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This is the longest post I have ever written on this blog ever, half-prompted by a question asking my study regimen for studying law. Think of this ridiculously long post as my three year anniversary/Thanksgiving gift to all of you who might benefit from it.

First off, honesty hour: I actually had significantly less than the usual 2-2.5 months to study full time (or even part time) for the bar exam, due to personal reasons I won’t go into. In total I had about 1.3 months. I knew this would be the case going in, so I had to be very efficient about my time. Especially since I don’t know what I got (I could have passed by 0.1 point) and luck has so much to do with the bar exam, this post is not meant to suggest the following is the best way or even if it’s enough to pass. That would be laughable. 

Trust me, I’m pretty full of myself, but not so full of myself to think that. I am posting this for those of you who are: 

1) not taking a prep course* and wanting of a suggested regimen/schedule,

2) taking some sort of a prep course but not finding its schedule fitting, or 

3) retaking the bar and interested in a different method from the method previously used.

* I actually do recommend taking a prep course at least for the materials (outlines, practice essays, and answers ,etc.) if you are a first-time taker. The following is assuming you at least would have those materials.

[1] THE BEGINNING

I focused on at least *seeing* all the information at least once before the exam, so that everything after that is “review.” I skipped most of the “practice” (like doing practice essays and MBE questions) and spent my time going through the videos as quickly as possible without worrying about long-term retention. I was only focused on making sure I wasn’t completely zoning out during the videos. I got through all of my state’s subjects’ videos and handouts very quickly in a little over two weeks, making sure I was paying attention by making online flashcards after each section/chapter.

An aside: I do not recommend making online flashcards for the purpose of actually using them, even if you are a flashcards person. For one, because you can type, you will end up making a LOT more than you will ever really feel like going through. I ended up not really reviewing them. But it did force me to simplify the concepts and spell them out, so I did get something out of *making* them although I didn’t *use* them.

If you’re not taking a prep course and don’t have videos, fear not. This is basically about equal to reading (but not THAT closely) decent outlines for each subject. 

Again, the purpose of this broad overview was so that if I do end up running out of time later, no subject would be completely foreign to me and I can at least write down few relevant sentences about the thing on the exam. If you’re retaking the exam, you can skip this or make it a super brief, quick review. 

[2] THE MBE

I started doing MBE sets of subjects after doing quick reviews of them. I quickly realized how terrible I was at these because shit, it tests on some very specific bits and pieces. This is also when I realized that I probably shouldn’t even shoot for a high MBE score.

You see, the MBE is multiple choice, right? So if I see an MBE question and I don’t know the answer, I can at least guess. I can’t do that with the essays, where if I don’t know the law to answer the question I am completely screwed, can’t even get lucky. So my goal with the MBE became: try to consistently get at least 60% right. 

I got a notebook and started writing down bits of specific law that I learned from doing the MBE questions and getting them wrong/getting them right by guessing. It was a bullet-point, handwritten list of short sentences that grew as I did more MBE questions. Because there was no way I was going to learn ALL the nitty gritty, I wanted to make sure that I at least would remember the nitty gritty that I actually came across while preparing for the bar. I reviewed this notebook whenever I didn’t have the means to actually sit and do new questions or essays but had downtime. 

I don’t know how many MBE questions I did, but I know I did a lot fewer than what my prep course suggested. I wish I had time to do more, but once I was confident(?) I was hitting at least 60% consistently, I felt I had to focus my energy on the essays. I did make sure that I did all of the the subject-specific sets to learn the law and the two or so 100/200-question timed sets so I get a realistic % to know I’m actually hitting 60%+. In mixed MBE practice I don’t think I ever really got higher than 75% at best (I think I was in the high 60s mostly). I wasn’t getting significantly better at it, and I knew that the time required to, say, hit 80% consistently would not be worth the increase if it means I won’t be as prepared for the essays. I did the questions I could, but I was focused on the essays and making sure I don’t get an MBE question I’ve seen before wrong on the real thing. 

Note: My state put more emphasis on the essays than most, both time and percentage wise. If your state weighs MBE highly you should spend more time than I did on the MBE. 

