Hey Guys...I feel this is like a AA meeting...but here it goes...I have ADD and I am ashamed of it. It is so hard for me to admit this disability...and even worst I do not want to beg the Bar for extra time...I already have applied and their answer has been...go get more documentation...I don't have hte money for such expensive reports. It feels so unfair...I don't know what to do.

Should i think of career change due to my disability...after all who wants to hire a lawyer with ADD.

Sincerely;

Out of money, ADD person.

!!!!!!!

Depending on where you live, there are free medical clinics for those who qualify (i.e. make less than X dollars per month). They will also refer you to County or City specialists where you can get specific and detailed documentation by MDs.

The process can take a while, but you may end up getting more time to complete your bar exam.

Don't get me wrong, I don't personally think someone with this sort of condition should get extra time, but I'm just offering up my advice on how to get FREE documentation.

HTH, bitch.

Dear Mr. ADD,

I just passed the CA bar exam on my third attempt only after finally getting treatment for my ADD. One shrink says it's ADD, another ADHD. Whatever the case, those questions they ask to diagnose those disorders were off the chart for me. Oddly enough, when I was tested before for reading and writing disabilities, those were pronounced but no diagnosis of ADD then. I just knew something was wrong and I finally got treatment for it while studying for the July '09 bar exam, which I passed!

You CAN overcome the problems with ADD/ADHD with a combination of medication, a good support system, a tutor to help you focus, and someone to keep you on task and ensure you produce your practice essays, PT's and MBE's on schedule.

I hired an ex-CA bar grader turned tutor, John Crossfield, www.cabargrader.com, who was understanding of my issues, yet gave me no slack because of it. I had control over my own timing and was (finally!) granted 1.5x time based on the reading and writing disabilities, but only after I proved that I failed without them and that it was a life-long disorder, not just a recent one. The State Bar of CA is BRUTAL when it comes to approving learning disability accommodations. Someone up there should be shot for how inhumane they act, but that doesn't change matters that first-time denials are likely 99% of the time. It's standard procedure, unfortunately.

You will need a psychologist or psychiatrist to complete the forms, but it really is more up to you to prove that your disorder has existed for many years, you fail in life, business, relationships, school, money, family relationships, etc. before they will treat your application as credible.

It wasn't until I appealed on the very last day of my second bar exam deadline where I wrote a two page letter so pissed off at them that they finally gave in. I explained how I was in financial ruins for the second time in my life, how I had been divorced and unable to maintain long-term relationships since, how I was estranged from my eldest son over money issues, and how self-employment was a huge roller coaster of feast or famin for me over the years.

And most of all, when they asserted that I had not flunked out of law school before receiving accommodations to prove I could not pass otherwise, my first bar exam failure seemed adequate proof to me that I was indeed a failure.

I had no self-esteem left and the whole dispute was more a pissed off letter than it was a real appeal. But much to my surprise, the Bar's shrink agreed that I was indeed a pretty bad failure in life, albeit I failed to prove that I was adequately a failure in childhood as well.

Get the picture? There's no crying to the bar that you can't do it now if you have made it through life successfully before the bar. But if you really could establish that life's been a bitch, they will reluctantly consider granting accommodations. It might cost you a couple of thousand to do it, or even more if you really want to ensure you get them.

Oddly enough, my second bar (first time with 1.5x time accommodations and restricted distraction environment) resulted in slightly lower scores than my first bar without accommodations! My tutor on the third bar said longer winded bad writing was even worse than brief bad writing, hence my lower scores even though my MBE went up nicely from 147 to 156 scaled.

Those scores impressed the major tutors that I knew the law, but couldn't write worth shit. Little did we know it was really ADHD that plagued me worse than the reading/writing disability, but was just undiagnosed at the time.

You CAN get accommodations, if you persevere enough with the right information. Your history back to childhood is more important than how it's presented, in my humble opinion. Focus on delivering the whole set of data rather than how expensive your expert is.

I was on Stratterra for my third bar study period and it made a big difference. I likely needed a stronger dose, but you'll understand why I opted not to do that if you're a guy and you have some hope of intimacy with another live body. Yet, I had to choose being focused on the bar enough to forego hopes of intimacy in favor of improving my focus.

It worked. I passed on my third bar attempt, which was the first try with given the medication for ADD/ADHD. Medication and time accommodations alone won't make you pass. Your determination to conquer this beast is more the controlling factor, and the medication just allows your body to cooperate a little better in the process.

I hope you won't give up and you'll seek help. Check out www.add.org for support groups in your area. In SF, CA, there's a good support group at 4141 Geary St, SF on the 1st and 3rd Monday nights. Several lawyers participate so don't think you're alone!

I nearly cried like a baby when I heard all those people in that meeting describe how their life felt uncontrollable and in shambles, all describing nearly identical impulses and effects on their daily lives.

