Handwriting the Bar

Handwriting the exam sucked, but I did it. On my mom’s advice, I bought pens of various widths, which were supposed to keep my hand from cramping, but I’m not convinced that it was the pens as much as it was stress that kept my hand from freezing up. I limited myself to an hour on each of the essays. I spent about 15 mins reading and outlining the essay, and 45 mins writing. On the PT, I spent about an hour reading/outlining, and then 2 hrs writing. That seemed to work pretty well. I was able to get most of my points down, although there was A LOT of crossing out and little notations off to the side. I tried my best to keep my handwriting legible. If, for some reason, you have to write the entire Bar like me, when you spend a good majority of the summer anticipating TYPING it, remind yourself of the little blessings like - 1) you won’t be the candidate whose computer fails them in the middle of the PT and has to pick up where you left off handwriting the rest of the test, dealing with the mental distress of - was the rest of your answer saved??!?!?!? 2) if you fail, at least you can blame it *partially* on the fact that you had to handwrite at the last minute and didn’t have the time you really needed to write all that you wanted; 3) when you finish the test, you finish the test. There is no need to worry about uploading, downloading, internet connections, etc. You hand your booklet to the proctor and you are free to leave. It’s over.

But - my advice: If you possibly possibly can, try to get transferred to a writing center. It is really discouraging as a handwriter to look up and see everyone else outlining on their computers, while you are trying to get your info together so that your essay isn’t a total disaster. Also, there’s less people to deal with. I think we had at least a couple hundred in our warehouse. Chances are, if you’re handwriting, you get to stay at some swanky hotel and handwrite in a nice little conference room with a handful of other people. Fewer people = fewer distractions = better performance.

I hope that at least some of the people in my room felt a little sorry for me, having to watch me handwrite and stretch out my poor fingers when it was all over. One girl made the comment that maybe handwriters have better answers because we don’t have time to discuss totally irrelevant stuff and have to actually limit ourselves to what the question asks. Maybe. I just hope that the examiners go through thousands and thousands of typed answers, just to come across that one handwritten answer that eeks out all the sympathy possible… Handwriting sucks because it’s slow and you don’t do it on a regular basis, but you can still do it and finish on time and make all the necessary points. After seeing some of the craziness some other people went through with their computers, part of me thinks I might handwrite again if I have to do this a second time…….

My Right Hand Man

My new best friend is Black’s Law Dictionary. Who would’ve known it was SO useful?? When I sit down to study, I make sure it has a nice cuddly spot right next to me. It’s poor cover is dogeared and slightly torn - becoming a little ragged and well loved, like my old DeeDee doll from when I was a kid. Especially if you’re using MicroMash which discusses and references a theory/concept/rule 20pgs before it actually tells you what the theory/concept/rule is, a law dictionary is an absolute necessity. Plus, there are awesome words like “hotchpot” and ”fugue” in it. Speaking of which, ”fugue” seems like a good word for how I’ll most likely feel about this summer - “An abnormal state of consciousness in which one appears to function normally, but on recovery has no memory of what one did while in that condition.”

On a totally different note, today I saw the postman and all I could think was - California can’t require you to get a CA driver’s license if you want to drive your postal truck around here… Thanks Con Law for that highly insignificant tip.

Another Bar Blog.. with Advice!

Well, there is obviously a very nice (and perhaps bored?) person in the blogosphere who passed the CA Bar on the first-time around and is now blogging about what he did (and didn’t do) that affected his (her?) studying for the bar. I looked through the first couple of posts and some of it seems helpful. More than anything, I guess, the notes are reassuring - you can pass, you don’t have to be getting 70% on all the MBE subjects right NOW, etc. So, check out this blog !! **It appears they took Bar/Bri, so if you’re taking Bar/Bri, you may relate more to some things mentioned, but the posts are pretty general overall…..

Bar Exam Tips #4

After finding my blog, a *wonderful* gentleman sent me a fantastic, detailed email about his experience studying for and taking the July 06 Cal. Bar. He also sent me 3 more emails with some of his notes and outlines for the Bar. Such generosity warms my heart. Here's some info he shared with me.


1. The Performance Exam is just about form and properly extracting the legal reasoning from the material provided, and applying that reasoning to the facts of the particular case. It is actually very easy, just very time consuming. They are testing whether you are used to doing this type of writing.

2. To get enough points on the essays, it is VITAL to use the facts. The essays are not tricky, the MBEs are tricky. USE ALL THE FACTS on the essays. The Bar is actually quite kind --- they put enough facts in each essay to give students a chance to demonstrate whatever they know. The Cal Bar is easier than people think; most people scare themselves I think because of the low pass rate. The essays are obviously just Rules + Legal Reasoning. Nothing more. The graders don't want to see anything else. Boring IRAC is good enough.

