Passing the Bar Exam101

 

My instructor likened studying for the bar to training for some sort of epic athletic event. I distinctly remember his admonition: "The bar is like a marathon, not a sprint. You can't cram, and if you study too much too quickly, you'll burn out."

If you've ever done something really tedious in your life, I guarantee this is worse. It is boring even for those who loved law school. For me it was absolutely excruciating.

Because of my fundamental ambivalence about being a lawyer, I kicked and screamed every step of the way. I couldn't bring myself to do the practice essays or the sample performance tests. While others paced themselves for the long haul, I went to the movies. I knew I was courting disaster.

In my increasingly frequent nightmares, I could almost hear the snickering of my future colleagues when they discovered I hadn't passed. I imagined the pain and public shame of having to go through the entire process again.

The test was a month away, and my fears only intensified as the date approached. When a month before the test came around, I went into a panic and finally started studying.

Two Months of Studying in Three Weeks

Driven by blind fear, I settled into a grueling regimen. After the daily video lecture, I secluded myself in the most remote corner of the law library I could find. I reviewed my notes and commercial course outlines for hours and hours, as though my life depended on it. I took breaks only to go to the bathroom or get more caffeine. By the time I got home at 6:30 p.m., my body twitched uncontrollably.

After a few days of this unrelenting schedule, I started to feel I was gathering momentum. But was it too late? How would I cram two full months' worth of studying into three weeks? As I told my roommate at the time, "My life is on the line."

The Morning of the Test

The day finally arrived. That morning my stomach was in my throat. I neurotically checked and rechecked to make sure I had everything: picture ID, pens and pencils, and earplugs-I had lots of earplugs.

After passing through what felt like Customs, I took my seat along with 3,000 other would-be lawyers. The countless rows of metal tables on the floor of the convention center were straight out of a Kafka novel.

From the distant front of the room came a disembodied male voice. For 30 minutes, it delivered test instructions in an amplified, droning monotone: "You will have exactly three hours to complete Section One; you will have exactly an hour for lunch, and then you will return for the afternoon session, which will consist of a performance examination lasting three hours."

Finally, the dreaded words came: "You may begin."

During the test itself, I remember suffering almost every conceivable distraction. Concentrating was almost impossible, even with my scores of earplugs. Whenever someone got up to go to the bathroom, whenever someone sneezed, I looked up. An almost continuous stream of pop tunes kept running through my head.

Somehow I survived, and two and a half days later the test was over. I didn't feel triumph or anxiety or even relief. I was numb and fairly certain I had blown it. The more people I spoke to afterward, the more this seemed to be confirmed.

My Theory of Failure

I was working at a large law firm. There, I developed my theory of failure. The theory holds that failure always contains an underlying lesson. The difficulty comes in figuring out what that lesson is. That's why you see people making the same mistakes over and over again.

I was sure I would soon have the opportunity to learn the lesson of failing the California Bar exam. In fact, I already knew what it was: that I shouldn't be a lawyer.

Bar results were due out the day after Thanksgiving. As the cruel date approached, various doomsday fantasies repeated in my mind. I thought again about my likely humiliation at the law firm.

The night before the results came out, I got almost no sleep. I found myself pleading with God to let me pass. For good measure, I threw in some metaphysical arguments. I told God that there was nothing for me to learn from failing the bar-nothing that I didn't already know.

How to do well on Law School Exams

 

 

OK, here it goes: When you are in law school, you have to learn how to take a law school exam. To take a law school exam, you must apply law to fact.

That’s it. Simple. Easy money. If you do it, you will put your peers to shame.

What WON’T help you learn how to take a good law school exam? Having that special hornbook, that special outline from last year’s class, being the last person to leave the library, or taking notes in a special way. In order to do well you must learn how to take a better exam.

“Imagine that Law School is a horse race. On the first day of classes, the professors pass out the syllabi, the gates spring open, and the horses (that’s you) burst forth from the cages. In a real hose race, however, the thoroughbreds charge forward on a beeline course down the track toward the finish line. In law school, however, when the gates open, the first-year students charge out of their cages and spray out in any number of directions in a zealous but aimless charge. Not surprisingly, after fourteen weeks barreling off in the wrong direction, many of these hapless 1Ls cross the finish line exhausted, frustrated, and completely confused. Worse yet, many of them end up bombing their first-semester exams, and their dismal results hang on their necks like albatrosses for the rest of their law school careers.”

Prong one has been done to death, so I’m going to keep it short. Read your cases, try to decipher rules from them. Write down SOME notes as you read them, but there’s no need to brief fully. Watch out for highlighters, they can make you think you’re learning when really you just highlight what you don’t understand. Pen or typed notes work better, they engage your brain more fully. At some point (early or late) create your own outline. Consult hornbooks when lost, confused, or new. Never read about topics that were not covered in class. Learn well the fact that every professor (and by extension, every hornbook author) has a different take on exactly what the law is and how it applies.

