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Many bar exam takers make a critical mistake: they don’t think about what graders are actually looking for when they read your essays. Understanding the grader’s perspective can be the difference between passing and failing, yet it’s one of the most overlooked aspects of bar preparation.
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For various reasons, more law students and graduates are considering starting their bar prep early. But when does “early” become counterproductive? Understanding the right timing for your situation can make the difference between passing and failing the bar exam.
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This month, we’re talking about Civ Pro! As a former Civ Pro TA, this topic warms my heart, but I know not everyone agrees. If you ask the average law school grad what their least favorite class was, a non-trivial number will say Civ Pro. I get it! It’s not the easiest class to wrap your head around, and it can involve a lot of precise details (how many days do you have to file that motion, anyway?!?). But, like it or not, it’s on the bar exam, so we’re going to talk about it!
In December, we’re talking about my second-least-favorite 1L class, Contracts! I don’t know why, but people seem to either like Civ Pro or Contracts, and rarely both. I was a Civ Pro TA, while Lee hates Civ Pro and taught Contracts.
The whole subject just felt too slippery to me, and I had a hard time getting my hands (and mind) around it. At one point late in the semester, I sat down and tried to make sense of the class and ended up with a flowchart that was actually helpful. I still consult it years later! And it helped me do surprisingly well in the class. So, you never know how things might end up, I guess.
When I think back on my favorite law school classes, I’ll be honest, Property is not on the list! Which is funny, since I did Masters in Architecture before law school, so people often assumed I wanted to be a real estate attorney. Nothing against real estate lawyers, but it wasn’t for me! Future interests might be the single most confusing topic in all of law school, in my opinion. I still have the diagram I made in law school to try to make sense of things:
This month, we’re trying something new, and selected a substantive topic (you guessed it, Property) as our theme! If I’d had all of our Property podcast episodes in law school, this might have all made a lot more sense.
Once upon a time, the decision of where to sit for the bar exam was pretty simple. You want to practice in New York? Take the New York bar. You want to practice in Massachusetts? Take the Massachusetts bar. (If you were really on top of things, you could sometimes do two exams in one timeframe, if you sat for the state essay day in State 1, took the MBE day in one of the two states, and took a third day of essays in State 2. But this was a pretty limited option and only worked for certain jurisdictions, depending on timing. Mostly, you just sat where you intended to practice, for better or worse.)