Cracking the California Bar Exam

I took the California Bar Exam from Mumbai when it was offered online on the 5th and 6th of October 2020. It was my third attempt and I was successful.

In 2015-2016, I used to be employed by an Indian company which had a Californian subsidiary that made investments in California and I had dealings with Californian attorneys. I thought it would be useful to be qualified in California and without a clear idea of how difficult the California Bar Exam is, signed up for the July 2016 exam.

I had qualified as an Indian advocate in 1999 and as an English Solicitor in 2004. I obtained a Certificate of Good Standing from the Law Society, England and Wales, and used it to register with CA Bar. I then proceeded to buy a $100 book through Amazon, the California Bar Tutors Total Preparation Book and read it a few times during my work commute by train from Bandra to VT station, around thirty minutes each way, five days a week. As I read, I realised that this was a book meant for those already familiar with US and CA laws, but I ploughed on. The CA Bar’s website has answers written by top scorers in each bar exam for the past ten odd years and I read through most of them once. I learnt as much by reading those old answers as I did from the California Bar TutorsTotal Preparation Book. The past answers ought to have dented my confidence, since they were way superior to anything I could have written, but for strange reason they didn’t. I thought I could pull it off on the exam day.

Business Associations, Civil Procedure, Community Property, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Real Property, Torts, Trusts and Wills. Thirteen topics in all, of which the only topics I was familiar and comfortable with were Business Associations (which included corporate law, law of partnerships, agency principles), Contracts, Torts, Professional Responsibility and Trusts. I was totally out of depth in Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Evidence. I have studied constitutional law at undergrad law school, but was really rusty and US Constitutional Law differs from Indian constitutional law in many ways. Community Property is the set of principles for dividing up property between the husband and wife in case of a divorce and this was a revelation, to say the least!

The California Bar Tutors Total Preparation Book mentions the importance of IRAC (Issue, Rule, Analysis and Conclusion) in the introduction and this concept (and its importance) went totally above my head. I decided to handwrite the exam (instead of taking it on a laptop) since I though it wouldn’t make a huge difference and I didn’t have the time and energy to get my laptop certified and all that.

In July 2016, the CA Bar exam was a three day affair. I landed in SFO just two days before my exam and took the exam at Sacramento. My body clock was twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific Time. On day one, we had to write three essays in the morning within three hours and a performance test after lunch, also for three hours. On day two, we had the Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”), two sessions of three hours each, with one hundred multiple choice questions for each session. Day three was a repeat of the first day, with three essays in the morning and a three hour performance test in the afternoon. As may be expected, I flunked. I got a score of 1200 out of 2000, when the required cut off was 1440. I can’t say I was devastated, since I hadn’t invested too much effort or even money, when compared to most other test takers.

I went back to work in Mumbai and kept thinking about doing the CA Bar exam since I had really enjoyed the academic exercise. In the second half of 2018, I decided to take the plunge once more and enrolled for the February 2019 exam, though my job had changed and my work had nothing to do with California. I bought the latest edition of the California Bar Tutors Total Preparation Book and started reading it during my work commute. I also bought a couple of books for the MBE, since I realised that the MBE was a weak spot. I decided to use a laptop this time, since my typing speed is reasonably good and it possibly helped to write more than less.

For the February 2019 administration, the CA Bar exam had been made a two day affair, with a single 90 minute performance test, instead of two performance tests of three hours each, as was the case earlier. Everything else stayed the same. I landed in SFO four days before the exam, which I took in Oakland. My body clock was thirteen and a half hours ahead of Pacific Time. The importance of IRAC still hadn’t sunk in, though I think I did comply with IRAC more than I had in July 2016. I flunked again, scoring 1351 out of 2000, when the required cut off was still 1440.

I forgot about the CA Bar exam and life went back to normal. Until the Covid 19 pandemic hit all of us. I was at home, under lockdown, including three weeks of total quarantine when my neighbour tested positive. For reasons I won’t delve into here, my family was elsewhere and I was alone in my apartment. I had a fair amount of free time on my hands. In April 2020, I decided to give the CA Bar exam my best and final shot, planning to take it in February 2021. 

I subscribed to Adaptibar and started doing around 20 questions every day. When I got a question wrong, I analysed why I had got it wrong and wrote down the explanation. Adaptibar was a revelation and I enjoyed and looked forward to each of my Adaptibar sessions. I understood nuances I had no clue about until then. I re-read the California Bar Tutors Total Preparation Book (which I had saved from my February 2019 attempt, I didn’t buy the latest edition) a few times, as well as all past answers. I bought two outlines from Amazon for around $60 dollars each (word documents emailed to me) purportedly written by US based Ivy League law students, but did not find them to be particularly useful (or better than my California Bar Tutors Total Preparation Book) and ditched them. And finally I hired a tutor based in the US who read two of my old answers from my February 2019 attempt and marked it up for me with his comments. My tutor also marked up a few sample essays I wrote based on old questions. The IRAC penny finally dropped. I spent a lot of time and effort reading up on the black letter law. I relied mainly on the internet for this.