3. One study technique that I used was to read a BarBri essay fact pattern; try to answer it out loud; and then read the BarBri answer. Then I would try to re-state the answer out loud (or in my head) without looking at the BarBri material. I would then keep re-reading the BarBri answer, and keep trying to answer the problem (mentally or verbally) completely until I could do it cleanly. The process of stating rules and applying facts to the rules was a good exercise for me. It was also more fun that just trying to memorize rules alone without fact patterns. The BarBri materials probably cover all the rules in particular fact patterns, so if you practice their essays then you will encounter everything you need (I hope!!).

4. I remember on the Jul 06 MBEs, it felt like there was no end to the property questions, but actually some of those property questions were contracts questions !!! So, be careful about little tricks like that. Trying to figure out which rule they are testing for each question I guess is the key.

5. Time is not a factor on the Bar EXCEPT on the Performance Exam part.

Bar Advice from July 06'er (Bar Exam Tips #3)

I found this post on Biting Tongue - a barblog of a July 06 Cal. Bar taker. I think it's helpful for getting my mind back into thinking about the Bar. For convenience sake, I've posted the entire thing here.

Bar: Advice & Recap

Be Honest With Yourself

I'm fairly certain that I would have failed the test had I not been extremely honest with myself back in July. My assigned essays weren't looking very much like the BarBri sample answers. My graded essays were coming back marked FAIL. Although I didn't know much about how I was doing, the little bit of feedback I was getting said I was going to fail unless I learned to make my essays look more like what they were expecting. I have always been the one who arrives at conclusions via a different path. This is often rewarded in life. But the bar exam grader who has 2 minutes to read my essay was not going to reward my unique thought processes. If I didn't do something differently, I was fairly certain I was going to fail. Unfortunately, BarBri does not offer any strategy on how to construct an answer that looks like everyone else's. They teach the same material, then give the same model essays as feedback, and a majority of their students fall into line. If that is you, great. Keep on the path. But, that may not be you. In fact, if you have a tendency toward intellectual curiosity, you may be in serious trouble with the bar. Intellectualy curiosity can lead you to discuss side issues that may demonstrate knowledge of the law, but not the knowledge the grader is looking for. BarBri will claim that people fail because they don't use the facts. Some people may do that. But people like me, we would fail because we use the facts too much.

Seek Other Resources

One of the main reasons, if not the number one reason this test is difficult is because of the mental warfare and mystery the CA bar and BarBri create and propogate. For example, no passing scores and tests are released. It would be very helpful for second time takers to be able to compare their failing essays against passing essays. It would be extremely helpful for those studying to compare failing essays against passing essays. But, no. It's a *mystery.* So accept that aspect of the stupid exam and recognize that you are going to have to do some work in a void, which will be very frustrating. If you, like me, even begin to suspect that barbri is not giving you enough feedback in the void, then my suggestion to you is to seek out other feedback in order to feel comfortable.Similarly, if your MBE scores aren't where you'd like them to be, seek out help and feedback.

Your mileage may vary, but I highly recommend the additional resources that I used to prepare for the essay portion of the bar exam:
Bar Breaker Volume 1 and 2: The last 2 weeks before the bar exam, I read the intro to each subject and outlined or wrote sample answers to every question in this book. I entertained his approach and adopted some of his methods. I found them very helpful. I completely bailed on the last half of the BarBri assigned essays. I found that many of them were assigned in these books, so overall, I probably did the majority of the BarBri assigned essays. In particular, I found these answers so ridiculously simplistic that I couldn't believe they would be passing answers. But, the sense of relief I felt after reading each question during the bar exam and knowing that I could write an answer that looked something like the ones I'd reviewed in these books was huge. I think that if you know you can write a simple answer that covers the basic law for every possible exam topic you will have the confidence and time to fill in the random other side issues that will get you extra points.
Bar Exam Survival Kit. I think if I had to prepare for the bar exam again and I was only allowed one resource, this would be the one I would choose. The last two weeks before the bar, I read and re-read the 6-8 page summaries for each topic and made certain that nothing they mentioned was missing from my issue outline/checklists. I made certain that I could recite the rules for each major area. I memorized stupid mnemonics to ensure that I could name every major sub-area for any topic. As a final step, I condensed all of my outlines into a 5 page 2-inch by 3-inch flip book of my mnemonics. This is all I used to study while at the bar exam. Every night, I'd review the mnemonics and comfort myself with the fact that I could recite every power held by every branch. I could sing a song of every single Tort and all of their elements. I could name all the constitutional limitations on powers. When I read that the call of one of the questions was the 1st Amendment, I typed the headings from my mnemonic before I read the fact pattern: state action, and then all of the various tests. I was appalled to read the question and find that they presented the issues to be addressed in the exact order of my mnemonic, which was straight from Jeff Adachi's Bar Exam Survival Kit. That question drove home the point to me. The California Bar exam is NOT a test of legal knowledge and skill. It's a test of keeping your cool, and learning enough law plus tactics to demonstrate that you can be just like everyone else who has figured out the game.

