steva

What advice would you guys give for someone who is just now starting law school?

kansmith

Advice for law school students from A Girl Walks into a Bar

One important caveat about Bar Exam advice -- from any source -- is that you have to take it all with a grain of salt. Studying for and taking the Bar is a very individualized process, and you have to decide what works for you in particular. And this is purely my opinion, others may disagree!

Try to understand your studying methods, what stresses you out, and what works for you -- and USE THAT.

FIRST FIVE SEMESTERS OF LAW SCHOOL:

1. Take all the subjects tested on the Bar while you are in law school. I wrote a full post about this here.
2. Sign up for BarBri as a 1L. You save a lot of money by signing up early, and everybody takes BarBri anyway. Even though you may end up getting a job that pays for your course, many firms just give you a lump sum at graduation and let you use it how you choose. So if you save money, that's more leftover for you.
3. Recognize that you can't take the Bar on an Apple computer, so if you are buying a new laptop for law school, that's one reason to choose a PC. Full post.

LAST SEMESTER OF LAW SCHOOL:
1. Try and take care of things that you won't have time to worry about during Bar Review. For example, get your car serviced, go to the dentist, etc.
2. Take advantage of time to shop during your last semester, and stock up on shorts/pants with stretchy waistbands. You will need them for your Bar Review fat. Trust me.
3. In my humble opinion, you don't need to sign up for Pmbr. Full posts here and here. Recognize that this, of course, is my personal opinion and other people find Pmbr worthwhile. But don't feel like you have to do it. Especially in California, where the MBE is worth only 1/3 of your score.
4. Do, however, get the Pmbr CD set (29 CDs) on eBay if you are an auditory learner like me. I found that listening to them while working out really helped my memorization.
5. If you have time, try and start listening to the Pmbr CDs while you're in the car or working out. It can help limber up your brain for the crunch time.
6. Consider setting up a food delivery service (full post) and/or maid service (full post) if you can afford it.
7. Pay attention to deadlines -- this year the "timely filing" (i.e. not having to pay a late fee) deadline was April 1. Some states don't even allow you to register late (VA is one of them, I happen to know from a friend's personal experience!).
8. Make your hotel/airplane/rental car reservations for the actual exam.
9. Buy a little analog clock, less than 4"x4". This is the only type of clock allowed in the California Bar (full post). There were no wall clocks at my location.
10. If you don't already have an exercise program, start one. It can be as easy as taking a 30-minute walk every day. But physical exercise really helps relieve stress and build up physical endurance for the exam.
11. If you're not taking Pmbr, get the book "Strategies & Tactics for the Multistate Bar Exam." You can buy it used on eBay. Full post.
12. If you register for the CalBar online, there's a piece of paper you have to mail in IMMEDIATELY after registering, thereby completely obviating the purpose of online registration. So if you register online, be sure to mail it in. I think they have to *receive* it within 7 days.
13. You have to separately register your ExamSoft. Don't forget! Full post.
14. When you go to pick up your BarBri books, keep in mind that you will get a giant box with 9 ginormous books in them that is VERY HEAVY and awkward to carry. Plan accordingly. Full post.
15. California Bar Exam expert Travis Wise often gives free talks about passing the Bar. Check his site (links at left) to see if he might be speaking in your area. Full post.
16. Decide whether you want to handwrite or type the exam. I was told to do whatever you did in law school. There is not much difference in the passage rates for handwriters versus typists. There is some discussion in the comments section here.
17. You might find it useful to learn and practice meditation breathing techniques in order to calm yourself down when you start to panic (for use during the actual exam). Full post.

DURING BAR REVIEW:
1. Very early on, figure out how you are going to manage the stress of studying and the actual exam. Don't just say that you don't get stressed that easily, or decide that you'll just take it as it comes. Learn how you as an individual best reduce stress, and plan how you will incorporate that into your routine. Full post.
2. Plan to take Sundays off. Schedule it into your study plan. Full post.
3. Make sure your significant other understands that he/she is not permitted to break up with you during this time. Full post.
4. Your family and friends won't really understand what you're going through, and this can be isolating. I found it helpful to ask them to imagine that I was pregnant and due at the end of July. It's analogous -- you will need their support during an intense and stressful time; you will have to do what's best for *you* and be more selfish than normal during this unique experience, and they will have to be understanding about that; your mood swings may make you unpredictable; and they will need to remember that it's only temporary, so you are not being unreasonable.
5. You might want to check out some of these links. Definitely visit Travis Wise's site.
6. I found it useful to bring a stack of flashcards to class and take notes directly onto the flashcards. This way I didn't have to waste time creating them later, and it kept me engaged with the lecture when I otherwise would have zoned out.
7. Practice writing a few essays by hand, so that in case your computer freezes you have had at least some experience with handwriting them.
8. Recognize that a lot of people aren't able do all the BarBri homework. Don't beat yourself up if you can't keep pace.
9. Outline as many practice essays as you can get your hands on. Once you're used to writing out a full essay, it's OK to just outline. Spot the issue and write out the rule statement. Don't look at your notes, and see how much you can remember. Write the best outline you can. Then look at your notes and add in stuff you forgot. Get the outline all organized as if you were going to write an essay. Then compare it to the model answer. Make a mental note of issues you missed.