When it was announced that the July 2020 exam would be delayed and offered online, I decided to take it, rather than wait for the February 2021 administration, as I had originally planned. I registered and a month before the exam, began the slow process of switching my body clock to Pacific Standard Time, which would be 12.5 hours behind Indian time. I would stay awake till 3 am Indian time and begin my day at 10 am. I could afford to do this since I was working entirely from home. I upgraded my internet connection. 

CA Bar reduced the cut-off from 1440 to 1390 (out of 2000). I became even more hopeful. However, I had crossed my mid-forties and my biggest weakness was a failing memory. I understood everything I read, but the next day I would struggle to remember what I had read.

The two nights of the exam are a blur at present. From 8:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. on day one and till 4:00 a.m. on day two, the essays and multiple choice questions went by in a jiffy as I banged away on my laptop, my webcam recording everything on audio and video. The Facebook groups I had joined had a lot of chatter about how things could go wrong technically, especially the online proctoring, but fortunately, everything went right. On the morning of January 9, 2021, 7:30 a.m. IST, I found out that I had passed. For the October 2020 administration, the pass rate was 60.7%, the highest pass rate in the last 12 years. A search of the pass list published online suggests that only two of the successful candidates logged in from India. There are twenty nine from China though!

I have written this in the hope that my experiences may be of some help to those who take the CA Bar exam in future. I should confess that though I am a foreign attorney and technically not a native English speaker, my education has been entirely in English right from my kindergarten days. I attended one of the best law schools in India and have an LLM from a leading British university. I have worked as a corporate/commercial lawyer since 1998. What worked for me may not work for others.

With the benefit of hindsight, I feel that it makes sense to sign up for a popular crash course like Barbri or Themis or Kaplan. I didn't take any of these, but wish I had done so for my first attempt, in addition to Adaptibar.  The bar exam is not the best time or occasion to reinvent the wheel. 

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart – A critique

 

I re-read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and jotted down a few thoughts regarding this amazing novel, which is set in a village called Umofia in pre-independence, south eastern Nigeria and is considered to be a milestone in African literature.

Okonkwo, the novel’s protagonist, is Umuofia’s wrestling champion, a man who had defeated "Amalinze The Cat" when he was just eighteen. Okonkwo is tough on himself and tough on those around him, stamping out all weaknesses, beating his wives and children often. Okonkwo’s father Unoka had been a man with a weakness for song and wine and had left behind many debts. Okonkwo is determined to be the exact opposite of his father and works hard to build his wealth entirely on his own. Okonkwo is very successful, until things fall apart for him.

Things Fall Apart is set in the set 19th century and Nigeria still has witch doctors, black magic and tribes. The beauty of Achebe’s writing is that he does not make any apologies for the customs of his Igbo people. The various sub-tribes of Igbo are what they are and the reader has no option but to accept them without any changes to suit modern day values and form his/her own private judgement. Halfway through the tale, Okonkwo is selected by the elders of Umofia to take care of Ikemefuna, a boy offered to the clan as an offering, along with a virgin, for the murder of an Umuofian woman by Ikemefuna's father. Ikemefuna lives in Okonkwo's household and Okonkwo grows fond of him, although Okonkwo hides his feelings for the boy. Ikemefuna looks up to Okonkwo as a second father. Three years after Ikemefuna joined Okonkwo’s household, the Oracle of Umuofia decides that Ikemefuna must be killed as a punishment for his father’s actions. Though resisting the Oracle is never on the table, Okonkwo could have refused to play an active role in Ikemefuna’s killing, but Okonkwo voluntarily strikes the killing blow. Afterwards he is sick for a couple of days, but recovers quickly.

Fate deals Okonkwo a blow below the belt when his gun explodes accidentally at a funeral and kills the son of the man being buried. Okonkwo and his family are exiled from Umofia for seven years.

When Christian missionaries infiltrate the villages and overturn the ways of the Clan, Okonkwo wants to resist. However, the rest of the village doesn’t stand with him the way he wants and when a few join forces, it is too little and too late. The ways of the Christians, when seen in the cold light of the day, are more rational and logical than that of those who respect the spirits of the forests and the Oracle, but Achebe’s narration is such that one has nothing but respect for the old ways, though he does not embellish them.  Towards the end, there is acceleration as things fall apart even faster and Okankwo commits suicide rather than be punished further by white men.