[3] PERFORMANCE TESTS

This is a skills test and not something you can really study for, but I recommend doing two or three at least under timed conditions. I was luckily(?) used to having to pump out memos and motions under time pressure for my legal summer jobs and clinics, so this was the least of my worries, but I knew I had to practice them and see some types. I didn’t even want to do the practice I did do (perpetually felt like I didn’t have enough time) but had to accept that I did have to do few.

[4] ESSAYS 

I was so pressed for time that I had to create a schedule of doing three practice essays a day in order to at least see the questions for all the essays my prep course gave me. I rarely actually wrote out all three essays because I simply just didn’t know the law or because I didn’t quite know how to phrase them. Sometimes I would read the question, jot down a few thoughts, and skip over to the model answer. 

1. Long Outlines

I created a word document for each subject in which I copied the bare-bones short outline that my prep course gave me. Then, whenever I “did” practice essays and saw model answers, I typed in the law section of the model answer into my outline so that I know, 100%, a fail-proof way of actually writing out what the law is in the context of an essay. 

This was actually pivotal. You see, we KNOW the law, we UNDERSTAND those concepts in terms of bullet points, but often we’re not so great at actually writing them out in sentences that are straightforward. I did not have time to fuck around with creative, clever ways of doing that and decided to take them straight from model answers.

This was very crudely done at first, and eventually I would designate one or two subjects to each day for the purpose of “completing” the long outline. I would clean up the wording of the law so I know exactly how to say it regardless of the details of the prompt. For parts of the bare-bones outline for which I did not have model answers, I turned to the longer outlines my prep company gave me (which I did not waste my time trying to read, as they were ridiculously long) to see how they wrote out the law in complete sentences.

As I did this and continued to do practice essays, I would force myself to write out those law section sentences in my practice essay answer. The goal was to see something and immediately be able to write down what was in the long outline for that particular topic. This comes with practice and is SO important. You don’t have time during the actual bar exam to fuck around with how to explain what the law is. You have to be able to rattle it off. Eventually I was able to do this without crying.

2. Short Outlines

Once my long outlines were finished for each subject, I duplicated those word files and started condensing them into short outlines. These are the bullet-point style outlines you are used to from law school. If there are large portions that make you nervous about never seeing again before the bar, those are the parts you should be reviewing right now to make sure you can, from memory, write full, complete sentences about it. Doing the condensation yourself forces you to review and focus on what you are weak on.

Because there are so many subjects, the condensation itself was the review for me. 

3. Recordings

I’m not sure if this should even be a section because I only did this for like three subjects…it was for the shorter but memorization-heavy subjects like trusts or professional responsibility. I recorded myself reading/explaining the short outlines and played them to myself in my car rides. I did find this helpful and wish I had time to do it for all the subjects, except then I doubt I would have had time to listen to them as many time as I did. Turning your bullet points into actual sentences again as you speak forces you to reconsider whether you actually do understand everything, and hearing yourself helps a lot with memorization. If you do this especially for things with elements/factors, you can listen as you try to guess what you’re going to name next as an element/factor, etc. I just used the audio notes app on my phone.

I would recommend doing this only for some of the tougher and shorter subjects so that you listen to the same recording many times rather than overwhelming yourself with a bunch of recordings you will never be intimately familiar with. 

4. Handwritten Outlines 

This is how I studied in my last 1.5 weeks or so in addition to practicing writing out essays without looking and doing what MBE questions I could. I got blank sheets of paper, pulled up my short outlines, and hand-wrote parts of those outlines that I did not already know by heart (well enough to, again, write full sentences on). Go all out. Use highlighters and colors. Use big letters for titles. Charts. Drawings. Anything to help with retention. Just make damn sure that what’s not on this outline, you 100% know and don’t need review. Make sure that once you can memorize these handwritten outlines, there will be nothing you feel you need to (realistically) memorize. I used plain letter-sized paper that I folded down the middle into two columns. The longer handwritten outlines turned out to be about four pages, while some subjects I was able to squeeze into one or two. I was doing one or two subjects a day, depending on the length. 

Handwriting forces you to actually pay attention to every word you write. It’s painstaking but you’re also trying to be as efficient as possible, and that helps with memorization. I kept these pages in a binder for me to look at whenever I had the time in addition to the MBE errors notebook.

