Here are two tips to help you get the maximum pay-off from every minute you spend preparing for the bar exam.
1. The bar exam graders are looking for evidence that you know the black letter law and can apply it in a
logical way, reasoning from law to conclusions. Make sure every activity on your schedule will pay off in the ability to recite and apply black letter law. Activities that do not result in your knowing more black letter law are a waste of time.
You must be constantly adding to your inventory of black letter law, quizzing yourself, reciting law from memory, and practicing applying law logically. Merely recognizing law will get you nowhere. Shotgun, random, fact-based, "issue spotting" will get you nowhere.
Some activities feel like hard work, and they are hard work, but they don't help raise your grade, and so they are a waste of time. Many students like re-reading their notes, but re-reading is worthless if no new law remains in your memory. Some students like to re-type class lecture notes, but when I ask such students what they have learned afterwards, they don't have an answer. In other words, merely re-reading notes without learning new law or re-typing notes without learning new law feel like a lot of work, but by themselves, they are a waste of time.
2. Focus on reviewing the most-heavily tested areas of law and on learning the most-heavily tested rules of law. Within each subject, learn the most-heavily tested rules by heart. Study several areas of law every day. It is foolish to think that you will remember much law if you study nothing but torts or nothing but contracts for a full day.
Mary Campbell Gallagher, J.D., Ph.D.
President, BarWrite® and BarWrite Press
###
From Bar Write Blog's sponsor:
SCORING HIGH ON BAR EXAM ESSAYS . This book "may be the best money you can spend on bar exam preparation." -- The St. John's Law School Forum. BARWRITE® TEN-DAY GROUP COACHING SCHOOL helps you pole-vault the bar. "My MBE went from a 126 to a 149!" Gemma Waananen Kenney (Member, New York and New Jersey Bars). BARWRITE® THREE-DAY NEW YORK ESSAY BOOT CAMPS boost bar scores. "Dr. Gallagher takes the mass of information studied and teaches her students how to apply it effectively in essays." Christina Valentine, Australian solicitor (Member, New York Bar). Read the announcement here about those BarWrite Three-Day New York Essay Boot Camps.