A classic, this is definitely one of the best novels I have read it my entire life. To top it all, the opening paragraph of this celebrated novel is supposed to be the one of best opening paragraphs for a novel.  

 

Book Review: Excess Baggage, by Richa S. Mukherjee

 

Shedding excess baggage is an arduous task, one most people don’t even take on. Both the Punjabis, Smita and Anviksha, have plenty of excess baggage. Anviksha has survived two marriages and has a tendency to speak frankly, something which doesn’t go down well with everyone. If frankness doesn’t drive home the point, she is capable of slamming the hand that touches her offensively, even if the hand belongs to a relatively senior colleague. She also holds modern views on social issues, which seem to be at odds with her mother’s, though Smita Punjabi is also a divorcee.

When things get really bad in Mumbai, both at home and at work, Anviksha decides to take a solo travel holiday. True to form, Smita Punjabi decides to tag along with her daughter and Anviksha is unable to shake her mother off. The mother-daughter duo travel cheaply (on Ethiopian Airways), stay with friends and family in London and Amsterdam and have adventures which would put Tom Sawyer in the shade.

Mukherjee is extremely good with her description of Smita and Anviksha and the rest of their circle, including Mutton the Shih Tzu. In simple but elegant prose, each character is allowed to breathe and flower in a manner that conveys the essence of the person. In the case of Smita, the transformation as she sheds her excess baggage is almost extreme. Smita doesn’t travel light since she carries with her the desire and ability to feed those in her vicinity with tasty Sindhi fare. For Smita, carrying lots of cooked food when travelling is not just about penny pinching, rather, it defines her personality. As she sheds her baggage, she learns, innovates and transforms. Still one is surprised when Smita starts taking up cudgels on behalf of Anviksha during family arguments around Anviksha's lifestyle and freedom of choice and one continues to be surprised as Smita’s views become increasingly progressive. Smita ‘understands’ two Dutch sisters who are veterans of the sex trade. In the Chotramani household in Amsterdam, she gulps once as she is introduced to a gay couple, but her shock subsides soon enough and she calmly offers mithai to Mr. and Mrs. Ravi.

Since Anviksha is single, Mukherjee keeps her reader guessing about the book’s ending. Anviksha is on talking terms with Rudra, her first ex. She takes time to fully get over handsome hunk Ranvijay, her second ex. Aakash makes his appearance right at the start and it is clear that Anviksha likes him a lot, thought we do not know the full depth of Anviksha's feelings for Aakash till the end. We know that it is unlikely to be Ranvijay, though he is the most handsome of the three and the richest. As part of her journey, Anviksha becomes more and more tolerant of Rudra and his weaknesses, even as she falls in love with Aakash. To complicate things further, towards the end of the novel, Smita and Anviksha run into a close, but long-lost family member in Amsterdam. No, I’d rather not give the story away. Please do read Excess Baggage to find out for yourself how this excellent novel ends. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Girl In White Cotton, by Avni Doshi

 

The mother-daughter relationship is supposed to be a special bond, which is unique and can’t be replicated. Antara too has a special relationship with her hippie mother, though it is a tad different. Brought up by her divorced mother in an ashram in Pune and on the streets, and by her grandparents in a catholic boarding school, artist Antara has more than her share of grudges and bruises, and she remembers each of them as her mother slips into Alzheimer's disease. American Husband Dilip isn’t too pleased when Antara takes her mother in to look after her and Dilip’s mother is even less so, but Antara doesn’t shy away from her filial duties.

Antara is such a fascinating character that at times I wanted her to go downhill like her mother did, just to see how far she would go. She does slide down many times, though, for most of the story, if one ignores the past flashbacks, Antara is not very different from any other modern Indian married woman. Antara has many, many dark secrets, a few of which she shares with her special friend Purvi and one is reminded time and again that Antara’s lifestyle isn’t normal, though Antara is totally placid on the surface. Each time I thought Antara was beyond the point of no return, she surfaces, in a manner that doesn’t look too strained or contrived and holds up her life, marriage and the baby who arrives towards the end.  

Avni Doshi’s debut novel Girl In White Cotton is set in Marathi speaking Pune, in a world of Mozarin biscuits, middle class housing societies and maids. When I reached the middle of the novel, I was suddenly reminded of Shinie Antony’s novel The Girl Who Couldn’t Love, which also has a very similar troubled and tortured mother-daughter relationship in the background. However, unlike Shinie Antony who uses the rusty relationship to tell a very clever story, Avni Doshi’s story is the relationship itself. In impeccable native English that has shades of Arundhati Roy, Doshi travels back and forth across time zones and relationships, opening small memories every few paragraphs and then slamming the drawer shut or opening it even wider. Just as Shinie Antony’s Roo did in The Girl Who Couldn’t Love by sleeping with her brother, Antara too extracts her pound of flesh from her mother (or rather her mother’s boyfriend), but the similarity ends there.

