Strategies | Page 8 of 13 | Make This Your Last Time

January 5, 2020November 20, 2022 - 2 Comments

3 Illusions You Might Be Trapped In When Preparing for the Bar Exam

I see some strange juxtapositions whenever I make the mistake of leaving the house:

Words: “Don’t drive even after a beer. It’s dangerous.”
Action: Drives with one eye on the phone and another eye on the road

Words: “Do your civic duty and go vote. Here’s a sticker!”
Action: Actively avoids making a direct impact on the community through jury duty

Words: “I’m never drinking again!”
One month later: “I’m never drinking again!”

(My quest to restore a six-pack taught me that bursts of “never” don’t last long and that sustainability and consistency are way more valuable.)

What are some other ones? Let me know in the comments what you’ve noticed.

And then we have bar takers. Souls wandering in limbo. Not yet a licensed attorney but not a regular person either.

We see some interesting behaviors with bar takers as well:

November 15, 2019January 11, 2022 - 3 Comments

Preparing for the 2020 Bar Exam: Learn from Their Biggest Mistakes

It’s that time again. Results for the 2019 July bar exam are in for every state.

You’ve endured the obligatory “aww… you got this” and “I’m sure you passed” comments for weeks and months.

Anxiety squirting into your heart every time you thought of the moment of truth. Heart ricocheting around your ribcage as you check for your name on the pass list. Waiting is the hardest part.

Well, the insanity of the wait is over. But it turns out your nightmare isn’t over…

July 6, 2019January 11, 2022 - 6 Comments

“Bar Exam Literacy”: How to Cure Uncertainty in Bar Preparation

Hello? Can you read this? You’re all good if you’re literate with the written word—my favorite way to communicate and same with the bar examiners.

You may be literate in many other ways: digital literacy, media literacy, critical literacy, financial literacy…

Yeah, I’m proud of us, too. But I want to talk about “bar exam literacy.”

You’re capable of graduating from law school, you survived all those exams, you may be up to date on developments in case law, etc.

But you’ve noticed by now that the bar exam is a different beast altogether.

You may have had moments of panic… that sinking feeling in your chest that you might be spinning your wheels… a feeling of dread you haven’t felt since you sent the wrong text to the wrong person.

First of all, it’s normal to feel uncertain about the bar. Second, that uncertainty can be cured.

June 29, 2019May 20, 2023 - 3 Comments

How Do You Even Know You’re Practicing Correctly for Bar Prep?

They tell you to “study,” but do they ever teach you HOW to study? Are you studying correctly? Of course bar takers get lost when there are so many different ways to go about preparing.

You could try everything yourself, or you could find a few trustworthy sources and ignore the noise. You could pinpoint insights rather than cobble together information from random people with their own views (bar prep is personal).

Why?

Too much conflicting information actually STOPS you from doing anything.
I want the right insights, not just information. The information doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as it makes sense to me and gets me to do something about it.
The more I respect the insight, the more likely I am to do something with it.

How do you know whether to trust someone? Trust yourself to know.

Some resources and advice will work for others, and some will work for you. Big bar review courses cater to the lowest common denominator. It’s like Olive Garden’s menu where there’s something for everyone but also the primary ingredient for everything is butter.

December 8, 2018June 26, 2024 - 18 Comments

Memorizing for the Bar Exam: 5 Ways to Remember and Recite the Rules

There’s this weird phenomenon where you meet someone new and then 1 second later it’s impossible to remember each other’s names.

If I didn’t care about them 10 seconds ago, I’m not gonna care about them all of a sudden as if they were my newborn whom I just met 10 seconds ago also.

But what can I say? It’s impressive, for that exact reason, when someone actually remembers your name in conversation without having to say, “Sorry what was your name again? I’m so terrible with names hahahahaha!!”

Forget social fluency for now (if you haven’t already preparing for this death ritual). Let’s impress the bar graders by memorizing (or more importantly, remembering), which is needed to succeed on your essays and the MBE.

And as you’ve noticed, your bar exam requires you to remember a LOT.

Fortunately, the brain is great at absorbing experiences and making powerful connections. When the same neurons get used over and over, or certain neurons get triggered hard, the connection gets stronger. As those neurons are fed that input less and less, the connection drops. Sounds like, you know, a muscle.

Let’s take advantage of what else our brains can do to help us memorize things…