Law Students

Advice for Passing the Bar Exam

By sintecho

I know the February bar is fast approaching, so I thought I?d share the preparation advice I jotted down for my younger law school friends after taking the New York bar this past July. I wrote this when it was still fresh in my head (and before I knew that I passed), and I added some notes on thoughts I have now that I know I passed.

1. Things to keep in mind while studying with Barbri

Don?t rely on Barbri?s assessment of what will and won?t be on the exam. Barbri told us not to spend time on one subject because it was rarely tested and, if tested, usually only came up in multiple choice questions. To the horror and surprise of me and everyone else in the room who had taken Barbri, half of an entire essay question tested this subject. Barbri did cover the information, but no one I know studied it very intently since it was described as such a low priority. Basically, Barbri doesn?t have a crystal ball, so you shouldn?t take their word for it when they predict things that are unlikely to appear.

The real MBE questions are harder than the Barbri practice exams. I found the MBE much harder than the questions in the Barbri review books and on the Barbri practice test. First, the real MBE questions bring in terminology from legal subjects outside the six tested (like wills, for example). There were also answer choices listing obscure legal doctrines that possibly existed but which I?d never seen before. I have no idea if these answer choices were right or just red herrings, but it was unnerving to see doctrines of which I?d never heard or seen applied to the context of the question. [Note: After finding out that I did quite well on the MBE, I can now advise NOT to fall for these red herrings. I NEVER chose an answer choice with a legal doctrine of which I?d never heard?I assumed they were red herrings. It?s possible I was wrong since I don?t know which questions I missed since that breakdown isn?t included with my score, but given my overall MBE score, I have to assume that the obscure legal doctrine answers really were red herrings.]

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Full post as published by Ms. JD on February 03, 2008 (boomark / email).