Learning to Keep Time on Your Side When Going for the Bar Exams

"I can’t" Maybe this is your first response to the idea of learning multiple areas of law, listening to hundreds of lecture hours, answering thousands of MBE questions, working at a full-time job, taking care of a family and job-hunting, all in ten to twelve weeks. Even if you don't actually say the words, you may act them out just the same.

Click Here to Find Law Student Jobs on LawCrossing


You may begin with missing a lecture (for no good reason) and falling behind. Then you may lose a night or two of sleep and suddenly begin feeling queasy. A day or two or three will pass and you will look up, see how much time you have lost and start struggling to catch up. Before you know it, you will start feeling overwhelmed. You will begin arguing with your mate, kicking your dog and yelling at the kids. Worse yet, you will look for excuses for not studying, which excuses (I might add) will become your reasons for failing. You had to work. The exam is biased. The review course "sucked."

The best way for you to beat this scenario? Don't start it! You do that by hauling out those very hopes, ideas, dreams and wishes which brought you to this point in becoming a lawyer. You restart your Yes I Can attitude, and you summon up the discipline demanded to make those dreams happen.

That discipline, in this context, keeps you from thinking of the exam process as a monolith, like some huge, one-dimensional obstacle that you cannot see over, under or around. Any person in his or her right mind will surely become overwhelmed at the thought of doing all that has to be done to prepare for the bar exam in what seems to be such a ridiculously short a period of time.

By sticking to a regimen each time the "I can’t” thought seeks to surface and the panic seeks expression, visualize the explosion of that monolith and see its much smaller (and infinitely more manageable) pieces hit the ground. With each piece representing an aspect of the preparation process which you must complete, see yourself picking the pieces up, one at a time. Now you can examine each piece, determine its place in your schedule and design a plan on when and how you will address it.

Gladys F. Gladys is an articulate and bright woman. She had such an easy-going personality that we became fast friends from the first tutoring session.

After two surprisingly unproductive sessions which showed a lack of discipline on her part, I confronted Gladys with my suspicions that she was not putting in the required amount of study time. She confessed to me that a friend of hers once told her that she shouldn't take the bar exam right after graduation because she would be too excited to concentrate well enough to study. Since her friend was one she respected (and who failed the exam on his first try right after law school graduation), she gave his words some credence. In reaction to this "advice,"

I asked Gladys to keep a diary, listing all of her activities hourly until our next meeting. Upon our review of her diary, which looked more like the "Arts & Leisure" section of the newspaper than the schedule of someone about to take the bar exam in eight weeks, Gladys realized that if she failed the exam it would not be because she was "high" on graduation. It would be because she was not working, not putting in the time.

You are going to receive more advice about passing the bar than you thought possible. Everyone has an approach, a theory, a story. Use your common sense to filter the information given. If you want to take it right after law school, do it. If you paid your money for advice (a bar review course, an essay workshop, this book), listen to those who have devoted much of their time and attention to other people's passing of the exam, not just their own. Ignore the amateurs. Follow a "pro's" advice.

Once we placed Gladys' advice in context, we were able to redirect the energy she had invested in thinking she would not pass and put into action a plan designed to assist her to pass the bar. Gladys and I looked at the actual time she had to prepare for the exam. We made lists and schedules. We worked at calendars. We started by listing the things she had to do in the weeks to come:
 

• Study for exam
• Take sample bar exam (2 days)
• Be in sister's wedding
• Get application in
• Attend bar review course
• Religious observance
• Family

As Gladys was scheduled to take the July bar exam, we began planning her preparation and study time to commence during the month of May. Using the schedule of her bar review course, we noted the daily subjects to be covered. We then added family responsibilities, e.g., her sister's wedding. We noted bar-related activities, e.g., application deadlines, lecture dates, and Multistate workshops, and we listed personal matters, like paying bills.

With these monthly planners, Gladys was able to see clearly how much time she had before the exam and how she intended to use that time. Moreover, we were able to determine how she actually used that time, as well as to update her monthly plans as the unexpected, and not so unexpected came up.

You should engage in the same type of scheduling. Using the blank calendars you can put in all the activities that you already know of starting in May. If you are planning to take the February bar, begin in December. Even if you are not taking a review course, you can still use a copy of their schedule as a guide. Write to them asking for a packet of information for their course. A schedule should be included. If not, get one from a friend. Now, do exactly as Gladys did, so that you have completed May, June and July calendars (December, January and February calendars for the winter exam).

Click Here to Find Summer Associate Jobs on LawCrossing

This type of visual, objective, goal-oriented planning will compel you to look at the entire picture of subject mastery and priority balancing, without the overload mentioned earlier because, this time, you are not looking at these priorities in the abstract as one giant task. You are visualizing them individually, planning them in detail, and thereby making them manageable.

Every Minute Counts

Monthly planning is only half the battle. You must also schedule your daily activities, hour by hour. If you do not, you may find yourself with "the best laid plans" and no time in which to complete them.

Chelsea C.

Chelsea is a divorced mother of three. She always seems positive about life, so it did not take her much time to adopt the necessary attitude about the bar exam and preparation for it. Law was a second career for her. She had taught elementary school for twenty years. She was no stranger to hard work and was focused on becoming an attorney.

Chelsea knew how to study. As she began to do so one morning, she decided to catch-up with her reading (50 pages); take a practice exam to mail-in; and read and outline oil and gas law all before her family awakened.

