You Need a Study Plan: Why You Should Make Your Own Bar Prep Study Schedule

The only thing I remember from law school is my negotiations professor saying this in class randomly:

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

Is bar preparation worth doing? Then it’s worth doing right.

After all, you’re the dean of your own studies. And for sustainable momentum we know that we must enjoy the process (not just fixate on the goal of passing the bar).

Just as what’s enjoyable is personal, bar prep is also personal. Your study plan and schedule are personal.

There are many reasons your schedule will look different from everyone else’s: 

• You might be working while studying for the bar exam.
• Maybe you have every day free for bar prep.
• Or maybe you only have certain hours of your day free while the kids are at school.

Meanwhile, your bar review course hands you a cookie-cutter schedule that packs in an overwhelming number of tasks or “self-study” sessions where you have no direction on what to do.

Is there a smarter, more effective plan that would serve your needs more and improve your odds of passing?

Yes, one that’s customized to you.

Here’s one example of what such a personalized study schedule could look like:

It’s a short excerpt of an actual draft schedule. Why am I showing this to you?

• You can have a trip and go to a party as long as you plan for your studies around it. Cookie-cutter schedules don’t allow for much flexibility.
• You can study what you want, when you want, and how long you want, without getting stuck behind 3 days of videos.
• You can account for review time and practice time.

And here’s a sample template:

I took this excerpt from the sample 10-week study schedule in Passer’s Playbook.

(It includes sample study schedules that span 1-10 weeks, study plans developed for clients, and actual example schedules from real bar takers which go up to 17 weeks long.)

Samples and examples can be used as a starting point for inspiration, especially if you find one that can be a template close to your situation.

But YOUR schedule should fit you like a handmade glove and be flexible to YOUR needs. It probably wouldn’t be effective for other people!

You are ultimately responsible for knowing what you need to learn the material and learn the skills to apply the material. A personalized and flexible schedule helps you plan what you need to address each day.

There are a million ways you could approach this which can’t (and shouldn’t) be captured with a unified master calendar. There is no one-size-fits-all bar prep study schedule. This alone is reason to question the cookie-cutter plan and create one that works for your situation.

Like why spend more time on Torts and less time on Evidence if that default autopilot setting doesn’t make sense to you?

But where do you begin?

You may be lost and not sure where to start heading from here. Like you ran into an unfamiliar part of town and your phone dies and you’re desperate for direction (which is why I got a car charger after months of denial about how good my phone’s battery actually was).

Like the Titanic, going in the right direction is more important than how fast you go. Calmly and methodically toward clear waters.

So here are reminders that will narrow down your routes and simplify the sudoku of choices…

1) Plan before you need to. If it’s not in your bar prep study schedule/plan, it’s not happening.

If you don’t feel like studying, it’s not that you’re not motivated. You do have the motivation! To pass the bar exam!

It’s more like you don’t have clarity and direction. When everything’s up in the air, you’re way more susceptible. Thus, motivation is a clarity problem, not a willpower problem. 

Even a bad plan is better than no plan because having no “next step” creates natural friction in whatever you’re doing. Knowing where to go next is a natural motivator.

So, from now on, get “I’m so unmotivated” out of your vocabulary because (1) it’s not true, (2) you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, and (3) it annoys everyone around you (except for other “unmotivated” people who will feel validated).

This is where a conscious study plan comes into play. When some things are uncertain, you want other things to be stable. It gives you room to breathe, maneuver, and think ahead.

Craft a flexible study timeline that works for you. Not the other way around. Not a strict preordained prophecy you must realize to open the iron gates into the bar.

If a bar prep study schedule is for everybody, then it’s for nobody.

How refreshing is it to know that you can, in fact, have it your way? (Just like Burger King promised!)

It’s also OK (even expected) if you end up being “wrong” or have to readjust this schedule along the way. No matter how much we plan and plan, we never know what will happen. It’s a roadmap to get it going, not to get it perfect. This also helps with your “motivation” problem.

2) Optimize for learning, then optimize for performance.

Bar prep is an experiment. Isolate and change one variable at a time.

In the beginning, you shouldn’t try to attempt practice questions timed, closed-book, grinding through six essays a day, all while memorizing. 

That all comes later. Sounds scary? You’ll become ready for it by the time you optimize for performance.

The point of preparation is that you’re not ready yet but will become ready. Even if you don’t feel ready, your training will show its results anyway.

