Weekly Bar Briefs, 7-9-2016

Dear Bar Members,

This summer, we’re featuring stories from local attorneys about their experiences being admitted to the Bar. Here’s one from Adam Peoples, Administrative Law Clerk to Hon. Martin Reidinger:

In the period between graduation and the bar exam, contrary to the advice of practically everyone I knew, I decided to take a 10-day vacation to Europe.  I justified the trip by planning a strict, all -day study regimen that accounted for the lost time, but just barely.  As it turned out, I did not have as much time to study as I had originally planned.

One week before I was scheduled to sit for the Georgia and Tennessee bar exams, back-to-back, I attended a mock bar exam in Atlanta, Georgia.  Midway into my second essay, I began having severe chest pains and had to leave the examination room.  A proctor followed me into the lobby and assured me that it was only an anxiety attack, and the paramedics, who later arrived, reported nothing abnormal.  Nonetheless, the pain was so intense that I could not finish the test.  Later that evening, when my symptoms had not subsided, I drove myself to the ER at Piedmont Hospital.  There, I was diagnosed with a life-threatening spontaneous tension pneumothorax (collapsed lung), and underwent an emergency procedure to remove the excess air in my chest.  I spent 5 of the 7 days leading up to the bar exam in the hospital, where I struggled, unsuccessfully due to my medication-induced drowsiness, to finish my pre-Europe study plan.  A picture of me in a hospital bed with my laptop is below.  

Fortunately, my lung healed just in time to escape my doctors’ contingency plan: to implant a valve in my chest so I could manually relieve the pressure during my exams.  I took the Georgia bar exam on Tuesday and Wednesday and, because I was not yet cleared to drive, my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Lucie Peoples, drove me to Knoxville to sit for the Tennessee exam on Thursday.  I am happy to report that I passed both!

 

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