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Carey Bertolet is the Managing Director of BCG Attorney Search's New York office. Her advice is to avoid getting lazy! "Even though many third-years already have permanent job offers and think that their third-year grades will never matter, they will," said Bertolet. "Looking for a lateral position one, two, three, or more years into practice almost always includes review of your performance in every year of law school. A potential new employer doesn't want to hear that you just didn't think third-year grades mattered and let your performance slip."
While Bart Epstein, General Counsel and Vice President of Corporate Development for Tutor.com, was in college, he worked part-time as a teacher and tutor for The Princeton Review. "Remember that most law school exams are very formulaic," said Epstein. "Professors have a list of 'issues' they are looking for you to spot. If there are five issues and you spot them all and you do a decent job analyzing them, you will get a better grade than if you spot three issues and spend two pages writing brilliant, incisive analysis."
"Take old exams (your professors', if possible) and then outline how you would answer the questions," Epstein continued. "Then take your outline of the answers and compare them with the sample answers and your friends' sample answers. Do this enough and you will likely see that you have a few blind spots—issues that you just weren't thinking about. Then, when the real exam comes, those issues will jump out at you, and you can pounce on them."
However, there is always room for improvement said Pete Smith, Managing Director of BCG Attorney Search's San Francisco office. He offers a procedure to start using now; your preparation will come in handy when it comes time to ace the bar exam.
"First," said Smith, "you must create a detailed outline. If you haven't been creating an outline of the course by now, begin. The professor has an outline, and it should be an obvious progression. Bottom line: if you have written down everything that professor has said, especially the questions they have asked, you know what the important issues are. Foremost to keep in mind: only those issues and concepts that the professor has discussed are worth spending time on. Do not even think about looking at commercial outlines or outlines from different professors teaching the same course."
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The point is to understand the analytical framework that your professor is using and follow it absolutely. Remember that you are not being graded on the answer you come up with but on the analysis you use in the process. "Secondly, you must memorize your outline," continued Smith. "I did not say, 'become very familiar with,' 'have a keen grasp of,' or 'be very comfortable with.' No, I said 'memorize'—that means [you should] be able to recite your outline in the shower, while eating, or while on the bus."
How can you get to that point? According to Smith, you should first memorize the three to five largest headings for the course. Once you can recite those headings, memorize the next tier of your outline beneath the tier of major headings. The goal is to memorize as much of your outline as possible—but it is important to spend an equal amount of time on each major course heading.
"What you are trying to do is make sure that you can identify all the major issues in any fact pattern. If you begin memorizing from the 'outside in' (if you will), you have the best chance of making a cogent, organized response to any question. Really, you should be making mnemonics to help you—experiment with funny ways to memorize the first letter or syllables of each layer of your outline. Once you can recite your entire little 'mnemonic story' to yourself effortlessly, you will know that you are ready for the exam."
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The third step is to make sure that you go over your entire outline in your head when answering every question that you come across. When in doubt, discuss, albeit very briefly, every major section of your course outline for every question—even if it means that you end up simply explaining why a big chunk of the outline is not applicable to the question. "If you do so," said Smith, "you may find 1) that your initial gut reaction to the question may not be correct and needs to be expanded and/or 2) that you will be completely confident that you have identified each and every possible issue presented by the question."
Finally, always remember that victory goes to the diligent. While high grades often go to the brilliant, that is not always the case. "The most important point is to follow the lead of your professor. If the professor is constantly reiterating that creativity is in order, fine, be creative—but make sure you cover the basics, too! Compare [your] notes with your classmates'—but not outlines," said Smith. "People invariably pick up detritus from other sources. What you are looking for are reminders of the professor's actual words, phrases, and pet theories—and most definitely not the thoughts and fancies of some commercial outline writer or self-described brilliant alumnus of the course."
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If you follow this advice, you can relax after the test, confident that the high grade you have been seeking will be yours.
