In about 30 minutes, some of you will probably undergo the hell that many of us had to do at some point in our lives: check to see if you passed the California bar exam.

Just to give you a heads-up: the Calbar site doesn't say "Hey Joe Bruin, you passed!"  It's more like "This name does appear on the list of applicants who passed the July 2006 California State Bar Examination" or some crazy nonsense like that.

Anyway, keep this in mind:

1. Don't freak out if you don't get into the site at first.  It can take up to an hour.

2. Drinking heavily before you check is OK, as long as you have a (relatively) sober person with you to confirm that yes, you actually did pass.

3. When you find out you passed, the calling rules are:

  A) First call all non-bar-taker friends and family

  B) Second, call all non-friends who thought you would fail to gloat

  C) FINALLY, ONLY IF you've exhausted the first two, may you contact other bar takers.  I always recommend the text message first, with a simple "Call me if everything is OK", and then wait for the other person to call.  And, definitely, ALWAYS ASSUME THE OTHER PERSON FAILED before you say anything in glee, because it really, really, really sucks to hear from someone who passed when you failed.

4. If by some terrible twist of fate, you didn't pass (probably because you went to Southern Cal), don't forget that no one has to know until Sunday morning.

Good luck to all of you!

Ps As a corollary to all of you that knows a bar taker, DO NOT CALL THEM FIRST. You can check yourself on Sunday morning at www.calbar.org. If they did pass and didn't call you, don't be offended. They probably just passed out before they got to a phone.

Update [2006-11-17 21:59:1 by stevenucla]:For the public list that comes out on Sunday morning, 6 AM PST