First: Yes, I checked to see if the exam had been uploaded, and no I didn't rely solely on the confirmatory emails. When I saw that the answer file for essays 4-6 had not been received, I went through the manual upload process (Thursday, about 6:30 p.m.) and uploaded the file. I then got the confirmatory email and I thought all was well. I took Friday off and didn't get back to my computer until after 6:00 p.m. That was when I saw the email from the State Bar informing me that the file had not actually been received.
I called Examsoft right away but they were closed for the day, and for the weekend. I called them first thing Monday morning and had the tech support guy log in to my computer remotely and upload the file. The problem, as he described it, was that Examsoft didn't write that file to the folder the program checks to see if there are any files to be uploaded.
It was only then that I discovered that I had actually uploaded the answer file for essays 4-6 from the February 2011 exam, not the July 2011 exam. The earlier exam files were still on my computer and, in my haste, I picked the first "essay 4-6" file that I saw. Then, when I got the confirmatory email, I failed to scrutinize it to see if it was correct because I saw only what I expected to see, that the file was received by them.
And, yes, again, I went through more steps, made more calls, and sent more emails than I am recounting here. I am omitting many tedious details of the story in an effort to save time, and because they're just useless trivia. Regardless, the correct file is now nestled securely on Examsoft's server and the nice lady from the State Bar said that my inadvertent error shouldn't prevent them from accepting it.
Second: The essays, sans released answers, are available on the State Bar website.
14 comments:
THANK GOD!
This is exactly why I chose to write the February exam by hand....my worst nightmare, by far, was that the software wouldn't work and my answers wouldn't get uploaded properly. Talk about nearly causing a person a heart attack!!
Hey GP,
Been a fan of your blog for over a year. Thought I'd start a blog too. I'm an attorney but unfortunately, I don't have a job right now. Here is the link. http://jdattorney.blogspot.com/
Can you give us a few more details on what happened so we can avoid this in the future? Was it that you didn't erase prior exam files? How does EaxmSoft handle this?
Buddy, now you better hope these dimwits don't read your files from the Feb 2011 exam. They now have two files up there.
Anon 7:46: Awww, c'mon, you don't think they could do something silly like that, do you?
Do you?
Do I?
Yes, actually, I think they could.
Blah.
I uploaded the files on Tuesday without a hitch. Thursday's upload was horrible, taking numerous tries for each file before they went through. The essays didn't actually go through at first, even when I tried manually. I had visions of corrupted filed on my hard drive and spent 25 long minutes on hold with ExamSoft before I got it all ironed out.
Glad you got your issues resolved.
John Doe Attorney, Did you try Insurance Comp., and other private business'for "In-House"Attorneys.?
They may only pay about $85K a year
but it is not a bad place to start & after 2 years you can send your Resume out again & as the saying goes .."People with jobs always get offers"...
I was at a party this weekend with lots of Attorneys & Engineers and they were all trying to encourage each other to jump to each others Firms... (Networking)
Find out where some of them are having Summer/Holiday parties AND GO...
Yeah, sorta been there done that, but not quite as stressful.
http://texasbarnone.blogspot.com/2007/07/dear-examsoft-guy.html
What I didn't write about was how my laptop started the blue screen of death the day before the essays and how many hours I had someone working on it because there was no way I could hand write 6 hours. In Texas, Day 1 included a 1.5 hour Evidence & Procedure Section that can ONLY be hand written. Despite my careful practice - writing out my own answers to every past E&P question in the small allotted space (only words within the 5 provided lines are counted/graded), when they said 'begin' my pen started scrawling across the page so fast I couldn't even read what I was writing. I even scrunched my words so close together at the bottom of one page the grader would have needed a magnifying glass (why did they only give me THREE lines for this question???) until I turned the page and saw the two remaining blank lines at the top (yes, I carefully rewrote the last bit so it made sense and was legible but there's nothing like bar exam stress!).
I was so paranoid about losing half my essays that I took a cab to a nearby Starbucks with wi-fi and uploaded my morning answers during the lunch break.
Best wishes - surely this will just be an edge-of-your-seat story to retell as you are celebrating your passing results this fall.
anonymous at 7:13,
umm, you act like there are just jobs for $85K sitting around, but for the absence of supply of lawyers????
that is lunacy. i am from an average law school, employed for less than that, and feel very lucky from the horror stories i hear out there.
those types of absurd comments only cause more and more people to go to law school, when there are already too many attorneys to meet the demand
Your February exam had a different exam number and file number associated with it. Even if the graders do grade them (giving you 40s), they won't be matchable with any of the other parts of your exam. If they accept your late-uploaded answers—and they seem reasonable about it*—then they'll properly match everything together.
* I was shocked to hear that the California Bar would be so easygoing about your mistake. Obviously, it was inadvertent, and in the perfect land of Reasonableness, there should be no question they should accept your answers. I always hesitate, however, to equate reasonableness with bar examiners writ large. That said, I have been surprised time and time again about the overall good-natured (reasonable and friendly) behavior of everyone I've interacted with at the State Bar of California.
Anyway, I was going down the hotel elevator on the first day of the exam this summer and thought of you, GP. I prayed for you—if you don't pass this time around, though trite it may sound, there is something better for you ahead in life (whether that is February 2012 or something else). That said, I very much hope you passed. This has been a long thorny road, and you have displayed an amazing perseverance.
Know this. The only one who really cares for you and who has the truest best plans for you is the god of the universe, I AM THAT I AM. He is the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of his son Yahshua (aka Jesus), which means "I AM saves." He loves and cares very much for us and what we are doing. He is near and wants us to know him and release our worries and burdens to him. But he won't force us to do anything. If you know him, then I presume too much and I apologize.
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