Bar Exam Tips

Here's some free advice for bar takers

• Do lots of MBE questions from Bar/Bri, PMBR and get comfortable with the types of questions they ask. I really like the Studysmart software Bar/Bri offers. It didn't work on some of my friends computers though. But you can keep track of your progress on each of the 6 MBE subjects and there is a study option available so you can see the answer and explanation after every question and also a practice mode, where it's just timed and the answers are shown at the end. I would also do MBE questions on paper too though to get used to the way you will actually be examined.
• Take MBE subjects in law school (Torts, Crim Law, Con Law, Evidence, and Property)
• Apparently Con Law is the subject students to do best and Evidence/Property people do the worst.
• Find out how heavily your state tests on areas such as commercial law, tax, ect. Why take a hard class in law school where they only ask one or two questions on the bar exam!
• Order Previous Essays and MPT from the National Conference of Bar Examiners. It's only $15. They also have some free past exams available.
• I made outlines from my Bar/Bri Lectures and printed them out and stuck them in a binder. It helped me review the material after the class (or you can try the type during the Bar/Bri Lecture. For the essays, I made flashcards from the outlines to improve my memory of the key points to remember.
• When you sign up for PMBR, you can select subject area CDs. I really liked the Torts , Evidence, Criminal Law. The Contracts one was okay, but before for people who have Contracts on the Essay part of the bar exam I'd try listening them to when you are traveling or commuting. Upload them on to your ipod and listen to it while you are walking or working out.
• On the day of the bar exam, eat a lot of protien for breakfast and for lunch (yogurt, boiled eggs, peanut butter, meat/tuna). Protien will help keep your energy level up.
• After your exam, resist the temptation to look up the answers and figure out what you missed or got right. Just put it behind you and focus on the next day of examination.
  
  
  Other recommended Bar Study Materials
  
  Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays
  
  Mastering the Multistate Bar Exam
  
  And when you get done with the Bar Exam and finally have time for fun reading, you can read Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows (Book 7).

Recommended Books for 1Ls

There a list of must have books for first year law students. These are recommended for different reasons. Some like Getting to Maybe is a good resource for doing well on law school exams, some of the recommeneded books are essential to legal writing and research. Others give good insights as to what law school is like or what legal practice is like. I highly recommend Amazon.com to get your law school text books. That's where I got the majority of mine to save money. You just have get the booklist early so you can order before classes start. Search for your Law School Text Books at Amazon.com by name, keywords or ISBN number. You can also check out my Amazon.com link for law books and other items that you may need for school and life!


Getting to Maybe

The Bluebook

Black's Law Dictionary

Academic Legal Writing

The Red Book

One L

A Civil Action

Law School Confidential

Mastering the Law School Exam

Guerilla Tactics to Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams

What Law School Doesn't Teach You

Strategies & Tactics for the First Year of Law School

The Brethren

I also wanted to recommend some good legal or law-related movies!!

The Paper Chase

Legally Blonde 1 & 2 (the first one's better)

Double Jeopardy

To Kill a Mockingbird

My Cousin Vinny

A Few Good Men

Intolerable Cruelty

Another Money Saving Tip for the Frugal Law Student

Okay so this is a random tip, not super related to law school, but still helpful. While in law school, I really got into online shopping. Then I realized there online coupon codes for many of the places I liked to shop online such as Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Overstock.com, Bestbuy, Target ect. I use Amazon to buy my law books, cds, dvds. I use Drugstore.com to get personal care products not available in nearby stores, plus drugstore.com gives you a percentage back on every purchase. I just googled the store's name and coupon code. It was great, because often I could save a lot just by seeing if the store had a coupon code online. Sometimes its a percentage off, sometimes it's free shipping. I just recently found out that there is a website that lists a bunch of stores and their coupon codes, so it makes finding merchant coupons that much easier! If you like to shop online anyway, might as well save money! Hey this is free real life advice. We are not only law students, we are consumers!