I also did every free seminar offered by Scott Pearce. I think if I had failed the bar exam, I'd hire Scott Pearce as my tutor for the second go-round. Often, while doing his seminars this summer I toyed with the idea of having him grade one of my essays for more feedback. I learned the trick of reading the call of the question and doing the big picture outline of the answer before reading the question from him. This proved to be a life-saver in helping me avoid legal side-tracking.

Know how you are going to take the test before you take it

Towards the end (last 5 days before the bar or so), I'd do 50 PMBR questions a day and outline any essay I could get my hands on to ensure that my approaches/mnemonics were available in my head and to make sure I wasn't missing any major issues. I outlined almost all of the past exams on the California Bar Website and the majority of the BarBri essays I'd put off by doing BarBreaker. This meant I'd seen and outlined many of the past questions twice before going into the exam. Turns out, the Bar repeats many of the topics it presents, so familiarity with the outline form for past exams was extremely helpful. On several questions during the exam, I read the call, wrote the basic outline as typed headings, read the facts and filled in my sub-outline with sub-headings and rules all with a sense of deja-vu because I'd done the exact same outline, headings, and sub-headings just a few days earlier.

Don't forget to do something to stay sane

Work out. Cook/Eat. Visualize getting passing results. Visualize the act of taking the entire test. Hang out with non-law friends. Whatever it is that you need to do to get those stress hormone levels to lower. Do it regularly throughout the entire process. I found that much like visualizing a sports performance, the few minutes each week (and every morning during the last two weeks) I spent visualizing taking the test and getting passing results gave me a sense of calm during the actual test itself.

**Bar Exam: Tips, Study Plan, Sample Self-Evaluation Forms** (Bar Exam Tips #2)

I guess the first and second pages from a GOOGLE search are not the only ones with relevant information, because I found this GEM of a website buried deep in page 7. The website is provided by an Ohio Law Professor and has some focus, therefore, on Ohio Bar Prep, but the information it offers is priceless and can easily be adjusted for one’s own review purposes.*
You can click on the website above and navigate your way through, but here are some of the links I was most excited about:

General Advice on Study Schedules
Know how your Bar Exam works
Study Checklist
Monitoring your MBE Score
Analyzing your MBE Prowess
Essays: Self-Evaluation Form
Sample Study Plan (weekly: May 26-Bar Exam)

* I definitely plan to consider the scheduling suggested, but note that it requires studying 10-12hrs/day on a regular basis and that, we’ve already decided, is a no-can-do.

MIA - Study Plans for the Bar (Bar Exam Tips #1)

Since i’ve taken such elaborate notes on all of this week’s reading for class, i’ve allowed myself to completely zone out IN class today and instead i’ve scoured the web for bar study plans. Do you know i’ve only came across maybe THREE??? I mean, everyone talks about how important they are, yet very few have actually posted what they’ve done for a study plan. People reference Bar/Bri’s study plan, but almost all the comments are about how impossible it is to follow. I know that all the bar review groups give their registrants study plans as part of the course, but i can’t believe that people actually follow them to a T. Obviously, it’s all about finding out what works for you, but, there is SO much material to cover and it would be really helpful if people would reveal how they were able to cover all that material in the two months before the Bar. I’m already conceding to myself that i cannot possibly study more than 8 or 9 hours a day, 6 days a week, for the Bar. It’s just NOT going to happen. Therefore, I need to be incredibly efficient during those hours… and I don’t know that i am incredibly efficient at anything! However, while I was searching the internet, I did come across some useful advice:

1) Practice the Performance portion of the Bar while in school. It is something that you could easily do once a month each month of the last semester. Devote maybe 4 hours to doing a practice performance test (past CA PT Questions here), then eventually lower your time to the 3hrs allowed in the Exam. **I think this is a good idea because most say this is a fairly easy area to “master” because it’s about skill and time-management, not necessarily knowledge of the law, so if you work on it now then you don’t have to spend time on it during the summer. But, we’ll see if I actually set aside time to do it.

2) Start listening to PMBR Cd’s while still in school. YAY!! I’m doing this!! Although i’m not REALLY “studying” the MBE materials, they are refreshing my memory and making me feel a little bit more comfortable with the concepts.

3) When making your study plan, build in breaks (naps, work-outs, etc) and do it on a big poster that way you can a) cross off the stuff you’ve accomplished and give yourself a gold star; b) have a way of keeping track of your scores on MBE’s, as a way of gauging how you’re doing; and 3) have something else to burn/rip up/kick/spit on/trash/stomp-on-in-victory at the end of the summer when you’re done with the Bar.

As soon as i come up with something that might resemble a bar study plan/schedule, you can guarantee I will post it. Probably not follow it, but at least there will be evidence that i made some effort.