The Small Things Make It All Better

So, exams suck. It goes without saying. And the thing that makes them a little more bearable are the flurry of emails that go around every now and then with some sort of amusing tidbit that acts as a distraction from the hell that we are all experiencing in solidarity.

One of the many ways that people review for exams, and one of the "aids" that law schools provide are review courses that are put on video through a company called BarBri. BarBri is also the company that most law students pay excessive amounts of money for upon graduation to use as their Bar review course, essentially teaching you all of law school in 7 weeks. Every day a video (or live professor, depending on the location/state bar you're taking) gives a 4-5 hour lecture on a certain subject. Corporations, Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Tax, Securities Regulation and so many more are all covered. It's the same at the end of the semesters in law school. A schedule goes out showing where and which courses will be shown at law schools around the city, and anyone who's a member of BarBri can go and watch the video with a group of folks all taking the same class. The videos are general--since there are a bazillion different text books created for every class, the videos are meant to give you a skeletal outline of the major points of the course, regardless where you take it.

My first year a group of 5 of us went to most of these sessions--generally at Catholic Law school and sometimes at American--and we would role in with our coffees, hook up internet, get into a chat room for the next 8 hours and watch this video. There are a couple of gems out there--Professor Epstein teaching Contracts (I think) was one--the man looks like the crazy pelican from the Little Mermaid and consumed close to a 12 pack of Coca Cola over the 8 hour review video. He often lunged out of frame when he was trying to make a point, and occasionally colided with the plant in back of him. And the best part is, they film these videos in empty studios, decorated to make it look like they're in a classroom full of students, and the professors PRETEND there are students to whom they're lecturing, which adds to how hysterical these videos are. By the end of 1L year my video posse and I would go to the classes just to see which professor would win the prize for absolutely most hysterical (It was Epstein. Ep, as he's now lovingly referred to).

This week I'm studying for Corporations. My last exam, 4 hours, closed book. I mean, I'm taking it pass/fail, but we've been conditioned to freak out and cram regardless of whether we were taking these exams for a grade ever. I decided to do a search and see if there were any upcoming corporations BarBri reviews, knowing that if not, I could always go to their offices downtown and podcast any of the subjects. When I put "BarBri" into Google THIS popped up, and it is seriously one of the best spoofs I've seen in a long time. While I understand that some non-law/non-barbri folks might not appreciate the full hilariousness that this is, I assure you, the actual BarBri videos are, in fact, often this ridiculous.

This video almost made me laugh as much as the flashcards from last semester. It really is the small things that make all the difference....