The Longest Month of Your Life

Hello faithful reader, who should not be reading this blog because you should be studying for your bar exam(s). No, wait! Don't go yet--I didn't mean to lay a guilt trip on you. You've probably inflicted enough of that on yourself already every time you watch a rerun of the Golden Girls instead of study. It's ok. You're not a machine, and you're completely allowed to take breaks and browse the interwebs once in a while. Just, not too much.

By this point you are about 4-5 weeks into your bar studying, and you are STILL wondering how in the h**l you are going to remember all of this stuff especially on a timed exam. Stop wondering because I'm about to tell you how. There is no trick to it--the key is to study and focus. ("Great. Thanks, Christine. So glad I stopped by for THAT little pearl of wisdom!"). Hang on, there's more.

I hate when people say that law school doesn't do enough to prepare you for the bar exam, although I have muttered that myself from time to time. But, it isn't really true. The law school experience teaches you everything you need to know to prepare for the bar exam. I know law school seems like a 4 year blur to you right now, but if stop and think about it, you'll get where I'm going. By the end of your first semester, you figured out what worked for you. You hated or loved highlighting. You thrived or failed in study groups. You depended on or laughed at flash cards. Mnemonic devises were friend or foe. Whatever technique you can think of, you already know what works. Great. Amplify that by 100 and you have a sure-fire personalized learning device for tackling all that messy law.

I deliberately haven't posted a blog about this yet because the first month you should be focusing on your prep-course study guides and completing their outlines (hint: avoid the temptation to turn those into mad-libs). By now you should have the outlines for the major topics completed, so start using those to study from and advance your special technique. Mnemonics worked for me. So did alphabetizing elements of certain crimes (New York can drive you insane with their degrees).  And now, since you really should be getting back to the books, here are my tips for not-at-all-guaranteed-but-very-likely-success on your bar exam of choice:

1. Go back to the basics and study for the bar in your favorite way (Flash Cards, Highlighting and Summarizing, Mnemonics). Do NOT rely on straight reading the materials--that probably didn't work for you in law school, and it will work less now!
2. Find your happy place and leave your laptop home. Mine was on my back deck on sunny days, and in my local library on rainy days--no distractions, nice and quiet.
3. Read it. Read it again. Read it once more. Now explain it to yourself. If you can't conformtably repeat it or explain it out lout, read it again. 
4. Commiserate, but don't complain. You still have a support network of people who went through this or are going through it now. Rely on them to break the tension, but don't kvetch. No one wants to hear it. You chose to go to law school, so your pain is self-inflicted. 
5. Google what "kvetch" means if you're not from New York. 
6. Remember that it is all important, even if the bar people tell you that it hasn't been tested in X years. Know it anyway. 
7. Make sure you rest, but stick to a routine so that you don't over-rest (lazy).

And most importantly--avoid the people who are telling you that they're finding this process "easy" or "not that bad."  Those people are not putting the work in, and you might be tempted by them to ease up. Those people will also probably not pass the first time. You should be sufficiently stressed, almost to the point of hives. This is extremely important and many people do fail these tests. They are expensive, painful, time-consuming, and expensive, and you want to get it right the first time. You will not do that if you don't give these tests their due. Get them over and done with once, and then get back to your family and enjoy future summers. This one is a wash. 

Be this:

Not this. Ever:

Good luck, hang in, and pay your dues. It will be worth it come November! 

Bar Exam Prep, Evening Student Style

Happy New Year, faithful reader! My apologies for not posting in December, but this was the first holiday season in about 9 years that I didn't have schoolwork on my mind in some way, so I took advantage of the full opportunity, and actually enjoyed my holidays for once! If you're coming up on graduating law school (or any school for that matter), you will soon appreciate how big of a deal that is.  So this post is dedicated to sharing my bar study experiences so that you will be able to have a stress-free holiday very soon!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, studying for bar exams while working is not easy, and I don't recommend it. But, the reality is that many will have to work at least part of the way through the weeks leading up to the bar -- so prepare to be flexible. The prep courses are designed for people who can give a full day to their program (generally speaking--there are a few that claim to work around your schedule). Even if you take a course that has a more flexible program, there is a lot of material to cover, so your focus and self-discipline are really going to be challenged.