I already knew I was "different". Little did I know in just how many ways, too numerous to list here. You can do this and do it without shame. My 650 friends on Facebook all know about my ADHD ad nauseum, but I don't care. Many joked that we all have ADD... whatever. Little did they understand how it has wrecked havoc with my life all these years. The bar exam merely exacerbated it to an uncontrollable level and sent me spiraling into the depths of Hell.

But now life is much improved. I'm on Adderall, which I like much better than suffering the side effects of Stratterra. But you won't get many doctors want to prescribe that instead since it's a Class II amphetamine. It's taken me almost a full year to get help in the HealthySanFrancisco.org health system (our universal health care system here.) But it all contributed to a success story... a 51 year old that graduated from a CalBar school and finally passed the CA bar exam.

Dude, if I can do it after all this, you can too. Now get to writing about how your inability to remain focused on the task at hand has caused you to perform normal functions with less efficiency and less likely to come to fruition than your "normal" contemporaries. The more facts you provide dating back a long time, the more likely you'll find success.

Then get a tutor, get someone to check up on your progress daily (or even more often than that, if necessary), and study partner(s), if you can find them. Be honest that you need their help and feedback when you're distracted by everything under the sun, and that you must FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS. With the proper meds, you CAN succeed in passing the hardest bar exam in the nation. If I can do it, so can you.

Good luck and good skill, my friend.

Jeff

You should either think of taking on another profession or figure out how to deal with it cause honestly everyone has at least a little ADD. I have received extra time in school throughout my life cause I have a severe eye disorder known as retinitis pigmentosa which causes the retina to deteriorate gradually over time leading to complete blindness. Try reading cases when your vision is consistently distorted by flashes and floaters blocking your field of vision and looking through the world as if you were in a tunnel. Also, knowing that there is no cure or treatment for the disease you have (thus simply wearing glasses or having a surgical procedure won't help). If it's a real problem for you I am not saying you don't have a problem and shouldn't do something about it, but rather that it is unfair to take advantage of a system by trying to seek extra time due to it being difficult to pay attention. There are several ways to combat ADD both through over the counter or prescription medication. As the post above noted you can go to a free clinic, where they will have you try different drugs to see what works (i.e. Adderell, Ritalin, Statera, etc.). There are also several over the counter approaches you can consider taking. One being to try taking L-Theanine (which is found in green tea). Theanine has been shown to reduce mental and physical stress and improve cognition. If you do a Google search I am sure you can discover several more measures you can take rather then having to apply for extra time on tests.

Jeff's excellent reply says it all. As a licensed social worker with years of experience working with adults with ADD, I can tell you that your feelings of shame are unwarranted, though understandable. Please know that everyone learns in their own way. You are not "handicapped," you are a different learner. The last thing you need is to beat up on yourself for a condition that you were born with.

Who knows, you may end up as a lawyer specializing in representing ADD adults under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Go for it.

why not some drugs to treat the condition now and for the rest of your working life? otherwise, the reason i am opposed to all accommodations involving extra time is, in the real world, the judge, the client, the boss, the opposing counsel won't typically give you extra time, so it makes little sense to give it on the bar exam. i have asked a couple of times on these boards and have yet to receive one answer, once in private practice - if that's where you want to head - do you expect the boss to pay you less money for less work?, the same money for less work?, to work harder and longer hours for the same money? do you expect to bill your clients for all of your time, even though the lawyer in the next office or down the street could bill for the same amount of time and get XX% more done during that time period, or complete the same task/research in less time (and if/when the boss/client figures this out, aren't they going to prefer those other lawyers)? seems to me there are some practial and ethical problems with lawyering that are worth thinking about BEFORE fighting the bar to get extra time (and ideally, before entering law school). possible solutions i guess are working for government where they are likely to be sympathetic to accommodations and productivity and expectations may be lower than in other areas of the law.

Gavin84 is very insensitive and obviously does not know what ADD/ADHD is, but a perfect example of how outsiders see ADD. It is insulting to say "everyone has a t least a little ADD"- well that's like saying, everyone has a little retinitis pigmentosa or everyone has a little autism. While it is correct that you have to learn to deal with it, saying that it is "unfair to take advantage" is absurd. I remember during law school a girl was in a car accident a week before exams and had to be on bed rest and pain medication and she was FEARFUL to ask for an extention for exams because she was afraid of what other students would say. I told her she was not asking for an advantage- just an equal playing field. The only way to really know is to try the extra time and see how much of a difference it would make (extra time does not always equal better grades, I do not think extra time would have helped me- it would have been extra time to be distracted.) I took the Florida bar specifically because it is 3/4 multiple choice and I am less likely to lose concentration when my little brain is occupied. (in law school I always got better grades in classes where essays were not on the exam, which of course were few.) As far as medication, definitely get the help of a professional because there are many options available. I contacted the Ohio Lawyer's Assistance Program and although they never helped anyone with ADD, they went out of their way to find local help that was willing to help with fees because I was a student including a support group. They were, however, very suspicious because they deal with substance abuse- and I have always found that the case when dealing with outsiders. It makes me angry to know how many stupid, ignorant people take the amphetamines for energy because it just makes it more difficult for people who need the drugs- this is the biggest concern if you have to go to a free clinic.

