Dear Readers,
I apologize for disappearing for a while. I volunteer with a couple of different organizations, and this week ended up being a particularly busy one.
I have written out my personal thoughts on how to study for the Bar. Of course, everyone studies differently, and especially, everyone studies for the Bar differently. For some, how they studied in law school works; for others, they need a whole new method. Or you can be like me and never have studied in law school, and have to start from square one.
For Everyone:1. Integrate the PMBR course(s) into your studying.
If you took the 6-day PMBR class, type up your PMBR notes into outline form. Then, in BAR/BRI, you can type your notes into your outline during class or after class. That way, you'll have six outlines done within the first few weeks! Of course, you'll have to add on to your outlines, but it's great to have something off of which to start.
If you can, go over the 50 practice questions per subject from PMBR again, adding what you missed into your outline. Put the question number and booklet name in parentheses so that you can go back to the question later if you want to.
If you take the 3-day course, it is worth it to go to the reviews of the answers, even though they give you the review. You probably won't have time to go over them all alone, and the instructor usually gives some good hints verbally. And he usually doesn't waste time with dumb questions.
2. Pay attention in BAR/BRI.
Sounds simple, but you would be surprised how many people don't, myself included. Bring food, coffee, soda, whatever you need to keep you going. Do not go online. That is bad. You think you can reply to email and pay attention at the same time, but this is a lesson I should have learned in law school -- you get distracted, and all of a sudden you hear the professor say, "And that's the most important thing you should know about this area." And you go, "Fuck!"
3. Try to keep up with the BAR/BRI Paced Program schedule, but modify it for your own schedule.
It's so easy to say, "I'll do it tomorrow," but tomorrow never comes. You blow off one essay, and all of a sudden, you have several essays in each subject to go over, and only ten days until the exam!
If you can't do all 74 of each type -- introductory questions, intermediate problems, advanced problems, it's okay to do only 40 or 50 of them. I really think it's good to do each type, because the advanced ones note minor distinctions in the law, which are good to know, but the intermediate ones are like the ones you get on the Bar, and the introductory ones are good, because sometimes the easy questions have answers that are very similar. Also, you may not want to do all the BAR/BRI multiple choice questions so that you can have more time to do PMBR questions (more on that later).
I think it's important to do all the written hand-in assignments. Even though BAR/BRI feedback isn't the best, most of it is helpful. And try to do the assignments without looking at your outline or the sample answer. It's painful, but it's good to get used to looking at a blank piece of paper and writing something on it. I actually hadn't really written any essays on my own going into July, and just staring at the blank screen during the exam was a little freaky. And when you get your essays back, ACTUALLY look at them. You would be surprised how easy it is to skim it over and then forget about it. And then, maybe about a day later, so you've forgotten the actual answer, rewrite the parts of your essay that were below passing.
As for essays, I think you should write out two per subject at least, and outline the rest. But don't just compare your answers to the BAR/BRI ones. The BAR/BRI sample answers are long and super-detailed. Check out the selected answers on the State Bar website. The Bar Examiners pick the "top" examinee answers, and they're often not all that well written, and actually have incorrect statements of law. So you don't have to write a perfect answer to pass. You just have to format and phrase your answer properly.
It really is IRAC all the way. And use all the facts you can in your analysis. If you didn't use all the facts, you are probably missing an issue. I tried to rewrite the entire fact pattern in my answer. =) But I'm crazy. Finally, use the exact language the fact pattern used. We are taught to write with synonyms, to not use the same words repeatedly. Fuck being creative. If A pushed B, then A pushed B, he didn't shove her, or tap her, or run into her. Keep the language. Then you can say that the push was a deliberate action, and thus, there was specific intent.
4. Allocate your study time.
Read Conviser before each subject, outlining as you go. It really is easier to understand the lecture if you've reviewed the material. Even if you know the subject well, just skim Conviser -- it's surprising how many small random rules you may not have learned in law school. Then go to class and pay attention. You can take your notes into your outline, or, after class, incorporate your notes into your outline. It's time-consuming, but it's worth it in the end. You really don't want to go that ridiculously thick workbook two weeks before the exam. But even if you take notes into an outline, go over your notes every day. Later on, you won't have time to fill in any blanks.