5. Handwritten Flashcards

This was kind of like handwritten outlines, part two. I took from the handwritten outlines things I was still struggling with (mostly the more obscure topics) and made flashcards. 

I only made handwritten flashcards for these last topics because there’s simply way too much information to learn for the bar to plausibly make them earlier in the studying process. I learn from flashcards by looking at them over and over again, and come on, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we’ll actually sit and look at few thousand flashcards more than once or twice at most. 

Also, your hands can’t take it (and I already discussed online flashcards above). Handwriting is a great way to condense and memorize, but because there’s so much for the bar, I would save all this for the last two weeks so you’re only handwriting what you still don’t know then. 

6. Final Review

I opened up all the practice essays I didn’t get a chance to look at before and went through them and their model answers. 

I had my MBE errors notebook, my handwritten outlines, and my handwritten flashcards. I reviewed them whenever I could, and as I was going through my handwritten outlines for the last day of exams in my hotel room I realized I did know all the material on those, too. That gave me a lot of comfort, which I think played a big role in my actual performance. 

And…that is how I prepared for the bar.

BEFORE I GO, FEW MORE WORDS ON THE BAR EXAM

1) Of course there were things on the bar that I was not as prepared on, mostly because it was not in these outlines at all. This will happen. Remember, I started from the shorter outlines that my prep course gave me, not the long ones I didn’t read. But most likely those things will be not the “main” issues that will make or break the question…

2) …unless you skipped it. I didn’t even know how “lucky” I’d been with one of the essay questions until after the exam when other test takers told me how they hadn’t really studied a topic because it had not been tested for nearly a decade. I didn’t know because I hadn’t had time to do that sort of research. Don’t skip something in the short outline because you think it won’t be tested for whatever reason: if it made it into the short outline from a prep course, it most likely is still fair game. 

3) With that said, luck does have a LOT to do with it. So good luck! 

1L:

2L: 

3L: 

 Don’t Stop Believing 

Bohemian Rhapsody 

Living On A Prayer 

Come On Eileen 

Sweet Caroline 

Shot Through the Heart 

Pour Some Sugar on Me 

Sweet Home Alabama 

Under Pressure 

Shook Me All Night Long 

Ice Ice Baby 

Cotton Eyed Joe

500 Miles

Wonderwall 

Buddy Holly 

A Thousand Miles 

Teenage Dirtbag 

Red Solo Cup 

Mr Brightside 

Never Gonna Give You Up 

Eye of the Tiger 

Chicken Fried 

American Pie 

I Love Rock and Roll 

Dancing Queen 

Don’t You Want Me

We Will Rock You 

The Time Warp 

Hey Jude 

Piano Man

This Is How We Do It

Drops of Jupiter 

Hey Soul Sister

In The End 

All The Small Things 

Stacy’s Mom 

Kryptonite 

All Star 

You Found Me

Bad Day 

Bring Me To Life 

Dance, Dance

Sugar We’re Going Down 

I Write Sins Not Tragedies 

All The Small Things 

Ocean Avenue 

Dirty Little Secret 

Margaritaville 

Sk8er Boi

Brown Eyed Girl 

Life Is A Highway 

Some Nights 

Little Lion Man 

Breakeven

Hey There Delilah 

Viva La Vida

Use Somebody 

Carry On My Wayward Son 

Take On Me

1985 

Iris 

I’m Awesome 

Seven Nation Army 

September 

Since U Been Gone

Skinny Love 

Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)

Bye Bye Bye 

Say It Ain’t So 

Somewhere Only We Know 

I’m Yours 

Last Resort 

My Girl 

Tiny Dancer 

Roxanne

Shout 

I’m a Believer 

Soul Man

Feel Good Inc 

Check Yes Juliet

Walking On Sunshine 

MMM Bop

Pumped up Kicks 

Hooked On A Feeling 

It’s A Beautiful Day

Summer Girls 

Before He Cheats 

Happy Together

You Make My Dreams Come True

Build Me Up Buttercup

Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

DONTTRUSTME

Shake It (Metro Station)

Juke Box Hero

0Ls:

Me: