Law School Academic Support Blog

Bar Exam Teacher Skill Set

Now is the time we in ASP turn our focus from student concerns to graduate concerns, more specifically, concerns about the bar exam.  I know some within the ASP community focus on the bar all year long, but for those of us who see both students and bar takers, this is the time of year we trade our academic success hats for bar prep hats. 

While there is some overlap between the areas of bar prep and ASP, they really require different skill sets. I think of it like very accelerated primary schooling; the 1L's are still my children, and I watch over them like a mama hawk. 1L's are still excited by the thought of law school and want to do what it takes to succeed.  By the time they reach bar prep, I feel a bit like the parent of a teenager; it's as much about "you shall not" as it is "you shall", and I spend a lot of my time reigning in their bad habits and tempering inappropriate impulses.

As a former elementary school teacher, I am far more skilled being a mama hawk watching out for my young ones than I am disciplining the rowdy herds.  I want to see all of my students reach their full potential, but it takes a special temperament to give tough love to graduates bent on enjoying life when they need to be buckling down for the bar exam.  By the time students have reached graduation, they have bought into the myth that substances, Red Bull, Jolt!, or less legal poisons, will help them retain more information.  They have become tired and cranky, and ready to push back at people who push them, even if we are pushing them for their own good.

I admire those who spend the full year focused on bar takers, who can take the stress and strain and produce lawyers admitted to the bar in their chosen jurisdiction.

(RCF)

Video Explanations of Answers to Simulated MBE Questions

Gerald Bamberger, a former adjunct assistant professor at the University at Buffalo Law School, has recently launched a new website that provides free video explanations of answers to simulated MBE questions.  It is in its initial stages, but Professor Bamberger plans to continually add new simulated questions and accompanying explanations.  You can check out his website at http://www.profbamberger.com/. (Dan Weddle)

Scare 'em into Success

I am not usually one who believes in scaring students, because fear is usually a hindrance to good performance.  When it comes to bar exams, however, I am not particularly bashful about scaring my third-year students.

Too many students around the country each year think that their performance on the bar exam will match their performance in law school.  They think that if they are ranked in the upper half of the class, they cannot possibly fail a bar exam.  You would think they would be right unless you have taken a bar exam yourself.

The reality is that the exam covers numerous subjects that the students have not studied for two years or more, if at all.  It is one thing to do well on a first-year Civil Procedure exam; it is quite another to handle a civil procedure question on a bar exam two and a half years later.

Deep preparation is therefore critical.  Not a review.  Not glancing over old notes.  Not reading over a bar review outline.  Not even taking a bar review course.  The bar exam requires serious, sustained preparation that includes a formal bar review course and weeks of full-time studying.

Have some students passed the bar without that sort of preparation?  Probably.  But it would scare the heck out of me to try it.  (dbw)

Clearing the Last Hurdle: the Bar Exam

I am always amazed this time of year by how many graduating law students fail to prepare intensely for the bar exam that looms just ahead.  Most take the exam very seriously, but a few each year apparently seem to think the exam a fairly easy hurdle.  I don't get it.  After all of the expense, work, and stress of law school, how can anyone let up for the bar exam? 

Perhaps they look at the pass rates and decide that there is no way they can end up in the bottom twenty percent of the takers.    I remember the story of a student who graduated first in his class at a good school, obtained a prestigious judicial clerkship, only to fail the exam and lose the clerkship.   I have always suspected that he became wrapped up in his clerkship duties and thought to himself, "How can I possibly fail the bar exam after graduating first in my class?"  I was in law school at the time, and the story scared the socks off me.

I suppose it is understandable that students who have been far from the bottom twenty percent in law school would assume that they can avoid the bottom twenty percent of bar takers without much work; but that assumption overlooks the nature of the exam.  The exam tests concepts many takers have not encountered since the first semester of law school.  What makes them think that material that old can be recalled and applied with a half-hearted review, especially when the material required so much preparation for the final exam when the material was fresh?

Some, I am sure, fail to prepare properly because they do not believe they can afford the fee for a bar prep course.  Again, however, I find it amazing that anyone who has invested three years of tuition, budget-breaking book purchases, and lost wages chooses the bar exam as the best opportunity to save money.  Too much is riding on the exam to spare expense at this point.  Anything spent on preparing for the exam will be more than offset by a year in practice, and no amount saved can justify gambling that year on recalling three years of legal rules without an intense review.

Perhaps some students take review courses but never devote significant time to further study outside the review classes .  Again, the choice is amazing, given what law school exams require.  How many students actually get through law school by reading through their class notes once before finals?  What could possibly lead them to believe that the bar exam requires little study beyond sitting through a series of lectures in the weeks leading up to the exam?

Nevertheless, every year brings tales of top students around the country failing the bar.  Aside from the cases of extreme test anxiety, lack of test preparation is the only thing that explains the failures.  They may be saving money, becoming too involved in newly acquired employment, or merely underestimating the exam; but they are rolling the dice on the most important high-stakes test of their legal careers.

Throughout law school, they have had to prepare intensely in order to succeed on finals, and this final is the biggest one they have faced, covering vastly more material than any other they have taken.  Should it be a surprise that it requires substantially more preparation?   

The bar exam itself should not frighten students; but under-preparation should scare them to death.  We need not terrify our students about taking the exam, but we should go out of our way to terrify them about failing to prepare.  The exam is grueling, but ultimately no real threat for those who have spent the two months ahead of it preparing intensely, both in the review classes and on their own time. 

No one who has worked as hard as our students have worked to get through law school should trip over the last hurdle.  As their coaches, we need to make sure they keep running hard to the end of the race and that they not treat the final lap to the bar as a cool down lap. (dbw)

June ASP Workshop Will Look at Bar Prep

Are you considering offering or expanding bar preparation for your students?  You may want to visit Columbus, Ohio, this June. 

Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, Will host the 2006 Midwest Regional Academic Assistance Workshop “Designing a For-Credit Bar Exam Preparatory Course” June 16 – 17, 2006. 

Specific information regarding the program, registration, and lodging can be found by clicking on “Registration Information” at:  http://www.law.capital.edu/MRAA/index.asp.

For additional information contact Yvonne Twiss at ytwiss@law.capital.edu or Athornia Steele at asteele@law.capital.edu.  (dbw)

Bar Tips

Is your Academic Support Program responsible at all for Bar Examination preparation?

If so, you may want to read (and pass along to your students) "Brace Yourself for the Bar Exam," an article appearing in a 2003 issue of Student Lawyer Magazine.

In the article, Cynthia L. Cooper (author, journalist, playwright) not only recounts bar exam horror stories ("Suddenly a woman starts galloping down the aisles, flailing her arms, yelling, 'I am a covenant running with the land!'"), but offers tips and germane quotes from bar takers, and bar coaches.

One bar taker, she tells us, awoke in the middle of the night before the exam screaming, "Which way did the robbers go?"

Our friends Laurie Zimet (Hastings), Rich Litvin (Quinnipiac), and others are quoted in this still pertinent article.  (djt)