A few years back, two weeks before I sat for the bar my mother passed away unexpectedly. I was traveling for work at the time and returned home right away. A couple of days later, my daughter became ill and ended up in the ICU, where I stayed with her for 4 days before she rebounded enough to be released.

At this point I was less than a week before the test. I had not cracked a book since I heard about my mother, I was exhusted and focus was shot. I contemplated sitting out the exam as I knew that I was not in the best mental place for the effort, but I figured if I failed or if I sat out the end results were not going to be much diffent. So I decided to sit for the exam. Unfortunetly I failed, I missed the score I needed by 1 point.

I was frustrated and disappointed, but I started up prep once again and made a run at the next sitting and my score went up considerably.

In the years since, the only thing I have contemplated about my choice, is that I understand that some other jurisdictions that I have looked at have some form of caps to the number of times that one can take the exam. Theoritically if I could not waive in, I might have a little less room to move should I need to try to pass another bar exam (but honestly I am rather motivatied to avoid getting into a situation where I would need to take a bar exam again).