👉🏻 In the beginning, optimize for learning.

You want to be sure you can even write a proper essay and solve multiple-choice questions in the first place!

• Can you structure your IRAC correctly?
• Are you studying sample answers?
• Are you able to see what the MBE question is testing you on?
• Can you extract information from the File and Library and synthesize an answer?
• Can you remember what you memorized?

Notice how “spend 4 hours watching lectures” doesn’t count as learning. You can still do it if you want. My disdain for sitting around for hours only to forget what happened shouldn’t stop you. Just know how to use a prep course properly.

An example of optimizing for learning:

I recommended that a consult client who had a max of 3 hours a day implement a two-day block for each subject in the first phase of prep (out of three phases):

This “just in time” approach is efficient because you’re filling in the missing information as needed instead of consuming all information up front “just in case.”

(Also, this approach was fitting for this client who is an attorney candidate (essays and PT only) who didn’t need to know every little detail for the MBE. The frequently tested issues and rules on the essays will become apparent after repeated practice.)

Notice that, even with only 3 hours a day, we’ve allocated up to 2.5 hours on just ONE essay. When optimizing for learning, we’re taking our time, in this case, to attempt the practice essay and then studying the model answer. In between practice is where the learning happens.

This is a lot more time than you might assume! When you build your schedule, be conservative with your time and figure out what the minimum you’ll do on a given day is. You can always do more if you end up with more time.

You don’t start off playing a concerto on the piano from memory. You earn the right after mastering the foundations and repeated practice.

👉🏻 Around one-third or midway through prep, you can start to shift to optimizing for performance.

Now that you can answer questions properly, you can try to set a time limit.

You can also do them closed-book to see if you can recall correctly.

You can eventually use efficiency techniques (like essay cooking) to cut down on essay practice time.

Consider this shift in how you spend your time over the course of your bar prep. Of course, adjust for your situation accordingly. You are the dean of your own studies. There are a million ways to make it work.

3) Figure out how much time you’ll need.

Maybe you have too little or too much on your hands. Work expands to fill the time you have available. How should you draw boundaries for your study plan and avoid burnout?

How do you know if you’re spending too little time or too much time? Generally speaking:

• You want to get to a point where if you see a question, it looks familiar to another question you’ve seen. If it starts to feel repetitive, that’s good. That’s the point. It’s not so much about the number of hours but how much skill and intuition you’ve gained.

• To avoid burnout, 4-5 months full time is probably the maximum you want to spend. You can absolutely make do with less than this especially if you focus and dial in on essential activities.

Ultimately, the length of your preparation depends on your personal situation, particularly whether you’ve taken the exam before, and your strengths and weaknesses. Your focus and your willingness to expose your ego to bruises are also factors.

Less of a factor in my eyes is how many hours you have available to study, though the work-study student’s schedule will be more sensitive to this.

There’s generally no definite answer to quantitive questions that people like to ask. How many hours do I need to study to pass, how many questions do I need to do to pass, etc. The answer will be speculative, based on the responder’s perspective (not the asker’s), and depend on the asker’s situation and abilities.

This isn’t a stamp card! There are wide-ranging cases of bar takers passing under impossible conditions to those fumbling under the most favorable conditions.

Also, in case you’re tempted to, avoid strict hour-by-hour timing in your schedule. Why? You can anticipate and target certain tasks you want to include in your plan, but you can’t predict where you’ll be 47 days from now at 1:30 PM.

Broadly speaking, plan to give it a solid 10-12 weeks of effort. But give yourself more (or less) time if YOU think you’ll need it. Don’t put the burden of deciding the fate of the next 9 months of your life on other people.

Other factors to consider:

• Are you a first timer or a retaker?
• How long has it been you’ve graduated from law school or taken the exam?
• Are you working at the same time (or have other responsibilities that take time)?

And some soft considerations as to “how long it will take”:

• Any language barriers? 
• Legal differences between the U.S. and your country?
• Are you self-aware, thoughtful, thorough, introspective, and teachable? Thinking “I know this already” can keep you stuck.
• Do you have the will to act?
• How academically talented are you? (Trick question. Don’t worry. As a bottom 11% law school graduate, I can tell you that the bar exam is an acquirable skill.)