The Material
Bar exams differ in each state, so this will focus primarily on NY and NJ as examples. I'm not sure what percentage of law school graduates take more than one bar exam at a time, but I'm guessing the rate is pretty high in the northeast, where the states are smaller and very close to one another. The key to taking more than one exam at a time is to study aggressively for the more difficult exam and hope that the majority of subjects overlap. This is pretty easy for NY/NJ, since the NY exam tests on 23 possible subjects, whereas NJ always tests on the same 7 topics (6 of which can appear in NY).

MBE Subjects
Constitutional Law, Contracts/Sales, Criminal Law/Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, Torts

New York Subjects
Agency, Commercial Paper, Conflict of Laws, Corporations, Domestic Relations, Equity, Federal Jurisdiction, Future Interests, Insurance (No-Fault), Mortgages, New York Practice, New York Professional Responsibility, Partnership, Personal Property, Secured Transactions, Trusts, Wills, Workers' Compensation, plus New York distinctions for all MBE subjects.

I have a theory that the rate at which you forget the law is directly proportional to its importance on the bar exam. If contracts figures prominently on your exam, by the time you graduate you will have forgotten how to spell contracts (doesn't help that the abbreviation for it is K). This is why I don't recommend that people go to crazy over taking "bar-specific" courses. Take what interests you and might be of use to you in your career. Law school isn't supposed to teach you hot to take a test, it's supposed to teach you the law and the legal thought-process. Bar prep is supposed to teach you how to take the bar, and they do a good job of that.

That being said, you will receive a LOT of materials from your prep courses. Don't be overwhelmed by it all. You won't likely read through all of it anyway (nor should you). I received 10 books for the NY bar exam. They consisted of essay prompts, multiple choice questions for the MBE (multistate bar exam), multiple choice questions for the NY multiple choice portion, and topic outlines both full and encapsulated. It's a lot to manage. I spent a few days just trying to work out the symbols on the books so I knew what homework to do! You are not expected to read through all of the materials, and it is not recommended!  Not all of it is important, and not all of it will make sense, so don't try to confuse yourself with too much knowledge. Remember that the bar exams are not comprehensive; they are going to hit on a few things in each topic in (primarily) multiple choice format. The depth of your knowledge is less important than the breadth, so stick to the mini-outlines and reviews, and you should be fine.

The Schedule
I hinted at this in my previous post, but I was not able to stick to the prepared schedule that the bar prep folks created. There was simply no way--they basically expected 8-10 hours of studying per day, which isn't possible when 10 hours of the day are being spent working and commuting.  There was full online support available, and you could log in and get your lessons, view videos, and get extra practice questions. You could also monitor your progress by checking off tasks in the schedule. There was even this little progress bar at the top of the page to let you know how far you were progressing in relation to where you should have been. As the first week went by, I stayed on track (for the most part). I figured I could boost my numbers by doubling down on my homework on the weekend. No dice. There was a full menu of activities for Saturday, and a weekly recap on Sundays, so no time to catch up. I sank fast. By week 3, my little progress bar was so far behind I had to keep a paper bag on hand to breath into. I thought for sure I was going to fail the bar exam. Every time I thought that, I reached for the paper bag. This period of my life is one that I refer to as "no fun."

By the end of week 3, I faced facts and made a scary decision - I went off the program. It wasn't an easy decision. The bar exam lecturers do a great job of convincing you that you can't pass without their guidance. Going off their program was risky, and I didn't have any information on how to craft my own study plan and still pass. But it was a risk I had to take because a) time was wasting and b) my paper bag had ripped.Here is what I did*.

Videos
From 6-9 or 10 PM each night after work, I watched the assigned video and took notes in the fillable outline. (I called them "mad libs").  The rationale behind filling in the outline was to keep you engaged and paying attention. It mostly worked.

Outlines
I did not create my own outline. Instead, I studied off of the prepared outlines from roughly 9 AM-2 PM on the weekends. In the afternoons I would do multiple choice practice tests and the occasional MPT. 

Multistate Performance Test
"Closed universe" practical problem using instructions, factual data, cases, statutes and other reference material supplied by the bar examiners.