Feel free to try flashcards, don’t worry about the length of your outlines. Memorize your shit whether it’s open or closed book. Done.

Hopefully that cursory treatment hits home my main point: It’s the least interesting and least important part of law school. Pro tip: once you get good at exams, you realize that 1Ls work way too hard for their grades (good or bad). That’s fine, there’s something to be said for over-preparing / covering all of your bases. But the kids who grade on to law review stay at the top of the class even while spending dozens of hours per week cite checking, flying around the country doing interviews, and participating in other ECs. How? They realize that learning a body of law doesn’t require memorizing 3 treatises and constructing a 4,000 page outline. They’ve learned how to properly take a law school exam, they understand how much law they need to learn, and they do it quickly and efficiently. Their grades do not suffer.

Professors have many different ways to grade exams. Some do it holistically and apply a letter at the end. Others sort into piles. Some use checklists, some just add points when they see proper analysis.

Most professors grade exams by awarding points for correct application of law to fact.

The significance of this should not escape you. There’s a way to get points on a law school exam, and your job is to figure out how to GET POINTS on a law school exam. Not learn as many rules as possible, but learn how your application of those rules will turn into check marks, ticks, pluses, smiley faces, and large numbers scrawled all over your exam in red ink.

You’re going to encounter (written on TLS, discussed in the halls of your law school) a lot of pushback with respect to law school exams and how arbitrary they are. When you encounter this pushback, remember that just because you don’t see the grading process and aren’t taught well how to handle it doesn’t mean there isn't method to the madness behind the black box of exam grading. Approach the process as rational, put in the work, and enjoy rational results.

In general you need to think about some mechanical things: If your professor is going to grade with a checklist of some kind, you should approach your exam in a checklist friendly manner. Use LOTS of headings and subheadings. In fact, put them down before any of your analysis to help guide your answer. Make sure you cover issues from every angle, and consider bringing in an ‘issue checklist’ to make sure you’re not missing any big premises in the fact pattern.

Beyond that, you need to read, read, and re-read information about law school exams. Don’t skim Getting to Maybe the week before class and call it a semester. It's just not enough - you've got to think about, learn, and practice the process of taking a law school exam over and over and over again. I read Getting to Maybe 3 times – once before law school, once a week into law school, and once just before exams. I wish I’d done it more. Read it with a pen just like you’d read your cases, and engage it. Put thoughts on the paper. Circle concepts that will give you points. Marvel at the insight on the top of page 191, and imagine how you too can approach an exam playfully.

The key isn’t necessarily just reading the words over and over. What's important is to read the concepts over again as you gain experience reading cases, taking practice exams, and putting together an entire area of law. You'll get more out of it each time; the advice will become more concrete.

Other strong sources are out there, including many linked below. You certainly don’t need every perspective on the matter, but the more the merrier.

Another absolutely critical aspect is getting inside your professors head. I can tell you how most law professors do things (in no small part due to the level of inbreeding in the legal academy) but I can’t tell you how YOUR law professor will do things. Pay attention to his/her favorite topics, consult recent on-point law review articles (not always useful) to see what they think is important, and religiously study released practice exams and model answers. The more you know what to expect from YOUR professor walking into the exam, the better you will do.

While I recommend many ‘out of class’ sources such as law review articles and practice exams, the most important source by far is just what your professor covers in class. Sure, an issue they only talked about for one day may be a highlight on the exam – you’re on notice, go to class and learn the material. But you’ll never see obscure info from the ‘notes’ section of your casebook play a big part on the exam if it was never covered in class.

I read all the books and understood what I was *supposed* to do beforehand - I don't know. I just needed that sample set of grades and I needed to talk it through with my professors before I knew what was going on.”

When you take your practice exams, keep the mindset of doing all of the ‘right’ things. Apply law to fact, apply law to fact, apply law to fact. Then apply some more law to fact. Don’t worry about conclusions, and don’t worry about ‘solving’ the legal problem before you start writing about how to solve it.

The moment you finish writing the exam your work has just begun. I cannot stress this enough – find a likeminded law student or two and dissect the shit out of your exams. For bonus points, actually try to grade them. How would you do it if you were a professor?

Focus on specific issues. If you’re doing a contracts hypo, take the issue of fraud and compare everyone’s treatment of it. How could it be better? How often were people restating legal rules without analysis (which won’t get you points), how often were people re-typing facts without applying legal rules (Which won’t get you points), how often are the rules and facts combined to come up with a conclusion in an overly conclusory manner (which not only won’t get points, but many law students will mentally feel counts as ‘spotting’ the issue)?

This exam post-mortem, with a focus on points, is the most important thing you can do. I don’t mean to fetishize check marks or rubrics, but I strongly believe that if you can take two exam answers written ‘live’ by earnest law students and figure out why one got more points than the other, you will gain a powerful advantage over your peers. First, law school exams will stop being quite so scary – you’ll be the bearer of the secret knowledge that even if at first blush exams seem similar, it is quite possible to figure out which is ‘better’. Second, you’ll be able to use that knowledge to focus your keystrokes come exam time on those sentences and thought processes that you know GET YOU POINTS in advance.

