1. Stay Healthy
One of the most important things during the course of bar examination preparation as well as during the exam itself is to stay healthy. Make sure to take care of your mental, physical, and spiritual health.
Mentally, make sure to keep your sanity. Take some breaks once in a while. Keep yourself grounded in things that you enjoy. For me, that meant still watching Lakers games, eating out occasionally, and watching a little TV once in a while. During bar prep’s first month, I would still take Sundays off. I would go to church, chill out, and not even pick up a law book. Once bar prep really picked up, I did continue to go to church, but I would head to the library right afterward. I could definitely tell the difference in not taking that break. I was a lot more irritable, unhappy, and angry. Taking breaks and even a day off is absolutely necessary.
Physically, it would be a great idea to work out. Spend some time in the gym to just relieve some of that stress. I must admit, I cut my workout frequency in half during bar time, but the times I did go really did wonders to relax me. Lift a few weights, do some cardio, maybe even go into the steam room, sauna, or the hot tub with the fat hairy old dudes. Anything to just get the blood pumping after sitting in the library all day.
2. Keep Your Life as “Normal” As Possible but Remember, you are taking the BAR
I hear the horror stories of people studying for the bar. People who go into deep ascetic monk mode and completely shut themselves up at home for 2-3 months. People who get up at 7 AM, sleep at 3 AM and study all day without eating or drinking much. I can tell you that doing that may be the stupidest thing ever to do. Yeah…don’t do that. There is only so much you can learn a day and trying to “force feed” yourself will do nothing to help you pass the bar. At the same time, realize that this is the BAR EXAM. It is incredibly difficult. Very intelligent people have failed it. Take it seriously and put in the work to pass it. Don’t take half measures and be committed to the process of studying for it.
Another aspect of keeping life pretty normal is keeping factors in your life pretty consistent. What do I mean? Keep eating the same foods. Keep the same sleeping patterns. The bar is no time to try to kick that caffeine habit or start new hobbies. YES, this includes relationships. Don’t be trying to “make it happen” with that cute guy/girl in bar review or coming up with a game plan to impress your crush. There’ll be time for that later, after you pass the bar. And, after you pass, you’ll have one of the best pickup lines out there in your arsenal: “Trust Me, I’m a lawyer.” And if you are already in a relationship, sorry, I have nothing to say. I cannot relate to you.
3. Prepare yourself in law school with eyes to the bar
Bar prep is a long term process. I think, while possible, you can just cruise for three years and cram two months and pass, it becomes a lot tougher and more stressful than it needs to be. Bar prep should start from day 1 in law school. Now, what do I mean by this.
The first thing, expose yourself to long term bar studying opportunities. One of the most helpful things in law school that I found in prepping for the bar were workshops that Bar/Bri offered for essay writing. I took the workshops in evidence and torts, and I found during bar review that I felt A LOT more comfortable with these subject areas.
The second thing that I believe EVERYONE should do is to intern or extern and get as much real world experience as possible. As law students, we tend to become so focused on just the black letter law and trying to pound the rules into our heads. Although it may not FEEL like it, getting that experience really helps solidify knowledge in the law. Most importantly, though, I believe that working in a particular field allows you to gain a certain comfort level with a particular subject. Take me, for example. I interned with the DA’s office in San Bernardino County. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I felt that three of my best subjects are criminal law, criminal procedure, and evidence. When you work in an area, you begin to develop a sense for the issues involved. You gain writing experience. You see bad arguments and good arguments. And ultimately, your knowledge of black letter law is also reinforced.
The last point is, do not do the minimal in law school. Show up to class. Do your reading. It will help later on for bar studying. I’ll be honest, I didn’t put the same kind of effort in for every single class in law school. Some classes, I would really work hard in and keep on top of things. Other areas, I would just do the bare minimum. Read enough so that I wouldn’t look like an idiot, and cram at the end. The areas that I really did all the work: reading, fully briefing, coming prepared to discuss in class, I think were some of my best areas in preparing for the bar. The classes I didn’t put in that same effort, I really struggled with during bar review.