Essays

Harold taking Torts questions

I will admit only to you, faithful reader. I did very few essays. However, I did do one important essay that was submitted to the bar prep people for grading. I'm very glad I did that one early in the process because it was a big wake-up call.  Out of a possible 10, I got a 2. That was a huge smack in the face, and made me realize that I only thought that I knew how to IRAC. Turns out that I didn't.  I didn't use key phrases like "The rule is" and "In conclusion." They are very pedantic about these things on the bar exam, and it's important to structure your essays as if a chimp will be reading them. I visualized which chimp would be reading my essays, which helped me make the process more personal and less scary. His name was Harold, and he had a fondness for striped ties and earl grey tea. I suggest you visualize your own chimp.


Location, Location, Location
It is SO important that you minimize distractions while studying for the bar. For me, that meant picking up my books--sans computer--and going to the local library,  Where there is internet, there is facebook (and twitter, and CNN, and icanhazcheezburger), and a million other distractions that seem innocuous enough, but wind up costing you hours. It's especially tempting to allow yourself to get distracted when there is no hard and fast deadline. Yes, the bar exam dates are set, but it's easy to justify surfing the web when there is a "whole 8 weeks" to study. That 8 weeks flies by faster than Howard can gulp down a banana. Set your own deadlines and STICK to them!

For example, I would set up a weekend for reading through two topics, and doing one essay and X multiple choice questions. It looked something like this:
Saturday:
9AM - 2 PM     Read Contracts Outline
3 - 4:30 PM       Do a Practice MPT
5:30 - 9:30 PM  MBE questions
10 - 11 PM       Recap


Sunday:
9AM - 2 PM     Read Con Law Outline
3 - 5:30 PM       Do essays
6 - 9:30 PM      Finish any Contracts and Con Law Outline Reading


This format usually worked for me. Of course, I had to ramp up the reading as the exam got closer, but I was able to take off about 2 and a half weeks from work prior to the exam.  So, from Monday - Friday, I would spend the mornings reading up on the "smaller" topics (Agency and Commercial Paper for example).  The goal was to be finished reading through all of the outlines by about 2 weeks out, so that all that was left was review and practice questions.

There were times, of course, when I went completely off the reservation and just watched Maury, but you have to allow for that in your schedule.You're not a robot, and you have to remember that people pass these exams all the time. Even if you don't pass the first time out, you can retake them. But, if you're fairly well disciplined and really commit to doing the practice questions and essays (simulating test conditions), you will probably be just fine.If you are reading this blog, that means you are probably already thinking ahead to the exams and starting to worry a little--that's a good thing. Don't worry Faithful Reader. I believe in you.  And so does Harold.

*Your mileage may vary - I'm only sharing my strategy. I make no guarantees as to your success. If this works for you, great. If not, find a bigger paper bag.

When the grass is greener on the other side . . .

I haven't blogged in a bit. Why (you ask, accusatorily)? We are nearing the end of finals, and this has been a hectic semester to say the least. I don't think there was one week where I didn't have a committee or some other sort of meeting every night after class, so it turned out to be pretty exhausting. Luckily I didn't feel it during the semester, but towards the end of the semester things start to wind down. The funny thing is that you usually don't know you're out of breath until you have time to stop and catch it. So, I haven't had the time to dedicate to a post (I don't like quick "drive-by" posts). Also, I didn't have time to step back and find any themes from the semester that would help the evening law student. Until now.

Finals bring out the crazy in all of us. By "us," I mean law students, both of the sunrise and sunset varieties (day and evening). Law school grades are based on one comprehensive exam at the end of each semester, and since the first year courses are graded on a curve, the competition ratchets up exponentially. You have to know as much as possible and be comfortable enough with the material that you can spew it out in a ridiculously short period of time. Recently a day student had the nerve to comment to me that I had the "luxury" of a full week between exams. I was ready to commit a tort.

In order to squeeze out time to devote to studying, my strategy has been to take off from work the two days preceding each final. This means that I work full days from Monday-Wednesday, and arrive home or go to school at night to study for a few hours, finish my outline, read as much as possible, then get ready to go to work. On Thursday I spend the entire day at school reading, reviewing, taking practice exams and letting the panic begin to set in. Same cycle for Friday except that I go home earlier, and the panic is full blown. In between, I'm checking my work emails and phone messages so that things don't back up on me too much. Some luxury!

Then it occurred to me that day students don't have it so great, either. While evening students may have images of them sipping lattes around a stack of treatises and discussing the finer points of the Law (capital L), that really isn't the case. Sure, they have more free time and a more flexible schedule throughout the day, but they are also expected to do a lot in less time. Plus, they may have only a day or two between exams, which ramps up the pressure. So, things are rough all over.

