Anecdote from Academia--Learning Analysis

Two months after we graduated from law school, we had to sit for the three-day state licensing exam, the “Bar Exam,” and one of my closest friends, an African-American man, flunked.

      You knew you had passed if you got a fat envelope in the mail, containing application forms, fingerprinting forms, and literature about which committees of the Bar Association you could join. My friend got a skinny envelope.

     That sent us on a months’-long trial for him to pass the next test, which was offered only in July and February, and usually on the same days in every state. We drilled endlessly on the substance of law, and every time, he could recite the law and jump to the legal outcome of any case that was presented to him. I tried to explain, “The bar examiners want to know your reasoning. How did you arrive at that conclusion? You have to answer according to the ‘IRAC’ formula:  Identify the issue; elucidate your reasoning; state your analysis; state your conclusion. ” 

     He didn’t get it. He failed again. He began seeking exams that were offered on dates other than Washington’s, and made trips to Idaho and Minnesota, just to pass any bar.

      In Idaho, black people were rare enough then that the black red-cap at the airport followed us all the way through the facility, as though he had never seen another black man before.

     When a work colleague, Gary Quarfoth, learned that my friend was heading to Minnesota for a test, he insisted that his family take over.  Gary’s parent housed him, fed him, and made sure he got to the test on time. He loved Gary’s mother, who would chug away on her exercise bicycle, a glass of whiskey with ice in hand. At the Minnesota test, he met Al Page, a former pro football player who went on to a distinguished career as a judge in Minnesota.

     The turning point came on a day we were scheduled to watch boxing matches on TV with a friend who lived at Mill Creek, northeast of Seattle.  We drove out there and walked in just as the favored boxer, the one he wanted to follow, was shown flattened on the mat. My friend said, “I see what you mean! I see the outcome, but I want to know how he got there.”

     Afer five failures (and we have to respect the persistence), he got fat envelopes from both Washington and Minnesota.

     There is an old joke that pertains to my friend, “What do you call the guy who graduates last in your class?” Yes, it pertains to my friend. Today we call him “Your honor.”