10 Things You Should Be Doing if You Are Sitting for the Bar Exam in July?

Congratulations to all of you who have completed law school!  As many of you are preparing for graduation you may also be thinking about the pending bar examination.  Here are 10 things you should consider and do to ensure success.

1. Sign up for a bar preparation course like Barbri.  There are many good bar preparation courses but I can attest that Barbri is fantastic.  While self study may work for the LSAT or other exams, the bar exam is different.  Invest the money and take a prep course.
2. Attend the Twitter Chat hosted by The Student Appeal Journal.  The Twitter chat will occur on Thursday May 24th, 8PM EST.   Get details here!
3. Relax and do not study until after graduation. I did not pick up a book until May 27th and given you will intensely study for the next 2 months virtually every day, you should relax so that you are energized.
4. Follow your study plan. Barbri and other organizations will give you a study plan that outlines exactly what you are supposed to accomplish each day.  Do not fall behind as you will have more and more added on to your schedule each day. 
5. The bar exam is a marathon and not a sprint and you cannot cram for it.  There is just too much material that you have to learn.
6. Understand the big picture and understand exactly what the exam is made up of.  The bar is made up of various pieces and you have to understand the composition of the exam so that you can allocate time accordingly.
7. The key to success is on the bar exam is doing as many practice questions as you can.   The Bar preparation organization should give you more practice multiple choice and essay questions than you could ever do. All you have to do to guarantee success is complete the questions.
8. Make sure you do the practice questions under timed conditions. Time management is a key to success and you may as well get used to the time restrictions.  See my post on time management and do not borrow time from exam questions.
9. Do not stress yourself out as you will likely pass. See my blog post that shows there is almost a 90% chance you will pass on your first attempt.
10. Take study breaks during the process.  You should try to take a day off every few weeks.  You will find the schedule extremely hectic but a day here and there will help you energize.

Best of Luck!

Do Not Borrow Time From Subsequent Exam Questions As You May Not Be Able To Repay The Loan

Another key to law school success is time management on exams.  This is yet another area where person after person will offer the same advice but in the heat of an exam, many reject it.  Here is the key piece of advice yet again.  At the beginning of an exam, take note of how much each question is worth and divide your time accordingly.  Once you have done this, DO NOT BORROW TIME FROM OTHER QUESTIONS.   While it is hard to do, you should get into the habit of noting the time and once you have reached the time on a question, you should stop (even in mid sentence – ok, you can finish your sentence) and move on to the next question. 

There are a few good reasons for this strategy.  First, you have likely picked up the majority of the points you will gain on the question you are laboring over and the time you will spend will likely not yield many more points.  Second, if you do not move on from a question you are stuck on, you may not finish the exam and a blank exam question means a low grade.  Third, the subsequent questions on the exam may be easy. When I sat for the NY bar, the last question on the exam was a very simple corporations question.  If I had borrowed time from the first few more difficult questions though, I would have missed easy points on that last question.   At the end of the day, a point is a point and I will gladly take an easy one that takes me one minute rather than 10 minutes.  Finally, you can always go back to a question if you have time.  This is a far better strategy and the break from the question may even give you alternate ways to approach the question. 

This bit of advice was one of the first that my first law school professor, Linda Feldman, gave the class for our first law school exam.  Regrettably many did not listen to her.  The exam was made up of two questions and each of them was equally weighted.  Go figure the first question was tough and I could have spent the full exam period trying to nail down the question.  Instead though, I stopped writing after half of the time and moved on to the second question.  The second question was almost identical to a question that the class had gone over during a review of an old exam and it was easy to pick up easy points. I ended up with an A on the exam but many of my fellow classmates left the exam barely touching the second question. 

For February bar exam takers, keep this key piece of advice in mind. It will serve you well.