Law Schools Offer Food, Massages and Friendly Puppy to Ohio Bar Exam Takers

The atmosphere may be tense inside a Columbus, Ohio, auditorium filled with 1,300 law graduates taking the bar exam, but the outside parking lot looks a lot more like a carnival.

There, alumni from all but one of the state’s nine law schools have pitched tents where they offer sandwiches, fruit, drinks, chips, cookies and emotional support to test takers on their lunch break, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

The tradition started about five years ago when the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law set up a tent to offer coffee and Tums to nervous test takers. Now the law schools appear to be competing for the best perks. Ohio State University's law school brought massage chairs, while Case Western Reserve University’s law school brought Bella, an animal shelter rescue dog. "She was a crowd-pleaser, gazing especially lovingly at those holding turkey sandwiches," the newspaper reports.

Ear plugs and aspirin are also popular, the story says.