Why I decided to go on my first real diet while studying for the Bar.

All advice I received for bar study strategy said that you eliminate all obligations, responsibilities, and distractions from your life before BarBri starts.  Bar study, I was told, will demand every brain cell and every free minute of your life.  On the first day of BarBri a rep from the company even told us that we shouldn’t take time to grocery shop or get hair cuts and that we should basically outsource every aspect of our lives to our personal support system of friends and family.

I took this advice to heart.  I prepped my spouse for months and months before hand that I wouldn’t be available to help with family responsibilities.  I warned my family that they wouldn’t be hearing from me and that I would be absent from all events for three months.  I was ready to disengage from life with the exception of my books, notes, and practice tests.

Here’s the thing with this strategy, I am better at juggling four balls than three.  I perform better when I am busy and multi-tasking.  I think that many women are like that.

Should you supplement CA BarBri with PMBR

So, the first thing I want to point out is that this is not a paid advertisement and I don't have a relationship of any sort with Kaplan PMBR.

Congratulations to all graduates.  I think most around the country will graduate some time over the next three weeks or so (sorry, Chicago!).  If you are like I was, you may be looking to the not-so-distant future and wondering if you have the right plan to tackle studying for the bar exam.  Hopefully, this advice isn't too late, but if you haven't signed up for a course that will supplement BarBri's MBE program, I think you should, at least if you are taking the CA exam.

Did you know that the best indicator of whether somebody will pass the CA bar exam is their LSAT score?  Why, likely because 1/3 of the test is multiple choice and such a test requires a skill set that translates from one multiple choice test to the next.  Also, it is likely because the essays are so subjective that many get through them without doing all that great objectively.  California test takers have one of the top average MBE scores in the country.  I also believe in the idea that practicing can help improve your multiple choice test performance.

I think that, if you have the time and the money, you should take the 6 day PMBR to kick-start your summer of studying.  Personally, I took my last semester kind of easy.  I took the minimum number of credits required and took sort-of soft, theoretical-type classes instead of black letter law type courses.  I found the five days that I spent in PMBR before BarBri started to be a great way to kick-start my black-letter-law brain and get going on the summer.

However, the biggest reason why I think you should take the course is for the practice questions.

Bar Study Challenges for a Studier in a New Community

Study challenges; what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

I studied for and took the bar exam in a city other than where I went to law school. The local law school libraries were not all that convenient or close to my house and all three are private schools that I wasn’t familiar with. Therefore, I decided to study primarily in public libraries. This presented unique challenges, all of which are able to be overcome. I’ll share some of the pros and cons of studying in public libraries here in case any readers find themselves in a similar situation:

Pros:

• you won’t see any other bar studiers there
• you won’t see any law school friends there so you’ll avoid the distractions that are friends
• close to home
• no distractions of home: refrigerator, tv, neighbors, laundry, etc

Cons:

• limited hours – public libraries usually close pretty early in the evening; this was actually a big challenge for me that entailed keeping track of all the random hours of the libraries near me so that I knew where I could go study depending on the day of the week and time
• noise – my public libraries have a lot of events in the summer like public speakers, kids’ events, musical performances, etc
• loitering, especially by homeless people in my area
• intermittent internet connection
• lack of privacy and having to share tables

I was able to make it work and spent most of my time studying in the public libraries in my area but had to balance the concerns listed above.

Another thing that I'd like to point out about studying for the bar in a different city than where you went to law school -- it is very lonely. I didn't know anyone in my BarBri class, I didn't have any fellow studiers to take breaks with or talk to about the program. Sure I had family and friends in the area, but I pretty much limited contact with them during my study time and even when I did take time with them, they couldn't begin to understand what I was going through. I did make shallow friendships with the people that I regularly sat near in BarBri but we never got too far past, "how are you" each day. My point is, be ready for solitude, its hard. I remember full days passing by without talking to anyone. This was tough and a little depressing for me.

Advice on Passing the Bar Exam: Part IV

Hey 3Ls - congrats on graduation!! For advice on what to do with the next three weeks before official bar preparation begins check out the forums. For my advice about what to do once studying begins ...

I took the California Bar Exam in July 2007. I took it on a laptop in Los Angeles, CA. To prepare I took Barbri's live lecture series in Los Angeles. I did not take PMBR.