I guess the theme here is that when the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it usually just means your neighbor uses a better brand of manure than you do. But, it's still manure.

Finals are never just that

It has been a while since my last post, but there are many reasons/excuses for the delay. One is the cold I got for Christmas (it wasn't even on my list!), and the other is that once finals ended for me on December 15th I needed some down time to not think about law school for a while. That didn't really ever happen, since I had to buy books and begin my reading assignments for next semester. So, just because finals are over, nothing about law school is "final."

I have yet to get my grades back, but I think (hope) I did really well on them. My Contracts final consisted of 4 long-answer questions, which meant about a solid hour of writing for each question. My final turned our to be about 20 typed pages long. For Torts, there were two inter-related questions that took 4 hours, and that was another 20 pager. So, although we all want our grades back yesterday, I have to remember that the poor professors have to slug through 70+ 20 page papers. It will be a while.

I do have some tips for evening students to prepare for finals (this blog is never far from my mind, although at times it is far from my to-do list). Here goes:

1. Keep going to school - Once classes are over, there will be a "reading period" when there is no class. Doesn't matter - go anyway. Now is NOT the time to break from your school routine. Even if you just sit in the library for two hours each night, you will get far more done than if you go straight home after work (which will make you feel like you're on vacation). As an added bonus, you will bump into other classmates and be able to bounce questions off of them (which is especially helpful since you won't have the ear of the professor anymore).
   
2. Form a dedicated study group - Many different books will tell you many different things about study groups. I know, because I have read them. Some will say they are the only way to survive, and others warn against them because they turn into gripe sessions. Both of these opinions are true. As an evening student, you do not have the luxury of time to pour over and reflect on the material all semester long, and you usually won't be able to get to the professor's office hours. Study groups are essential for our kind. Yes, you get a group of law students together at night into the wee hours, the conversation will drift off sometimes (and people get downright punchy), but it always gets back on track. You'll be amazed at how much your classmates know. Best advice - form a group EARLY in the semester, so that you know who to "weed out" if they aren't dedicated to studying in your group.
   
3. Take past exams - Most old exams are available in your school library, or on its website. Take them, and do not cheat!! Take them in quiet conditions under the allotted time, to make sure that you can pace yourself properly. This is what we did in my study groups, and then we shared our answers afterwards. At first you will panic because you all spot different issues, but once you realized you missed Parol Evidence, you will never forget it again!
4. Start your outline one month in - Whether fall or spring semester, begin a rough outline (even if it is just copying and pasting your notes). You will NOT have time during the exam to refer to any materials (at least, you won't if you're on the right track), so start your class outline early enough that you have it memorized by the time your final rolls around.
   
5. Take the Professor, not the Class - This is a piece of advice handed down to a classmate from an upperclassman, and it is so true. Relying too much on commercial outlines or other sources than your class notes will be certain death. Each professor has his own "baby" that you should pay special attention to (for example, my torts professor was a products liability guru and is very big on public policy - things the casebook and outlines hardly went into).
   

This isn't all-inclusive, of course, but this is what worked for me my first semester in, and I think I will stick with it. I left both finals completely calm and confident. I may get Cs in both classes (thanks mandatory curve!!), but I know I did my best, and felt good about the semester's work.

Spring will be hell. I'm taking Civ Pro and Crim Law, which I am looking forward to, but they also have us taking Legal Research and Writing!! Don't let the one measly credit fool you - LRW is what separates the future attorneys from the future eBay power sellers. It's extremely time and labor intensive, and as such, you may not see another new post for a while.

If you do, it means I have gone to cooking school.

Recommended Books

I highly recommend these books to anyone considering law school part-time or full.
(forgive the citations - I haven't learned Bluebook style yet!)

"Acing Your First Year of Law School"
"Law School Confidential"
"Law School Insider"
"Planet Law School"

These should ideally be read the spring and summer before you begin classes. My only criticism of these books is that they come form the vantage point of full-time students. To get a sense of the experience of a part-time law student, I recommend reading . . .


Oh, right. It doesn't exist.

Not yet, anyway!! :~)

Still, I recommend the above for a great look at outlining, study methods, and exam prep.