smart.  It does not erase all your years of academic and street smarts.  You are you — as smart before the bar as after, regardless of test results.

Similarly, if you pass, it does not mean that you are smarter than your law school colleagues who didn’t.  It certainly doesn’t mean that you will be a better attorney.  It means that you did better on one test on two or three days of your life than they did, and, thank goodness, you don’t have to take the stupid thing again.

It will be okay.  Either way.  It will.

For our part, Kristen and I are heading to the beach.  Lobsters up and down Cape Cod are quaking in their boots for all the lobster rolls we’re about to eat.

Be well, and be kind to yourselves.

I struggle with scary and/or bloody television.  Inspired by our recent trip to England, we are currently re-watching The Tudors.  Last night, right before bed, we saw the episode where several Boleyn’s, in quick succession, are “cropped at the neck.”  Kristen indulged me with a lot of fast-forwarding.

For similar reasons I never got into True Blood — but the show seems fairly appropriate for the bar exam.  When Sheriff Andy Bellefleur from True Blood tried to allay Jason Stackhouse’s fears of taking the written exam to become a sheriff’s deputy, he said this:

Come on, it’s easy! You just shove all that stuff in your head, you write down your answers, and forget it the next day. Learn on the job like everybody else.

Go, Friends.  Go write down your answers.  You get to forget it all tomorrow.  Or tonight at 5:50 at the community flash card burning.

I saw Kristen at her lunch break today. I brought hot dogs.  I also brought soda, which we never drink.  I went Stewart’s Cream, full-on sugar.

She was well.  We ate and then sat in the sun for a bit while she flipped through a few flashcards. 

I hope the afternoon went well.  In my afternoon session there was a question where I had no idea what area of the law they were trying to test.  Friend Emily reminds me that her year, on one essay question had a “part 2″ that she didn’t dsicover until the proctor called time for that question and she flipped the page to what she thought was the next question.

In any event, it is an exhausting day, and, tomorrow, you have to take the evil MBE.  Your brain is bruised and beaten, your hand is killing you from writing or typing. 

So, let’s have a little levity.

These are the searches that got people here to Belly Up to the Bar Exam yesterday, the day before the bar exam began here in Connecticut and in many other states:
 

1. bar exam stress nervous
2. during this bar exam preparation thank you honey
3. wish i had one more day to study for the bar exam
4. bar exam clear plastic bag bar what goes in it
5. can you bring a sandwich to the new york bar exam
6. will you forget things when you are taking the bar exam
7. can’t study anymore for the bar exam
8. bar exam lack of knowledge
9. are the essays the worst part of the bar exam
10. what should i do last minute when i haven’t studied enough for the bar exam
11. bar exam tomorrow haven’t studied
 

And, my personal favorite ….

no one understands why i’m so crazy bar exam

Half way there, Connecticut.  Half way there. 

Godspeed.

Kristen is virtuosic with beverages. You can keep your Maddow, I have my Marcroft. She will whip egg whites for a pisco sour on any given Tuesday. Her gimlet features pre-prohibition gin, Rose’s, fresh lime juice, and simple syrup. It gets shaken, hard, and she delivers it, icey and beautiful, into my hands.

Kristen makes the best coffee I’ve ever had. It is really, really dark. She does not believe in milk. She will settle for half and half only if she has to — if we have heavy cream that goes in. She is right about that.

Kristen never hands me a cocktail without a tiny straw in it — even bourbon — even though I know it pains her that I sip Blanton’s through a straw. Kristen always puts the lid on my coffee so that the handle is lined up to the left. She knows which hand I hold it in while I read the news in the morning.

I have never asked for a straw. I have never mentioned with what hand I like to hold my coffee.

Kristen is the most considerate, most attentive, kindest person I know.

She is my heart.

She is going to be an amazing lawyer.

Albert Camus said, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

Look, it’s the bar exam.  We are not actually suffering here, we are privileged.  This thing you are going do tomorrow and the next day and, depending what state you’re in, maybe even the day after that is very difficult, but the opportunity to do it is a gift.  You are trying out to be a member of one of the two great professions.  To be an officer of the court.  It is an honor.

Now, let’s set perspective aside.  What you are doing right now is really stinking hard.  And it is really scary.  Your ability to practice the thing you spend all these years and money on rests largely on this test.  And, for the kicker, your failure, should you fail, will be public.  Other than the end goal, every single bit of this whole thing is terrible.