4. Learn from your mistakes.
When you miss a multiple choice question, note it down somehow. For each of the six MBE subjects, I kept a list of the question number, the actual question, and the explanation of the law. I also put my notes from the audio workshops here. Later, I integrated this information in my outlines.
I also kept a list of things I tended to miss, per subject, when doing essay questions. For example, in con law, I always freaking forgot to explain how the action was state action in a con law question. It was just too obvious. But you have to state the obvious on the Bar. I looked at this list about once a day, and eventually, especially after going over prior exams, I started remembering to write about state action.
5. Keep a list of essay topics.
This will show you what topics are repeated frequently and helps you create a checklist for yourself of things to look for in a question.
My checklist for Wills/Trusts:
Question Topics:
· EA Essay/Simulated Exam Essay: conflict of laws, specific vs. general gifts – stock and automobile, class gift, anti-lapse statute
· Question 1: validity of a will, signature of witnesses, revocation, DRR
· Question 2: duties of trustee, allocation of cash and stock dividends, self-dealing, allocation of capital gain, act with skill
· Question 3: validity of a will, interested witness rule, specific v. general devise, integration, incorporation by reference, independent significance, codicil, secret trust/semi-secret trust
· Question 4: revocation by written instrument, physical act, or holographic will/codicil, revival, specific v. general devise, intestate succession, anti-lapse statute
· Question 5: elements of a valid trust, duties of a trustee: loyalty, Prudent Investor Rule, earmark assets, diversity assets, and follow instructions, innocent donee, negligent co-trustee
· Question 6: integration, incorporation by reference, independent significance, codicil, holographic will, revocable trust, pour-over trust, Uniform Testamentary Additions to Trusts Act, pretermitted heirs, anti-lapse statute
I didn't have time to type up Questions 7-9, but you definitely should try to go over all the essay questions in the BAR/BRI book, plus as many as you can from past exams that aren't covered in the BAR/BRI book.
The third thing that I did that helped me most was to create a half page to one page overview of each subject, including language to use in an answer. For example, my most basic Trusts language was:
A trustee can only exercise express or implied powers. Under the terms of the will that created the trust, the trustee was granted the power to ___________________.
A trustee is in a fiduciary relationship to the trust and its beneficiaries. A trustee must exercise a degree of care, skill and prudence as an RPP in managing his own property.
A trustee owes a duty of undivided loyalty to the trust and all its beneficiaries. Adachi's Bar Breaker books give you templates for answers, which were very helpful, but you can also come up with this stuff from just reading your outlines and the sample answers. You'll start to see the same language appearing again and again. BAR/BRI teaches you to memorize a short paragraph for the Community Property question (e.g. CA is a community property state. Any property before or after marriage or after permanent separation) is SP. Any property acquired during marriage is CP. Any property acquired via gift, bequest, or inheritance is SP. The characterization of an assert as CP or SP depends on the source of the item, actions by the parties which may have changed the character of the item, and any statutes applicable to the item.) But really, there are paragraphs for all the subjects, and then paragraphs for the subsets of the subjects. Learn these, and your essay will practically write itself!
6. Don't overload yourself.
I was the Queen of Supplements of law school. I liked the having all of my books lined up like the colors of rainbows. But I ended up not even using most of them. Don't waste your money on buying more books and flashcards. In Essay Advantage, we used excerpts from Jeff Adachi's BarBreakers book, which is quite good. Aside from that book, I don't think you should consider getting others, unless you find one that you think matches your study style very well, and has the law set up differently than BAR/BRI. I also really liked Adachi's flashcards. You can purchase Adachi's books and flashcards at
Amazon and via his
his own website.
7. Eat, drink, and sleep.
Continue doing normal things. Remember to eat. Try to exercise. Get your eight hours (or whatever you need) a night. Even watch tv. Studying for the Bar 24/7 will only make you crazy. I did have friends who burned out. Some passed, others didn't.
