Lives resume, never to be the same again

As the beating of the snare drums dies down, and the last barricade removed, Taft becomes normal again, signalling the end of the Bar Examinations of 2007.

Far from going back to normal, lives are resumed but are changed--never more to be the same again.

4 years of law school does not prepare you for the 5 months of review and the one month of last-minute preparation to take the 8 exams spread across 4 Sundays.

4 years of law school does not prepare you for the terrible bouts of confusion, despair, depression, anxiety, fatigue, illness, and surrender that dances across one's emotional spectrum every day.

4 years of law school also does not prepare you for the joy of newly-discovered relationships with others in the same journey; of bonds formed and forged forever in the crucible of shared anxieties, shared triumphs, shared joys and shared decisions; of unlikely friendships created out of perhaps a mutual need, truly serendipitous moments or perhaps even divine intervention.

4 years of law school will never prepare you for the epiphany that there is more to life than law school but that a life lived in the pursuit of the law may, after all, be one of life's nobler callings.

After 4 years of law school 5 months of review and 4 Sundays, lives resume but are never the same again.

To the U.P. bar examinees of 2007: may you truly live changed lives--seeking always for what is best in this profession that is often a picture of what is worst, striving always for the justice that is desired by many yet is elusive to they who need it most; speaking always the truth that sets people free but is often masked and hidden by the lies that chain and bind; standing always for freedom that is the greatest gift yet is often never received.

To the U.P. Bar examinees of 2007: many of you have said, "we hope to make you proud." You honor me greatly by that, as I do not deserve that privilege. My answer to you has always been--and remains still--"you already have."