No Brief Case: Passing the Bar Took 14 Tries

NEWPORT BEACH — At age 74, Benjamin Fred Roll had been able to get his arms around pretty much everything life presented him: World War II battlefields, Appalachian oil fields and the raising of eight children.

But one thing kept eluding him: passing the California bar exam. Thirteen times, Roll, a retired lieutenant colonel and real estate agent, failed the grueling three-day test.

On the 14th try, he used a different approach for tackling the lengthy essays.

“My whole life, I’d say, ‘You got a problem? Here’s the answer.’ But that’s not what lawyers do. They dance all over and argue all the pros and cons. So I tried it,” he said.

It worked.

In May, Roll, now 75, finally passed the exam. Others have taken the test more times--former Compton City Councilman Maxcy Filer tried 48 times before succeeding--but Roll may be the oldest person ever admitted to the state bar, according to a state bar spokesperson.

Roll entered law school in 1978, after challenging his sixth child, Thomas, to stop fooling around in college and get a real education. Thomas Roll finally called his father on the phone and said, “If you’ll go to law school, so will I.”

His son, now an in-house counsel at Xerox Corp., said he proposed the idea because “I figured he would never go for it and he’d leave me alone.”

Roll, a real estate office owner at the time, chuckled about the challenge to his wife, Garnet, and their children. To his surprise, his daughter said, “Go. It will get you out from in front of the television set. It beats watching ‘Hogan’s Heroes.’ ”

Father and son were admitted to Western State University College of Law in Fullerton and began commuting together to classes.

After 18 months, an elder at the Rolls’ Mormon church in Corona del Mar took him aside and said, “The Lord needs you in Hawaii.”

Although he had to leave law school to undertake the missionary work, he and his wife were delighted to return to old friends, Benjamin Roll said. The Rolls had been stationed there in the 1960s when he was in the Army.

When they returned to the mainland, Roll was offered a job in Kentucky supervising an oil field. When the Rolls finally settled back in their retirement home here, Benjamin Roll decided to return to law school. By that time, Thomas was working 60 to 70 hours a week, and the elder Roll thought maybe he could help. Also, “It felt like a bit of unfinished business I wanted to get wrapped up.”

That was in 1986. For four years, he studied at the kitchen table and graduated in May 1990. Finally, he drove to Los Angeles to take the bar exam.

“It was hard, but actually I felt very comfortable that I had passed,” Roll said ruefully. “When the large envelope came from the state bar association saying ‘Sorry, send another $325 and you can try again in six months,’ I was devastated. I’m not used to failure.”

He tried again. And again. Although the six to eight hours a day of studying interfered with good golf games, he never thought of giving up.

“After the third time, I thought of Winston Churchill. He’s always been a great hero of mine, and I remembered that great speech of his from World War II,” Roll said, clearing his throat and quoting in a sonorous rumble: “We will fight in the oceans, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the streets, but we will never give up!”

Twice a year for six years, it became a ritual for Ben Roll and his wife. They would drive to San Diego. With words of encouragement, she would drop him at the Civic Center, where the test was given, and head for the beach.

“While she was playing, I was sweating,” Roll said, laughing. “The proctors all got to know me. They would say ‘Hey, here you are again, how are you?’ ”

Roll and a test-taker who had failed more than 20 times would go for hamburgers on lunch breaks.

One day last July, Roll’s wife was out shopping when the mail arrived.

“Here it was, this little legal-size envelope,” recalled Roll, his large hands wrapping around an imaginary envelope. “I knew right away. Before, they always sent me a large one with the application for a new test.”

But he didn’t open it immediately. He wanted his wife of more than 50 years to be there too. He paced for half an hour, then mowed the lawn. Then watered it. Then weeded the garden. She still wasn’t home. He went inside and opened the envelope.

“I thought to myself, ‘I have finally done it,’ ” he said, his face creasing into a huge smile.

When his wife returned home, Roll told her the state bar association had called and said she should stop making overnight reservations in San Diego.

“I knew right away,” she said. She threw a little party for their 50 closest relatives and friends. Thomas Roll, who has a private practice and serves as a judge pro tem in addition to working for Xerox, obtained permission from the state Supreme Court to swear-in his father.

They had stationery and cards printed that read, “Roll and Father.” Roll has made court appearances for his son, although he doesn’t plan an active practice.

“Hey! I’m 75 years old; I like to play golf,” he said.

In his first case, defending one of his 33 grandchildren in traffic court, he did what many a good attorney would do: He won a postponement. Then he persuaded her to plead guilty in exchange for traffic school and a clean driving record.