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samata

This article is specifically for the California Bar Exam, the famous CA Bar

1. Essays 1st, I did a few on each subject writing the entire essay answers within the 1 hr
limitation and after that I did almost all the essays in the BarBri materials just writing the
outlines, spent 15-20 minutes each. I went through them over and over again until I hit all
the points in the model/sample answers.

2. PT - I give credit to BarBri, even if I did not find some of the cases so easy to
understand, I kept these in mind - follow the instructions, organize the material, use all
the cases and use/maintain the right tone.

3. MBEs - I mostly used BarBri and also purchased and used some other materials Looking
back, I would just have devoted all my time practicing on BarBri materials alone.

4. During the exam days, at the end of the 1st day I studied a little bit. Looking back, I
would not do so. My brain was exhausted taking the exam; it needed all the rest it can get
in preparation for the following day.

5. If you have to work full time while preparing for the bar, just like what the other posts
said - it can be done! I used BarBri's self study program to eliminate the drive time.

Of course, I am sure the ton of prayers that came my way when I was preparing and taking
the bar exam made a tremendous difference!

Good luck everyone!

rakhi

Jay Wiseman put these words in the public for all of us bar takers to think about. Hope you found it as helpful as I did:

Hi all,

Just as a comment about the various pass rates of the various law
schools, a while ago on this list I made a post in which I identified
six factors that were material in determining whether or not a given
candidate was likely to pass the bar. All of these six factors play
a major role, and this makes it difficult to meaningfully isolate any
particular one of them in terms of predicting passing the exam.

The six factors are:

1. The candidate's overall aptitude for the academic study of law --
as reflected by such things as their undergrad GPA, their LSAT score,
their law school GPA, and suchlike.

2. The overall quality of education they receive in law school from
the program itself. (Add in 2a. -- additional legal education they
receive during law school from supplemental study aids such as
emanuel's flashcards, Flemings/Westgroup/ PBMR tapes/cds, and so
forth.)

3. The quality of their in-house bar review class.

4. The quality of their post-grad (out-house? ) bar review class.

5. The amount of time the candidate has to devote themselves to law
school study and to bar prep. (Job, relationship, kids, general life
issues.)

6. How much of that time the candidate actually uses effectively to
prepare themselves for the exam (study skills and level of
motivation).

I suggest that ReallyGood student could graduate from ReallyBad law
school and still pass the bar exam rather handily on their first try
by being strong in factors 1, 2a, 4, 5, and 6.

I further suggest that factor 6 is the most important. (To this end,
I have a message that I frequently repeat to my students -- for
every "good hour" of active learing that you put in, figure you will
add one point to your bar exam score. Put in another hour; add
another point. Put in yet another hour; add yet another point.
After a while, they add up.)

Cost isn't a major factor in bar prep. You can buy everything you
truly need to prepare for the bar exam for about $200.00. (For
example: Adachi "Bar Breaker" books for essays, Finz's book or
Fleming's books for the MBEs, and a basic PT guidebook for the PTs --
Tyler's is pretty good.)

Let me add on final thought. While quality of education at a law
school matters, IMO in the final analysis the student prepares
_themselves_ for the bar exam. For example, let's say that
ReallyPrestigious law school routinely gets 2000 applications for 125
1-L spots. Of these applications, 950 are from Highly
Motiviated "Uber-Geniuses" who could self-study law for about a year
and then pass the bar exam without breaking a sweat. These people
don't _need_ to go to law school to learn the law. In fact, doing so
arguably slows them down.

Put another way, if ReallyPrestigious law school can cherry-pick to a
very high degree among its applicants then _of_course_ it's going to
have a high bar pass rate. This being the case (and it is), the
school's pass rate does _not_ in and of itself reflect the quality of
education at ReallyPrestigious.

Plus, the Highly Motivated Uber-Genius grads of ReallyPrestigious
tend to take the WellKnown bar prep program, thus leading to a "high
pass rate" among those who take WellKnown. Raise your hand if you
think that this high pass rate leads inescabably to the conclusion
that WellKnown's program is therefore the best bet.

Taking the bar exam is not a team sport. It's not the candidate and
their law school against the bar, it's not the candidate and their
study group against the bar, and it's not the candidate and their bar
prep course against the bar.

In the end, in almost every case, it comes down to the question of
how well did the individual applicant prepare _themselves_ .

The bar exam is something that, in the end, each applicant faces
alone.

Best regards to all,

Jay Wiseman, JD