I have a lot of trouble concentrating, so I used to study for 50 minutes, take 10 minutes off, and then start the cycle again. Plus, I would take 30 minutes to 60 minutes off for meals. And I love watching tv. So I watched an hour of tv a night, usually while eating. You guys are lucky. We're in repeats now, so there is less temptation. But it's okay to do things you enjoy for a few hours a day.
I actually lost five pounds while studying for the Bar. Not great, but better than gaining five pounds. And I wasn't eating all that well either. But I worked out up until two weeks before the exam (and really, should have kept going even then).
8. Little things to consider for the Exam itself:
Be heading happy. I seriously had a heading every 1-2 paragraphs. Make your headings arguments, not just statements, if you can. For example, don't just say "Robbery," say "A committed robbery when he snatched B's laptop out of B's hand." It might be hard to have subheadings for this issue, since the heading is basically the analysis, but sometimes, even simple issues can require analysis.
If you run out of time (but you shouldn't, once you learn how to allocate your time), just state the rule in a sentence and then apply the facts like crazy. I am very bad with time allocation, so I only had 40 minutes for Essay 3 (Crim Law -- Murder/Manslaughter/Insanity Defense) and 30 minutes for Essay 6 (Evidence -- Spot the Objection). Don't do that; I was seriously freaked out that I would fail the Bar because I was a perfectionist who couldn't let go of the first two essays each day until it was too late. But I did type like mad for both essays. For Crim, I knew I just needed to bang out the rules and the analysis, so I did.
Check out my
checklist too!
9. Part of my What's Hot, What's Not from
January:
| Hot | Not |
| BarBreakers Flash Cards | PMBR Flashcards |
| PMBR MBEs | BAR/BRI’s MBEs |
| Doing practice essays. | Waiting to do practice essays until you “learn the law.” Which you never do. |
| California Bar Sample Essay Answers | BAR/BRI Sample Essay Answers |
| Doing 25-75 MBEs a day. | Telling yourself you’ll do 200 MBEs a day and then getting discouraged. |
| Listening to PMBR CDs on your iPod. | Listening to PMBR CDs on your computer. |
| Actually attending the PT workshops and practicing a few. | Ignorning the Performance Test. |
| Working out. | Eating junk food during class. (Well, maybe sometimes it’s okay.) |
10. The Bottom Line:
I did not study in the typical manner. Most of my friends went to class, took copious notes, made hundreds, if not thousands, of flashcards, and did almost every, if not every, BAR/BRI assignments. I don't work like that. The second time around, I went to class, both the Paced Program and Essay Advantage, filling out the BAR/BRI workbook, but only taking notes in Essay Advantage when I felt like it. I turned in all the assigned essays. But I didn't write out any other essays. I should have done at least 2 more a subject, but I cut things to close, so I only had time to go over essays by reading the question, doing a quick outline, and then reading the answers. I did this in the last week before the exam, but I am one of those people that will study at the last minute, 9 am to midnight, fastidiously checking my MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster pages every half hour -- I do like to procrastinate!
I did about 75% of the BAR/BRI multiple choice questions, and while I meant to do the PMBR questions in the red and blue books, it didn't happen. I ended up only going over some of the ones from the 3-day course. But I have weird luck with multiple choice. I tend to do well on it. I guess I'm good at things that don't really test your knowledge, just your ability to guess. But one good piece of advice that I got was that if you're stuck between two answers, go back and read the question. At least half the time, I was able to knock out one of the answers. I have no idea how I did on the MBE, but going in, I was at about, or just above, the average rate using this strategy.
In sum, I think you can just do BAR/BRI, and not even ALL of it, and pass. You just have to do what works for you.
That's all I have for now, but if I come up with anything later, I'll post it. Good luck!
For Repeaters:1. Go over your past answers.
I know it's painful. It's terrible. But you have to do it. You have to see what you wrote and what you "should have" written. Obviously, the "model" answers have mistakes and some of them are pretty terrible. It sucks that such a shitty answer is the one the Examiners picked for the website. But think that, then put it aside and note the good things about the answer. As you go over the answer, highlight the parts of your answer that match the sample answer. Observe what you missed, what you didn't explain fully, and what was redundant or unnecessary.