Girl In White Cotton, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020, is an excellent read and I highly recommend it. This novel goes by the name Burnt Sugar in the UK.

Do Tamilians Think or Tink? A Response For Justice Katju

 Those who follow Justice Katju on Facebook are bound to have noticed his frequent assertion that “Tamilians cannot think. They can only tink”. Apparently, according to Justice Katju, Tamil does not have the ‘th’ sound required for ‘think’.

At first glance, Justice Katju seems to be making a ridiculous assertion. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Tamil Nadu, studied Tamil as a second language in school and can vouch for the fact that Tamil does have the ‘th’ sound required to say “think”. However, Justice Katju isn’t a newbie to Tamil either. Justice Katju took a diploma course in Tamil while he was at Allahabad University and later spent a year at Annamalai University in Chennai learning spoken Tamil. He also served as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in 2004-2005.

Having seen Justice Katju’s Facebook status updates on this point many times over the past few months, I kept wondering what is it that makes Justice Katju pontificate thus.

Then one day, the penny dropped. I remembered an old conversation with a friend named Lata, a native Hindi speaker, who married a South Indian. My relatives keep spelling my name as Latha, she complained to me. Is it a big deal? I asked. Isn't Latha phonetically closer to the way your name is pronounced, rather than Lata, I wondered? No, “my name is Lata, not Latha’’, she told me, pronouncing the T in name with a soft ‘th’. Sounds like Latha to me, I said. ‘No,’ came the retort. ‘It’s L-A-T-A.’ I was left none the wiser then.

I’ve had similar conversations with friends from north of Deccan regarding names like Nithin, Sunitha and Latha. Heck, even with my own name, it was so common to have people in Tamil Nadu write it as Vinodh or even Vinoth. My parents, like many thousands of South Indians who copied the names of North Indian movie actors when naming their kids, copied Mr. Khanna’s spelling as well. If they weren’t Vinod Khanna fans and had to spell Vinod, the chances are that they would have spelt it as Vinodh.

It took me many years to figure out the Lata/Latha, Sunita/Sunitha, Vinod/Vinodh conundrum.

In written Tamil, there’s only one alphabet for ta/tha (த), while Hindi has four versions of ta/tha, namely [त थ द and ध]. Similarly, Tamil only one alphabet each for ka (க), cha (ச), da (ட) and pa (ப), even though in spoken Tamil, each of these alphabets can be expressed in multiple ways. Hindi has four versions of each of the alphabets ka (क, ख, ग, घ), cha (च, छ, ज, झ), da (ट, ठ, ड, ढ), ta (त, थ, द, ध) and pa (प, फ, ब, भ).

In Malayalam, which is a mix of Tamil and Sanskrit, the alphabets correspond exactly to the Hindi alphabets, but all Malayalees spell names like Sunitha, Latha etc. the way the Tamils do – when writing in English, that is. I assume this is the position with Kannada and Telugu speakers too. My father, who grew up in Kerala and learnt basic Hindi as a student, pronounces the D in Hindi the same way as he pronounces the D in Dictionary.

For many Hindi speakers, spelling Lata with a T makes it phonetically closer to the relevant Hindi alphabet (the first Ta in the four Hindi variants of ta/tha) than a TH. For Tamils and other south Indians, spelling Latha and Sunitha with a TH makes more sense, since a T is usually pronounced as a hard T, as in the word “Time”.

The TH in think requires to be accompanied by a small exhalation of breath and is not, strictly speaking, the Tamil THA, though it is phonetically closer to the Tamil THA than the hard T in time. If a Hindi speaker had to write “Think’’ in Hindi, he would presumably use the second THA (थ) from out of the four Hindi variants of ta/tha. When Justice Katju says Tamils don’t think, but they tink, he is possibly pointing out that Tamil doesn’t have an alphabet equivalent to the second Tha (थ) in the four Hindi variants of ta/tha. When he says Tamil tink, he isn’t using the hard T in the word Time, but the first Ta [त) in the four Hindi variants of ta/tha, the one used when writing names like Lata or Sunita. For Justice Katju, the T in tink matches the T in Lata, whilst for a South Indian, the T in tink would match the T in time and the TH in think would match the TH in Latha or Sunitha.

If you disagree with my analysis, please let me know, I could be wrong. I don’t claim to be a linguistic expert. And please let’s keep the conversation civil.