Bar Exam Film Ups Ante for 6 Law Grads

It's hard enough just studying for the bar exam. But six California law graduates decided to up the ante even further by doing so in the public eye. Responding to a 2006 request by documentary filmmakers, they agreed to allow video footage of everything from crying jags and the struggle to find time to spend with a hospitalized child to the moment of truth as they checked online to find out if they had passed.

Not everyone did, and part of the drama of the documentary, A Lawyer Walks into a Bar, is following the law grads' bar-study saga to the sometimes-bitter end, reports the ABA Journal.

One participant, Megan Meadows, says being filmed helped her study even harder. “I didn’t want anyone recording me if I failed,” she says.

But another, Cassandra Hooks, whose struggle to study while her 4-year-old son was hospitalized with a bacterial infection is documented in the film, was matter-of-fact about the extra scrutiny. “I had signed up for the documentary, so it was just part of that," she says. "If I failed, I just did it in front of a lot of people.”

The film will be available on DVD in September.