Look at prepared sample answers. This past Wednesday, the Recorder published sample answers put together by various professors and attorneys. They seemed pretty good to me. If you take a course for repeaters, they will probably give you sample answers. Even if you don't take a course, see if you can get a copy of good sample answers from a friend who is enrolled in a course. You should also compare this answer to yours.
Maybe even take a look at the answers of a friend who also did not pass (I refuse to say fail -- you did not FAIL, you just didn't meet some fucking arbitrary level of "understanding and analysis of the law," whatever the fuck that means). It can be very helpful to see what you both saw, what you didn't see, how you both phrased your analysis, etc. Further, if you got a 70 on one essay and your friend got a 55, seeing a 70 answer could help her, and the same is true of her answers where she received the higher score.
Then, after you study the subject (which may be weeks from now), rewrite that answer. When you're done, compare it to a sample or prepared answer. You will know that question now. And you never know -- it can appear again! Both July and February had commercial speech on them. I wasn't ready for it in July, but I knew enough to write a decent answer in February. At the very least, you'll know it well enough for the MBE if it's a MBE subject, and even if it isn't, it might end up as part of a question (e.g. Wills showed up on both July and February).
2. Consider taking a course.
You have to think about why you didn't pass. Were you just having a bad test taking day or days? Were you ill? Were you nervous? Were you unable to prepare? Did you not study? Did you not know how to study for the Exam? Answering these questions can be very hard. But if you're honest with yourself (and you don't have to tell anyone what conclusions, if any, you came to), hopefully, it will help you decide if you want to take a class and which one.
I personally took BAR/BRI's Essay Advantage in SF. I highly recommend it. I personally found the reviews of the subject areas, which were usually 1.5-3 hours long (both live and taped) kind of boring, but then, I also re-took BAR/BRI (a decision I will discuss below). Some of the taped reviews are the EXACT same ones you saw in the Paced Program. But a review is just that -- a chance to look over the material again. Even seeing something for the second time can be helpful. And the vast majority of Jeff Adachi's reviews were quite good. He knows how to break down a subject. Some of his mnemonics are stupid (see a good post over at
una donna's blog), but I did end up using some of them for the Bar.
For me, the best thing about Essay Advantage was that we wrote at least one essay in-class every time we met, two if we were doing two subjects in a day (e.g. Real Property and Community Property). Being forced to write essays was a good thing, because I only did the Essay Advantage and BAR/BRI essays. I am not disciplined enough to write out an essay on my own. I only outline answers, if that. But through my BAR/BRI Paced Program and Essay Advantage classes, I wrote 1-2 essays on each subject. While BAR/BRI's readers don't provide a whole lot of feedback, SF's Essay Advantage reader is freaking awesome. I seriously want to send her flowers or a fruit basket or something. She gave very detailed comments, and ACTUALLY gave us a numerical score! That really helped me determine where I was in terms of passing. And it gave me confidence.
The crappy thing about Essay Advantage is that it is exhausting. It is from 9-5, if not 6, once a week, and a few times, twice a week, usually both Saturday and Sunday. If you're not working full-time and not taking another Bar course, it shouldn't be too terrible. But if you are doing other things, Essay Advantage may not be worth it for you. There is no point in spending $1,300 if you can't stay awake or focused enough to participate.
I can only speak to how Essay Advantage was run in SF. I know it's different in Sac, LA, and SD. I would recommend calling the BAR/BRI office or asking a friend about those programs.
I chose to retake BAR/BRI because I literally did not pay attention in BAR/BRI the first time. I was late a lot too last summer. The second time, when I was filling out the workbook, it was not rare to find multiple pages in a row blank. Not good. Retaking BAR/BRI was pretty much like taking it for the first time. I remembered the jokes, but that was pretty much it. I probably had a better basic knowledge of the subjects than most of my classmates (the vast majority of whom were taking it for the first time), but I needed to learn the specifics. If you have your BAR/BRI notes and books, you do not need to take BAR/BRI again.
