My Bar Story: How Getting “Access” to a Bar Exam Loan Changed My Life

I took the Ohio Bar Exam in the summer of 1993, immediately following graduation from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. That October, I learned that I passed by dialing long distance on a rotary landline – at least 15 times to get through, beginning at 7:00 am – so that a live person could provide my results!

That successful journey began with a fateful trip to pick up a pizza for dinner. On the way I stopped at the ATM to withdraw $20 and to my shock, it rejected my request and spit out a receipt showing that my account had a negative balance. When I went to the bank (no online access in those days), I learned that my landlord had failed to cash a few rent checks over the past months in a timely way. This lulled me into a false sense of financial flushness that was exacerbated by my failure to actually balance a checkbook, relying on the balance on the ATM receipt (life lesson learned).

The good news is that I did have a part-time job – the bad news is that, without additional funds, I would have to choose between rent, food, and paying for bar prep. I had two choices: working more during the bar study period or getting a bar loan.

I was hopeful upon entering the financial aid office since many of my classmates had received bar exam loans. I was quickly informed that the application deadline had passed a month earlier. The financial aid administrator, Al Watson, told me that if I wrote a letter to the president of the only organization that offered bar exam loans at that time, explained my situation, and threw myself on their mercy, perhaps they would make an exception. I wrote the letter, placed it in the mail, and then experienced the longest two-week wait of my life to date before I got the good news! And the rest is history!

But wait there’s more – little did I know that 15 years later I would follow that person to whom I addressed that letter to as President of AccessLex, the very organization that threw a lifeline to a needy aspiring lawyer. 

My experience inspired me to always remember that helping those in need is immeasurable and can be life changing.

Learn more about how AccessLex is empowering the next generation of lawyers with free tools and resources, from pre-law to passing the bar.