4. Quality versus Quantity
One of the things that I heard early on is that we needed to spend about 70 hours a week studying for the bar. I don’t disagree with the heart of this. The bar does take a lot of commitment in terms of time. But I would say even more important than this is the quality of your studying. Are you concentrated in the time that you studying? Are you being smart about studying, or are you just sitting there casually browsing your outlines.
This principle also applies to doing MBEs and writing essays as well. Just doing A LOT of these isn’t the only solution. You have to see the patterns and understand WHY you get things right or wrong.
5. Nothing Beats Preparation
The bar is hard work. In order to succeed, you got to put in the work. As much as I hated it, I’m totally ok with that. It means it’s a fair test. If you put in the work and have the necessary skills, you will pass. If you don’t you don’t. There’s no secret to what needs to be done. I know there are conflicting things that people who give advice on taking the bar say. But here are just some of my thoughts in terms of prepping.
I believe the most important thing in preparing for the bar is to know the black letter law. If you know your law, you will be in good shape. This takes hard work. It requires listening to lectures, and reading outlines, and outlining things, and notecarding, and memorizing, and even more notecarding, and then even more memorizing. For me, I feel like I’m a good enough writer that if I know the law, I know how to apply it in an essay. In addition, you MUST know the law in order to pass the MBE. There are no if, ands, or buts.
In addition, you must practice, practice, practice. After you’re done, do some more practice. This includes writing exams, taking MBE questions, and doing performance tests. I think the main thing is that you need to learn timing as well as gain a comfort level with questions. The only way to achieve this is to practice a lot.
I like the analogy of a basketball player shooting free throws or being clutch in a game. Someone like Kobe Bryant. You think that happens by chance? No way! It takes hours and hours of practice. It takes improving upon weaknesses and constant and consistent improvement. It requires so much work that shooting becomes almost second nature. So even in the face of great pressure and adversity, a basketball player like Kobe can deliver. The same thing with bar exam questions. You need to practice enough to become effective, and most importantly, to become comfortable with the exam.
6. Don’t try to “Trick the Exam”
Many people will tell you the tricks of the bar. What you need to study or not. You’ll hear stuff like “constitutional law was on the bar last time, so you don’t need to study that.” I cannot tell you how much I hate that. Just be prepped and ready to go. Don’t put all that energy into trying to outguess the exam. Just work hard, get your fundamentals down, and let things fall into place. You cannot control the test, but you can control what law you know. You can control how much you prepare and working on your timing. And this takes hard work. No “special insight” into the bar could ever make up for this.
7. Maximize your Strengths and Minimize Your Weaknesses
The bar is part luck, but mostly hard work. I think I said previously that I had a very good mix of questions on the bar in terms of my strengths. And, in a lot of ways, you make your own luck on an exam like this. You can expand “areas of strength” by becoming more proficient in a subject area. So lets say, you feel initially ok about 6 areas, so-so in about 6, and very bad about 4. Through hard work, your comfort level will change that to where you maybe you feel expert in 3 areas, ok in 10, and so-so in about 3. I think that’s where I ended up.
Early on, I developed a strategy to my approach to study: maximize my strengths and mitigate the consequences of my weaknesses. This is both in terms of subjects, and in terms of areas of the test (essay writing, performance test, or multiple choice questions). I identified subject areas of strength that I could really bank on. It’s no surprise that these areas were subjects I did very well in during law school as well as gained real life experience in: criminal law/procedure, community property, constitutional law, business associations, torts and evidence. Then there were the areas I really had almost no clue about going into bar review: contracts, real property, wills and trusts. Thankfully, there weren’t too many subjects I was REALLY uncomfortable with. So the breadth of the exam didn’t really intimidate me AS much as it could have. Knowing that I was prepared to write/answer questions on crim law and con law without even going through bar review was very, very, very reassuring. It gave me time to worry about areas that I don’t know anything about.