3. Go over old exams.
I believe, next to Essay Advantage, that this is the reason I passed. Actually, a friend who works for PMBR gave me this advice after she passed her second time taking the Bar.
The BAR/BRI Essay Book has something like 5-9 essays per subject, and I did go over most of those. However, I also printed every single question and answer from the last five years from the State Bar website, throwing out the ones that were in the BAR/BRI book. I ended up going over ALL of them the week before the Bar. I do not recommend that. I don't know how I went over something like 70-100 essays in 7 days, but I'm a crazy procrastinator, so I somehow managed. I think you should do most of them while you are studying subjects, leaving just one or two per subject for the days before the Bar.
Take a highlighter (can you tell I like highlighters?) and highlight the questions and phrasing that keeps coming up in the exams and answers. It's a little hard to do at first, and you'll probably have to go over the first few again after you get to the bottom of the stack, but I found it really helpful to do this. They really do start repeating questions, or, at least, parts of questions. I found this method especially helpful for subjects that were more difficult for me -- I learned the law by reading answers.
4. Take care of yourself.
If you decided to take July, it's not worth getting sick over studying. It just makes it harder for you to concentrate. Trust me here, I went through this. I know that's easier said than done, but try to remember that if things don't go your way come November, you'll have been sick (and possibly still sick), and still not have passed. You're just shooting yourself in the foot if you study night and day and torture yourself. You have to learn to let the past go. Again, easier said than done, and I myself am TERRIBLE at this. But please consider some options, including: leaning on your friends, family, clergy, whoever you think can help you, seeing a doctor or a therapist regularly, exercising, eating well -- whatever you think will work for you.
I watched a lot of TV, listened to music, drank vanilla lattés or Coke every day (for some reason, they give me energy and peace) and literally had a list of friends I would call, IM, email, or drop in on when I needed someone to talk to. There is not a doubt in my mind that my friends have saved me three times in the last seven and a half years: (1) When my high school boyfriend broke up with me my freshman year of college and I had a nervous breakdown, (2) When X cheated and kept breaking up with me in law school, culminating in the last breakup a year ago, all of which resulted in MULTIPLE nervous breakdowns, and (3) the aftermath of failing the Bar, which was more of a semi-nervous breakdown (I get to say failing in regards to my own performance, because I was a wuss last summer. But I've forgiven myself and moved on. In the end, I think failing made me a better person and will make me a better lawyer).
I know I didn't always take care of myself. Sometimes, I tried, and nothing worked. But it did work sometimes, and it started getting better.
And if you ever want to bitch to me, just post a comment or email. I love all Bar takers, but repeaters, I think we have a special bond. We have survived the "worst" and lived to talk about it.
5. Keep your chin up.
It's hard, I know. I used to cry in the restroom at work sometimes, and then come out, splash some water on my face (thank goodness for waterproof mascara!), and then go back to my desk. Not passing can be fucking embarrassing. I know I'm not the first person to say this, and I won't be the last -- but if you are a repeater, it doesn't mean you're not smart, it doesn't mean that you're not a good person, and it doesn't mean that you won't ever pass (at least, these are the three main thoughts that went through my head November 17, 2006 - May 25, 2007). If people give you shit, fuck them. They do not know you. People don't pass for several reasons, and sometimes it's just due to some fucking bad luck.
Try to remember the good things in your life. I personally love what Professor Shafiroff, the professor who taught Wills/Trusts in BAR/BRI said: 99.9% of world would trade places with us in a second. We have good lives. Failing the Bar is not the worst thing in the world.
I know it seems like it is at times, but it isn't.
You will have bad days. But try to keep your hope going. I hope I serve as a good example for some of you. I know my problems were very superficial, but they were mine, and they were hard for me sometimes. But when you survive an experience like that, and succeed, the feeling is so beautiful, I can't even describe it. But you will know for yourself one day, I promise. And I look forward to congratulating you!
Labels: Bar study, BAR/BRI, California Bar Exam
