Timeless wisdom.
People love to give out advice about the bar exam.
Some of that advice is even useful.
Recently, I used my law school alumni group on LinkedIn to ask the following question:
If you could give one piece of advice to someone studying for the bar exam, what would it be?
Here are some excerpts of the answers (indented) I thought were most useful followed by my comments:
I found it helpful to read the model answers in the bar exam prep books and reverse engineer the questions.
I like the idea of reverse engineering. Take apart the model answer and try to come up with the fact pattern narrative that would lead to that answer! Seems like a lot of (unnecessary?) work, but I bet you’d learn a ton.
When writing the essay portion of the exam, use IRAC. It makes the answers more readable and clear. Memorize the black letter law and learn to apply it. Model answers that come with barbri are great. During the Nevada bar exam, I happened to read the model answer right before the exam and the family law question was the exact question on the bar exam with two slight changes.
Love that the bar examiners are as lazy as practicing lawyers! Who doesn’t cut and paste from time to time? If you can get copies of past exam questions and answers, read them!
Structure and discipline. Create a structured study calendar and stick to it–do not let up. If you take BarBri (and I suggest you do) then do it THEIR way–this is not the time to get creative. Their way works.
I agree with structure and discipline, but I also think that if the über-intense BarBri schedule is too much for you, you should try and come up with a schedule that is more fitting with the way you learn. If you can’t do this on your own, hire a tutor for a couple hours to help you develop a schedule.
This is an impossible question to effectively answer. I mean that I had issues with writing essays clearly. So that is what I worried about. I had a friend who had no problem writing, he just needed to know the information. I studied probably 30% more than he did. We had totally different styles. We both passed.
Perfect counterpoint to the prior suggestion. This guy recognized his weaknesses, studied as much as he felt necessary, and passed. Awesome.
The Takeaway
As this collection of bar exam advice shows, there is no one right way to study for the bar exam.
Of course, structure and discipline matter, but incorporate them in a way that makes the most sense for you.
If you are good at following orders and would feel uncomfortable creating a schedule on your own, then by all means follow the schedule your bar prep course suggests.
If you find the suggested study program impossible to follow or it simply seems to be a bad fit, then find a study schedule and rhythm that works for you.
Commit. Focus. Succeed.
Good Luck!
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