After three hours, however, when she heard the first stirring of her children, she had only completed her reading assignment. As she prepared to begin the practice exam, she heard the faucet dripping. The sound was so annoying that she stopped doing questions to try and fix it herself. That took 15 minutes. Since she was already up, she figured she would call her sister to find out when they were going shopping for dresses for their daughters for their piano recital that night. That took another 45 minutes. Finally her "friend" called to see how her studies were going. That call conjured up a most pleasant fantasy which Chelsea could not resist.

All told, she spent an hour and a half on matters other than her studies. She thought about her friend, and then about this feeling she had been sensing in her stomach which she keep meaning to go to the doctor about. She eventually got around to thinking about death and dying by the time she looked up to see her sleepy-eyed, two-year old walking towards "Mommy."

Chelsea's plan for the morning was too ambitious for the time allotted. She could not do all that she had wanted to do in just three hours. She might have realized that subconsciously and that awareness gave her an excuse for not completing the day's task. Even if she had chosen a more limited goal, she had not planned the rest of her day sufficiently to avoid worry about other priorities while she studied. She had not paid attention to her "bodily signals" so as to prevent them (or the consequence thereof) from becoming a source of concern. And she had not sufficiently detailed what she intended to study.

In order to focus, you must schedule every minute of every day between now and the bar exam. Had Chelsea scheduled her day accordingly, the choices for her would have been clearer: worry about death and dying or study. Your choices can be made just as clear, if you schedule your days in detail.

Begin with a list of all the activities you must accomplish on any given day. These activities tend to be recurring. A typical list may include some of the following:
 

• Prepare for bar review class
• Review notes from last lecture
• Take an essay question
• Do 50 multiple choice or multistate questions
• Finish bar exam application
• Pay bills
• Eat
• Spend time with family/friends
• Work

With your basic schedule already filled in on your charts, you can now add today's priorities: what you will do and when.

Schedule the most difficult task for that time of day when you are most alert. Some people are most alert during the morning hours; others at night. You probably have a good idea of your biorhythm. Use it. Also, use your awareness of your own natural time-blocks, when you need to stretch, take a walk, clear your head, to schedule your breaks. Put in the time you need to switch gears, be it every 45,60 or 90 minutes, and how long a break you need before you can settle back to work.

Accordingly, the daily schedule for a morning person, who is not working, could look like this:
 

• 5:30 a.m. - 7:30 - exercise, breakfast, spend time with family
• 7:30 - 8:00 - break
• 8:00 - 9:00 - review notes of lecture from day before
• 9:00 - 9:50 - take practice essay questions in the same sub-project reviewed in yesterday's lecture
• 9:50 -10:30 - review essay, sample answer and notes to identify problem areas (keep a list of same)
• 10:30 -10:45 - break
• 10:45-11:30 11:30-1:00 p.m - take 25 multistate questions in the same area as lecture and essay, identify problems
• 1:00 - 2:00 - review incorrect responses; check to see if same issues from essay were troublesome on MBE
• 2:00 - 4:00 - lunch, watch TV, play or engage in some other mindless activity
• 4:00 - 6:00 - read materials for today's lecture
• 6:00 -10:00 10:00 p.m. travel to lecture, (do multiple choice en route) purchase supper to eat during lecture, bar review lecture, travel home, see your name in print, go to sleep

A schedule for someone who works at night and who chooses not to take a bar review course might look like this:
 

• Midnight - 8:00 am -(1 hour lunch) (15 min breaks)
• 8:00 am - 9:00 am - Work
• 9:00 am - 4:00 p.m. – do 25 multistate for 45 minutes and review 15 minutes
• 4:00 - 7:00 multiple choice questions
• 7:00 - 8:00 travel home, see your name in print, listen to tape or do multiple choice (if not driving)
• 8:00 – 9.00 listen to tapes, do practice essay exam
• 9:00 - 9:45 dinner, interact with family, exercise
• 9:45 -11:00, review sample answer and notes, do 25 MBE
• 11:00 -12 mid. - review MBE answers, travel, listen to tape or do multiple choice

There are only two scheduled days off—Memorial day and July 4th, if you are taking the July bar exam. If you are taking the February bar then take off the first night of Hanukkah or Christmas and New Year's day. All other days, weekends and holidays are scheduled for study, even if, in the case of a sabbath or holiday, you can work only before or after sundown. Those days might look like this:

Day One - 9:00 -12:00; 1:30 - 4:30

catch up time to make up for slippage.

Day Two - 9:00 • 12:00; 1:30- 3:30 review problem areas and do essays/MBE in those areas

The schedules presented here are those of actual students, who passed on the first try. They worked because they were tailored to meet the needs of the individual. Your schedule must be similarly tailored. When carefully structured, it will provide you with enough time, no matter what other competing priorities exist. The challenge for you is to devise your own schedule and to make it work. The discipline that you have been developing to ensure a positive attitude, and in maintaining your relationships is what you need most now in your scheduling.

A final point. Slippage happens. Don't panic. You can catch up if you find the source of it. Are you feeling overwhelmed despite doing everything properly? Not to worry. See the explosion and pick up one piece at a time. Are you losing or giving up control of your time? Take it back; get lost (go somewhere where they cannot find you). Are the review courses scheduling more lectures? Extend your study hours during the day and/or night (whichever one fits your rhythm). Do you feel like you are back in first year law school, starting over again just when you felt you had earned the right to coast? Get over it. Whatever the reason for the slippage, stop it as soon as you can. It is never too late. Just as you can drift into feeling overwhelmed, you can work yourself back into feeling in charge again. Visualize, chant "Yes I Can," and go back to your plan and stick to it.

Click Here to View the 2015 LawCrossing Salary Survey of Lawyer Salaries in the Best Law Firms

CLICK HERE TO SEARCH JOBS IN OTHER STATES!