The wait is finally over – I Passed The Arizona Bar Exam!!!

I was pretty nervous for the week before the Arizona Bar scores were posted. I’ve already made the decision to open my own law firm, so not passing the Bar would have put a severe kink in that plan. Reminding myself that there’s nothing I could do to change the outcome calmed my fears a bit, but I constantly had the what-ifs running through my head.

The Arizona Courts website told us that scores would be posted at 4:45pm on Friday, October 7th. I do contract work with a lawyer, and I had a meeting with her and a client that day. I watched the web all day hoping that the State would post results early. When that didn’t happen, I had a friend watch the website for me while I was in my meeting. My meeting ended at 4:30. My friend called me while I was on the road home to tell me that I passed. I was so relieved.

When I tell people that I passed the Bar, a lot of them say, “I had no doubt.” I appreciate their confidence in my abilities, but I wasn’t going to relax until the pass list was posted. While I was studying for the Bar and while I was waiting for my score, I took comfort in a story about someone who mismanaged their time during the test and had to leave an entire essay question blank, and he still passed. However, there are really smart people who don’t pass the Bar. Only 434 of the 612 people who took the Bar Exam in Arizona passed it, which means 178 didn’t, including at least three of my classmates – and all them are wicked smart.

And in case you were wondering, once I saw that I passed the bar, I opened my MBE score. If I had opened my MBE score when it arrived, I would have felt good about my results. Despite everything I know after the fact, I think it was the right choice to not open my MBE score when it arrived. The stress I would have felt if I wasn’t happy with my score would have been terrible. It was better to know nothing than to risk making my stress level worse.

So what’s next? I wait for the Character and Fitness Committee to approve my application. I hope to be sworn in to the Arizona Bar by the end of the year.

Thank you to everyone who supported me for the last four years. Your love, guidance, patience, and ice cream have helped me tremendously.

Congratulations to my friends who have passed the bar so far and special congrats to my classmates Melissa Bogden and Emily Gildar for getting the second and third highest scores on the 2011 Arizona July Bar Exam!