Notes from the other side

[note: I’m on deadline at work so please excuse the million typos and syntax errors]

I haven’t posted since bar results due to a seemingly never-ending stream of work, personal, and a various other commitments.

It was hard to overestimate the absolute feeling of relief that came after learning that I had in fact passed. I didn’t feel joy, or elation, just absolute and utter relief. I spent the long weekend sleeping and adjusting to a life without the 800 pound gorilla that was the bar that seemingly loomed over and influenced every aspect of my life for the past year.

I want to congratulate everyone from the bar blogosphere (and everyone else) who passed, but more importantly, to those who failed express my deepest condolences. I still can’t shake the unmistakable feeling that in the game of chance that is the bar that it just as easily could have been me considering the horror of having to re-take the bar while any of you could just as easily be viewing life from the other side.

A few quick notes on what I believe I did right the second time around. I tried as honestly as possible to sit down and assess my weaknesses and then figure out what I needed to do to strengthen them. I also wholly abandoned BarBri’s methods and went back to square one.

I kept up with the paced program the first time but had the feeling that I was merely going through the motions for the sake it. I dutifully handed in my assignments, attempted to cram through whatever outline was assigned for the day, and tried to pay attention in class as much as possible. Unfortunately, this ran counter to the various methods that had successfully took me through law school and I think in the panic inducing environment that encompasses the run-up to the bar I failed to adequately sit down figure out what I really needed to work on, and what I could let slide. I’ve never been one to take much away from lectures, I wish I did, but my brain just doesn’t absorb much from them. I learn by reading, synthesizing outlines, and practice. Unfortunately, the lectures themselves are long and strangely exhausting. By the time they were over for the day, I was mentally shot and perhaps not at my best when it came to actually learning the material and the gamesmanship behind the bar.

After getting my results from the first bar, I knew that the essays were my biggest weakness (I won’t reprise my rant about BarBri’s graded essay assignments, you can read it here) and planned my study schedule accordingly. I didn’t want to drop the cash for another review course or become a professional sperm donor to pay for a tutor, so I created my own self-study schedule and tried to stick with it as best I could.

I spent almost no time learning the law, and instead religiously wrote out as many essays as possible. I cherry picked some of the tips from Adachi’s Bar Breakers series (if anyone lives in San Francisco and wants to buy mine, drop me an email), but for the most part I practiced using IRAC with as many headers as possible until it became close to second nature. As the exam drew closer I stopped writing full essays and tested myself by outlining the issue and writing out the rules for the issues I spotted before checking to see if I had hit them. I don’t think I knew the law as well the second time, but I did feel much better about the essays going in.

I did next to next to nothing for the MBEs, and perhaps averaged 20-25 per day. I did well enough the first time (139) to make a calculated risk to focus on essays and hope that my MBE score would more or less hold through.

The PTs worried me in that I bombed one and aced the other. I ended up taking John Holtz’s PT workshop and give it a qualified recommendation. I felt his system was unworkable, but believe that the true value of the workshop lay in the shear number of PTs that he forced us to go through. I came out of the workshop feeling that I had a much better understanding of what the examiners actually look for when grading the exam. I found Honigsberg’s approach to be useless and thus would recommend Holtz if you are concerned about the PT.

In the end I don’t think there is a magic bullet when it comes to studying for the bar. There isn’t a secret method, obscure book, or magic tutor that will get one through. Although BarBri works for many, it didn’t work for me. I think, for me at least, going back to basics and figuring out how I learn best and then building a schedule to accommodate my strengths and weaknesses was the key in getting me through the bar the second time.

I don’t know how failing the bar will influence my career moving forward, or how I will look back on the past year down the road. But what I do know is that failing the bar was emotionally devastating, a financial disaster, and a total waste of a year.