That was exhausting. Good luck, try to have fun. It’s way too much work and stress to do this if you’re not loving it. Hardly every second of every day, but in the end if you can’t look yourself in the mirror and say “I’m happy to be at law school” then no amount of advice can motivate you to get the As/Hs and the opportunities that they lead to.

What Traits you should have to get into Law School

Law school is like no other graduate school program found on today’s college campuses. Law school offers a difficult and competitive atmosphere that can at times overwhelm even the strongest of students. In short, law school can be tough, and the attrition rate due to the law school’s culture is quite high.

 
In most cases, law schools that are rated highly in the U.S. News Best Law Schools rankings have low acceptance rates. These schools typically admit students with excellent grades and test scores.
 
For instance, the No. 1 school in the 2019 Best Law Schools rankings – Yale Law School– had an acceptance rate below 8.4 percent in the fall of 2017. The median LSAT score among entering students was 173 out of a maximum of 180, and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.91 on a 4.0 scale.
 
With that in mind, experts say that J.D. applicants with these 5 key attributes have a better shot of getting admitted to top law schools than their peers.
 
  
Without solid college grades it's extraordinarily difficult to get accepted to competitive law schools, alumni say.
 
No matter how extraordinary an applicant's extracurricular activities are, it will be hard for them to compensate for a low GPA.

"Having activities is helpful when applying to law school because they show a well-rounded approach to life," Masters explains. "However, top law schools need to determine whether you can succeed while there and afterward and good undergraduate grades are the best indicator of that. Schools have no way of knowing how challenging or beneficial your activities were, but good grades indicate that someone did what it took to succeed, despite the challenges of being a student."
 
Joe Masters, a Yale Law Student, says that academic performance is the primary determining factor for admitting a candidate to a top law school. 
 
"First and foremost, above everything else, you have to have a very high GPA, and you have to have as good of an LSAT (score) as you can get... That's obviously years of work and years of preparation even before the application process starts," Joe says.
 
 
Masters says someone who applies to law school during college is typically less competitive than someone who applies to law school after college since J.D. admissions officers value work experience.  
 
Masters explains that during college, his pre-law adviser persuaded him to wait until after college to apply to law school.
 
"He advised me that working makes a person an entirely different candidate," Masters said. "Not only are you older and more mature but working allows you to bring real-world experiences to law school."
 

 
Another way a law school applicant can distinguish themselves is if their application has a striking theme, Masters says. He highlights a compelling application he read where every component of the application addressed the candidate's interest in and commitment to an immigration law career.
 
Masters says that when law school applicants tell a consistent story throughout their application, they are more likely to admit them.
 
"Sometimes letters of recommendation are a missed opportunity, because the recommender may not know what the theme of the student's essay is, so if the applicant can work closely with the recommender to have some synergy, they have the chance to stand out even more."
 
Compelling personal statements about why you want to become a lawyer can boost your chances of getting accepted at your dream school, Masters says.
 
He adds that he doesn't expect law school applicants to write about which area of law they want to practice since most of them will not know yet what type of lawyer they intend to become.
 
However, law school applicants should be able to give a sophisticated argument for why they want to attend law school. Applicants who can communicate their interest in law in an engaging way, without using clichés, can impress admissions officers, Masters adds.
 
One personal statement Joe Masters enjoyed reading is one where an applicant explained how his interest in board games with complex rules led him to discover his desire to be a lawyer. 
 
"That essay really stood out for us, because he didn't tell us exactly what area of the law that he was looking for, but he knew enough about the skills that lawyers need – analytical thinking, arguing, being able to analyze arguments, listening to clients – that we knew that this was the right fit."
  
Masters states extracurricular activities that demonstrate voluntarism, leadership or athleticism may help law school hopefuls compete in the J.D. admissions process. He adds that law school hopefuls who take rigorous undergraduate courses and do interesting academic projects will have a significant leg-up in the J.D. admissions process.
 
For instance, Joe says that a history major who gets straight A’s could assemble a strong law school application regardless of his or her extracurricular activities. However, someone who has the same stellar academic record and who also has produced an honors thesis and published articles would have an even better application, he says.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion
 
Law school is for those who aren’t afraid to think and react to potential legal situations much different from the majority of society that is not in the least bit connected to the field of law.
 
This doesn’t make the law a better or more superior profession worthy of higher standards. It does, however, make the law a very specialized profession that requires a much different skillset from a person than other professional callings. To that end, the above 5 top traits should lay the groundwork for any post-graduate who might be entertaining a legal career. In short, if you have the above traits, it is almost a certainty that law schools will seek you out to be part of their academic present and future.