I perceive the "everyone has a little ADD" statement akin to "everyone has a little crystal meth every once in a while" or "everyone can drink just one drink", et al.

You don't get an ADD/ADHD diagnosis unless those issues are so strong and apparent in your life that you can't function normally. Just like you're not an alcoholic unless you can't learn to say no after one drink. We don't bash the alcoholics for recognizing their disease so why do you want to pick on those that have absolutely no say of their own about how their brain chemistry works?

I heard a great analogy this weekend on how to understand why a stimulant would help a person with ADD/ADHD instead of making them worse. A normal brain tick tocks along in pace with their body just like a metronome. But an ADD/ADHD brain pings along too fast for the body to provide sufficient stimulus to keep the brain occupied. When you give the body just a little zap of these stimulant medications, the body and the brain can then become in sync and things work more normal.

I'm not sure that has any scientific basis in fact, but I can tell you that it helps me understand what's happening in my head. Without my daily meds, I can't focus on a conversation at coffee with a friend or at my computer doing work or driving down the street in my car without bouncing all around with my eyes wondering what's happening over here or over there. In very short order, I'm distracted from what I was trying to do and the "multitasking" as we have come to call it means I gave none of it sufficient energy to accomplish any of the goals. The end result is failure to learn, such as when studying, or failure to meet deadlines or usually to even remember that I have a deadline.

ADHD folks are like those that sleep restlessly and can't get that deep rem sleep, only we can't devote enough attention to accomplish our task. I also got diagnosed with severe sleep apnea during law school because I couldn't stay awake in afternoon tasks, let alone focus on the task at hand if I could manage to stay awake with tons of caffeine.

Once I got my cpap (my best bed partner ever!), I began to sleep much more soundly and the next day produced better results, except then the ADHD became more apparent as the issue. The night I got tested for sleep apnea, I held my breath and awoke gasping for air 59 times in the night. You meet the diagnosis for severe sleep apnia at 30 times or more. Can you imagine how much difference I feel now that I can sleep easier?

The same thing is happening now when I take my ADHD meds. I can survive better in the world and at least make an effort to stay reasonably focused on what it is that you're even saying to me in the coffee shop, in the car, in the restaurant, or in the library studying for the bar exam. But meds alone don't cure the problem. It's a life-long struggle to find balance in one's life and it's never back to "normal".

Will my client get billed more because I have to deal with my physical disorder? Absolutely not! I happen to be entering into bankruptcy where we do work on a fixed price basis, so there's no impact to my client at all, presuming I meet all the deadlines. And because of that very issue, I will always have an assistant working for me to keep me on task and very aware of deadlines. I can program a computer to remind me, but snooze button on reminders is about as effective as the snooze button on your alarm clock at 5am after only four hours of sleep. It takes a great deal of discipline and not just a computer to remind you of dates.

Hence, I'd never trust myself to be totally solo without administrative help. I may end up the only lawyer in my practice, but I already coordinate with others in the field so that we share war stories, ideas, frustrations, and victories. I will never put the trust and needs of my client at risk without a diligent backup system in place to safeguard from error.

So what should the original inquirer do? I think he should proceed with their goals as best they can while getting treatment and counseling for the issues that face him or her. You can get accommodations from the Bar, but only if your case is so well documented that even the disgruntled students above would agree that life just isn't normal for you. You have a very big task at hand to get your application so well made that there's hardly an opportunity to rebut your evidence. Without that burden of proof, you will never convince the State Bar of CA that they should allow you the opportunity to show that you can do the work if given a reasonable chance to perform it. ADA requires the accommodations be "reasonable". Trust me, with a likely declination rate around 99% of all initial applications, "reasonable" is so far beyond fathomable that you won't be given an unjust playing field in your favor.

Take the bull by the horns, work hard on your documentation, and then study the bejesus out of prior essays and PT's. I did 46 essays and 8 PT's for July and I passed, as compared to 23 essays and 3 PT's on my first bar (earning a 1432) and hardly any essays or PT's on my second. Bar failure depression is serious stuff and I bet I wasn't the only one to have their scores go down instead of up on their second bar attempt.

With MBE's of 147 and 156 on my first two bar exams, no one could possibly say I didn't know the material! Once I got on meds to control the noise level of distractions, I was able to double my preparation efforts and demonstrate that I really was capable of representing my clients with sufficient knowledge of the law.

Now get out there and kick some butt! (Even you naysayers)

Jeff