Barbri Advice

First of all, there’s no advantage to attending a live class as opposed to a taped one – except for that it seems less ludicrous to be paying so much for it. I actually preferred the taped classes. They were less crowded and more relaxed. The key is to figure out a daily schedule that will allow you to be productive. I work best in the mornings and tend to have an afternoon slump. So I worked on my own in the mornings and stared blankly at the Barbri monitors every afternoon.

So the BIG question: do you really have to follow the paced program and do all the homework?? Not necessarily, but you do have to put in some serious work. I never did a single paced program assignment. The first night I sat down to read the first outline. I thought it would be helpful to write down some notes. Well after three hours I was only half way through and thoroughly miserable. There was no way I was doing one of these in addition to 50 question and a couple essays every night.

So here’s what I did: as we went through the lectures I hand wrote outlines of the topics and made flashcards of the basic rules (not the completely nit-picky stuff). I tried to do 15-20 multiple choice questions per day, including reading through the answers. I finished all my subject outlines and flash cards by the end of the in class lectures. Starting the first week of July, when our classes ended I wrote out 1 full essay per day and outlined two more. I kept doing 15-20 multiple choice per day as well. Finally, I went back and hand wrote my outlines again.

I do not recommend this particular plan, but I do recommend this: think about what kind of study skills are effective for you and utilize them. I retain information by writing it down by hand much better than by typing or reading aloud. Not everyone works this way. Since I do, that formed the basis of my study plan.

Other methods I saw among my friends: extremely detailed flashcards; repetition of incorrectly answered multiple choice questions every night before bed; studying from hand-me-down outlines; and reading aloud (over and over and over again…).

Personal Life

I heard a great piece of advice. Before you start studying sit down with your significant other and lay out this rule: NO BREAKING UP UNTIL AFTER THE BAR EXAM. The rule applies to you both.

Advice on Passing the Bar Exam: Part III

Following up on sintecho and Jessie's recent posts giving advice for passing the bar, I have a couple of tips to add to the great information already provided on this site.

I sat for (and passed) the July 2007 Bar Exam in California. The two tips that I will share here relate to the written portion of the test and I think now is the perfect time to share them as the February test is just weeks away!

Both of these tips relate to matching how you study to how you will test.

[More after the jump]

Advice on Passing the Bar Exam: Part II

"A word about panic: I took the California exam and my computer failed..." Though my heart just stopped on her behalf, Jessie passed the bar anyway. How did she do it? Read on! --Ed.

For those prepping for the February sitting, a word about panic: I took the California exam and my computer failed in the middle of the second essay day. My screen just turned bright blue. I raised my hand and the proctor handed me a piece of paper that instructed me to try restarting and then switch to a bluebook. So I restarted - and started writing in the bluebook while my computer rebooted. My computer crashed again about one minute after rebooting, at which point I abandoned it and stuck to the bluebook.

I think two things saved me...

Advice for Passing the Bar Exam

I know the February bar is fast approaching, so I thought I’d share the preparation advice I jotted down for my younger law school friends after taking the New York bar this past July. I wrote this when it was still fresh in my head (and before I knew that I passed), and I added some notes on thoughts I have now that I know I passed.

1. Things to keep in mind while studying with Barbri

Don’t rely on Barbri’s assessment of what will and won’t be on the exam. Barbri told us not to spend time on one subject because it was rarely tested and, if tested, usually only came up in multiple choice questions. To the horror and surprise of me and everyone else in the room who had taken Barbri, half of an entire essay question tested this subject. Barbri did cover the information, but no one I know studied it very intently since it was described as such a low priority. Basically, Barbri doesn’t have a crystal ball, so you shouldn’t take their word for it when they predict things that are unlikely to appear.

The real MBE questions are harder than the Barbri practice exams. I found the MBE much harder than the questions in the Barbri review books and on the Barbri practice test. First, the real MBE questions bring in terminology from legal subjects outside the six tested (like wills, for example). There were also answer choices listing obscure legal doctrines that possibly existed but which I’d never seen before. I have no idea if these answer choices were right or just red herrings, but it was unnerving to see doctrines of which I’d never heard or seen applied to the context of the question. [Note: After finding out that I did quite well on the MBE, I can now advise NOT to fall for these red herrings. I NEVER chose an answer choice with a legal doctrine of which I’d never heard—I assumed they were red herrings. It’s possible I was wrong since I don’t know which questions I missed since that breakdown isn’t included with my score, but given my overall MBE score, I have to assume that the obscure legal doctrine answers really were red herrings.]