Bar/Bri vs. PMBR vs. Real MBE

As of right now I don't see the worth of PMBR even though I signed up because Bar/Bri also provides a practice MBE, but here is one blogger's experience in Utah with the practice MBE's vs. the real one. What do you think?

*Update*
I guess there is some worth to doing one MBE studying and then doing PMBR and seeing if your score improves. But I do agree with the Mark's comment, we are spending a lot of money and all the kinks should have been worked out. Bar/Bri charges 2 grand a person for books whose material barely changes from year to year.


**Update**
I think I would recommend the Home Study Bar/Bri program (if you can afford it). That way you can create your own schedule and listen to the lectures on the I-Pod they send you. You do have to be disciplined and sit down and listen to the I-pod and fill in the blanks, but you could do those 3 hours at 10 am instead of 9am or at 1 in the afternoon. If you like to work out in the morning you could do it then and then listen to the lectures. You just have a lot more flexibility. Maybe a couple of students can do the home study together, although this may violate Bar/Bri's policy. I don't know. It also helps to do lots of questions. I highly recommend the Study Smart Software, because you can track your progress and target your questions to the areas that you are week. For instance, if you are having issues with Negligence in Torts and Governmental Immunities in Con Law, you can pick and choose only questions in those topics until you improve.


***Update***
I would highly recommend Strategies & Tactics for the MBE for a supplement to your bar preparation or to start preparing early before Bar/Bri or PMBR starts. Check out the reviews, because they are all good. I'm using an older version and find the tips and hints very helpful.

Tip: Exercise!

Law school can sometimes be like the first year of college, you get so wrapped up and busy that you adopt unhealthy eating habits and forget to exercise. Check out these health tips to avoid gaining weight over your 3 years of law school.

Tips on Cali Radio

Podcast on Strict Liability

More tips on other areas of law here at Cali Radio. Some files you have to open or download rather than listening from the website.

Comments

Feel free to leave comments of your own advice or what you think of the posted tips, or of your own law school stories. It's kind of annoying the tips end up in a second page and aren't posted on my main blog, but your tips can and will help all! So comment away! Thanks to those who have already left comments and thanks to all the visitors. I know there are many blogs offering their advice, experiences, tips!

Tip for Success: Do Cali exercises

One of the things I utilized in law school to get more practice in subject areas was to do Cali exercises. Cali is non-profit organization that provides web-based legal instruction. I think you get the password for from your law school reference librarian, but you can get free access here. I know I used it for Evidence, Property, Contracts, and several of my upper-level courses as well. In addition, there's a student that runs a Cali Blog, which offers helpful tips for pre-law students, as well as, current law students. I say use every resource you have available to learn the material and be successful in law school. Try everything out and find out what works best for you in learning the material.

Tips for the Successful??

I just realized that I have no tips for those law students in law school doing well. You know who you are, you have the grades, the multiple job offers, endless line of adoring professors. What are you supposed to do? 1.) Be humble, no one likes a smart jerk? 2.) Don't apply for 150 OCI job just because you can, be nice, you will get a job, so don't hog all the job-getting opportunities!! 3.) Have a good personality. Your employers want someone they can get along with, as well as, someone competent enough to do the work. 4.) Thank God for your blessings
5.) Share your notes! :)

Tip: Study Smarter not Harder

During my first year of law school, I lived in the library, I basically would go home after class, and then head back after dinner and stay until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. I would go there on weekends and stay all day. I was always at the library, however, I didn't use that time as effectively as I could have. I should have been more efficient and then I wouldn't have spent 8 hours doing 3 hours of work. I would have done hours of work and gone home. You may be wondering what I was doing those other 5 hours. I was doing everything else but studying. Anyway, that's just my story. If you start early in the semester (3 or 4 weeks in) doing a little bit of work every day, you wont have to spend all your time at the library. And when you study, study, because then you'll have more free time to do things you actually like to do. That's my two scents.

More Tips! Law School Expert

I recently received a lovely note from a blogger stating that my blog was positive and upbeat! Yay! That makes me happy. Anyway, if you need advice from a law school expert check out the linked blog.