I always thought it was really just the twist of the knife that the bar exam is in the middle of the summer.  Wouldn’t it be less wretched to spend all your waking hours at a desk in February? Your summer has been lousy.  You have stayed inside on beach days.  You have passed up dinners and drinks and walks and talks.  Quality time with loved ones has been sacrificed, again and again, for “quality time” with flashcards and questions.  You probably have a Vitamin D deficiency.  Applying to be a member of the bar isn’t a tragedy, it’s a distinction.  But it is miserable.

And it’s almost over.

You may not have not saved the world this summer, but you have done something really amazing.  You have learned more than you have ever learned before or will ever learn again in a crazy, all out, bet-the-farm, two-month-long sprint to the finish line.  Now, tonight, you have done all you can do of what you never knew you could do.

You are invincible.  Tomorrow morning you are going to roll into that test and roll out the fruits of your labor.  You are going to kill it.

And, after the test is over?   You will become yourself again instead of bar robot you.  Food will have flavor, people will be funny again, and you’ll return your mother’s phone calls.

And, more?  You will have a month of summer left.  There will be fireflies and meadows and lakes. You should spend a night outside on a blanket staring up at the stars.   You should spend a day hiking in the woods and find a rock in the sun upon which to sit.  For hours.  You should swim, in the ocean, naked.

Because you will still be  invincible.

Congratulations.
This post also appears at A Connecticut Law Blog, where I will be writing exclusively when Kristen’s bar exam summer is over.  Which it almost is.  Holy cow.  I hope you will join us over there. If you haven’t already, please read our partner Ryan’s post about the bar exam.  It contains proven good juju.

In his comment to my post about the things I wish someone had told me about the first day of the bar exam, Matt Zagaja mentioned one of his exam day fears — the bar’s rigmarole around restroom visits. This reminded me of a story.

When I took the bar, there was a very stringent, very long list of items you could not take into the bar exam. Those you could take into the test had to be contained inside a clear plastic ziplock bag. Back in 2004 that was a bit embarrassing and uncomfortable — remember 2004 was before the moron tried to blow-up a plane with liquid explosives and the TSA came up with their inspired (and by “inspired” I mean “dumb”) 3-1-1 rule of clear bag and 3 ounce container fame. When I took the bar, we weren’t used to having our personal items on display.

The bar made me jumpy. I was nervous that I was going to bring in something that wasn’t allowed, and get bounced from the test. No law license for the girl who rolled in with the water bottle.

I was particularly confused regarding whether I could bring in a glasses case. In retrospect, I’m sure this was a stupid thing to worry about, but let’s be honest — I wasn’t my best self.

I wear glasses to correct my distance vision. That means I do not wear glasses when I am, say, sitting at a folding card table taking a bar exam. (I don’t know what they are now, but then they were card tables. The were flimsy and they shook terribly when you and your table buddy wrote. Essay day was like writing a bar exam in the middle of a mild but endless earthquake.) I imagined myself taking my glasses off to take the test and having nowhere to put them and their falling onto the floor and into the aisle and, well, no law license for the girl who dropped her glasses on the floor only for them to be tripped on by some unsuspecting and bar exam-addled soul who will now be wheelchair-bound thanks to the paralysis thanks to her stupid glasses. (See? I remember how bar brain works.)

I decided the lesser evil was to leave my glasses in the car. How much walking around was I going to do, anyway?

What I didn’t count on is that the room in which I took the bar exam was a massive, open room filled with a uniform sea of identical tables, each with two people in it. If I had to get up from the table to which I was assigned so that I could go to the bathroom, how would I find my way back?

I counted. 13 rows back from the front, 6 rows in from the front right corner.

It worked, but you should just bring your glasses.

As an aside, my table buddy was a super nice woman. She beat me to our table (probably because she could see) and when I got there she was downright welcoming. Where 99% of the people in the room were scary, surly zombies, this woman Kate was, well, jolly.

Turns out, this was not her first rodeo. It was her fourth. She was the bar’s unofficial welcome wagon.

Kate had sat for three bar exams previously — Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. She was basically on a New England tour. Kate hadn’t passed a bar yet and she was back in Connecticut because “why not?”

Kate had ranked all her bar experiences. Rhode Island was the best. It was held in a fancy hotel and lunch was provided. “Rhode Island, they do it right. I mean, come on! The least these people can do is have lunch brought in.”

She was right about that.

She passed the exam that day.