I also discovered that I’m actually really good at multiple choice questions. It’s probably because of the tutelage of the legendary Chuck Shonholtz. So that was a point of strength for me, and an area that I knew pretty early on that I didn’t need to spend quite AS much time on as things like writing essays or working on timing for the performance test. Speaking of the performance test, initially, I would spend 3.5 hours writing a test. But one thing I discovered more and more as I kept practicing is that I had a pattern. They recommend that you spend 90 minutes reading and outlining the library and the file and 90 minutes actually writing. One thing about me is, I’m not very pithy with my words, so I tend to take longer writing. But I do read, outline, and understand things pretty fast. I just decided to totally throw out the suggested time allotment out the window and spend an hour reading/outlining and two hours writing.
8. Do it Your Way
I talked a lot about methodology and approaches for studying for the bar. People will give a lot of “tips” on what worked for them in studying for the bar. Ultimately, you got to do what works for you. We all learn differently and all have different areas of weaknesses that we need to work on. Find a way that is effective for you and stick to it.
9. Keep Your Head Up
Preparation for the bar is a marathon, but the bar itself is a sprint. You really got to pace yourself in studying. You can’t burn out too early and flame out in your energy for studying. You are in for studying for the long haul. There are “time checks” on the way to the goal, and just take one segment at a time. It is very easy to get overwhelmed so it’s necessary to just grit your teeth and keep fighting.
Prepping for the bar is a whole lot worse than taking it. The long hours, the isolation, the nervousness, really sucks. But when you’re taking the bar exam, it’s your chance to show off how much you know and to prove why you’re ready to be a lawyer. The exam itself isn’t bad in the sense that it feels very long. Once you’re in it, you’re locked in. There’s a task and it’s time to perform. And once those three days are over, there is no better feeling.
Trust in what you have learned and the skills you have acquired. It’s very easy to second guess yourself during the process and during the bar as well. “I should have put this,” or “should have I raised that?” Don’t get discouraged. You prepared as much as you could and performed as best as you can. I think for myself, even as I await my bar results, I was very satisfied with how I did because I knew it was the best I could do. And that’s the only thing that we can really control: our preparation and how we execute. Whether we pass really isn’t up to us, we just have to let the chips fall as they will.
During the bar, things will go wrong. There is no doubt about it. There will be a question that you don’t know. You will get sick. You won’t be able to find that parking spot. Never give up and keep going along. It has almost become axiomatic to say that the bar does not prepare you for the practice of law. I disagree. While most attorneys will never need to know the breadth of law that is required on the bar exam (most attorneys specialize and end up having a deep knowledge in a few areas), the bar exam helps train an important trait in attorneys: mental toughness.
Much like not knowing a question on the bar exam means it’s the “end of the exam” or “game over” for your chances of passing, when things go bad in court, its not necessarily over. You got to keep fighting away. I always get a chuckle from these horror stories of people running out of the bar crying or freaking out or just leaving. Really? If you can’t handle the exam to become a lawyer, how can you handle ACTUALLY working in the profession? To wrap up, keep fighting. And as cheesy encouragement, “Never give up” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) and “Don’t Stop Believin’” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barLaHrtvoM)
10. Keep Perspective and Stay Relaxed
Going back to the analogy with Kobe, he’s one of the best basketball players in the world, but played like trash in Game 7 of the NBA finals. Why? Was he unprepared? Did he somehow lose his skills over night? No, he said in post game interviews that he “wanted it too much.” He was trying too hard. In trying too hard, he didn’t know his limits. His shot was off, he was forcing things too much, and ultimately performed to a level that was unexpectedly bad.
Now what does this have to do with the bar? The bar is an important exam, no doubt about it. But it is not the end all be all. Keep a proper perspective on it. Relax, don’t tense up, and you’ll be okay.