4) Let’s compare scheduling guidelines for first timers and retakers (and if you’re working and studying at the same time):

These are the main categories where your approach may diverge, so scroll down to the parts that apply to you below:

• First timers
• Retakers
• Work-study students (working and studying at the same time)

If you’re a first timer

You likely have about 10 weeks in May-July (or more if you’re taking the February bar), starting right after graduation and a series of finals.

Unfortunately, 10 weeks don’t give you a ton of time, or at least an ideal amount of time. First timers and those who have other responsibilities like work or family are usually in a time crunch.

Don’t get me wrong: It’s still doable! In fact, most people pass on their first try. (If you’re reading this to prep for your first attempt, it’s more likely than not that you’ll pass.) It might be comforting to point to the doom and gloom, and yes, a lot of my readers are repeaters, but objectively speaking, you CAN do this.

Constraints make you more creative and efficient with your time. Work expands and shrinks to fill the time available.

You may also benefit from some extra time spent trying to understand not just the rule (and issues) but also how your particular exam is structured and what the mechanics are. It’s not just about knowing the substance but also the game itself. As a first timer, you may not necessarily know the procedures.

If you’re taking a commercial prep course, it can give you some structure. Look at their study schedule, and be sure it makes sense to you. And use it properly so you’re learning and not just “studying.” Here’s how to best utilize your course for learning.

The course is just ONE tool in your arsenal for you to use how you see fit. You don’t NEED to do exactly what it tells you. You don’t NEED to complete the course.

You are allowed to tailor your studies by cutting out low-value, unnecessary activities. The course outline is merely a suggestion!

Students often realize 3 weeks before the exam that they wasted 7 weeks consuming empty-calorie intellectual candy. It’s often in those last 3 weeks that things click.

It can feel scary to deviate from The Plan your course gave you when things are coming at you full speed, but always be willing to tweak things to fit your needs. I get a lot of messages about passers being glad that they deviated from The Plan, so you’re not alone if sticking to it doesn’t feel right to you.

If you’ve taken the bar exam before

You already have background knowledge. You’re not starting from scratch. You get to start from experience.

You don’t need to spend gobs of time rewatching and rereading the same things to re-learn the law (i.e., procrastinate). You did that stuff already.

You’d be better off doing a quick review of a subject and focusing on solving problems on that subject to fill in the holes and get to know the topics.

For example, you could spend a day (at most) reviewing an outline or consulting a lecture or other source material. Then you can refer to an outline after attempting problems, cross-referencing with model/sample answers. Abstract concepts will make more sense and stay in you better after seeing examples. Learn by example.

You probably have some idea of where your strengths and weaknesses are. Adjust your time depending on where you struggle and where you need less time.

If you hope to make significant improvements to your output, make changes to your input. Instead of doing the exact same thing you did before, identify the things that move the needle, and cut unnecessary activities (as discussed in Chapter 4 of the Big Playbook in Passer’s Playbook).

Take some time to put together a battle plan. As a veteran who wants the war to be over, you have to do things differently from some of your peers who are panicking and doing whatever comes to them (no plan) or doing whatever their bar program tells them to (though any plan is better than no plan).

This doesn’t mean you spend even more time on passive activities (that you already did last time), get lost in supplement hell jumping around collecting different resources and begging people for “tips,” debate minutiae about the perfect program…

STOP!

You’re spooked by what happened to you last time and want to avoid all risks. I get it. But you’re wasting time on pointless tactical maneuvers that waste time and energy and don’t move the needle in your learning.

Be DECISIVE and DELIBERATE. Like something? Get it, and USE what you have on hand. Don’t like something? Stop doing it.

You have the experience to tell the difference and whether it’s helping you learn.

I also allude to unnecessary activities in this workshop recording (starts at this linked timestamp at 16:57). I also exhaustively list suggestions and example questions to ask yourself to determine what these unnecessary activities for you are, in Chapter 4 of the Big Playbook in Passer’s Playbook.

If you’re working at the same time or studying part time

The bottleneck for you isn’t just time but also mental stamina, energy, and attention after work.

You may want to distribute your time unevenly. For example, if you’re working five days a week with weekends off, then most of your study time will be allocated to the weekends. There is a student example of this type of schedule in Passer’s Playbook (see Cara’s example).

Spread out your study period but not too much (try not to go over the 4/5-month maximum). Instead, cut unnecessary activities.

Or depending on how your situation develops, you may have to target another exam date. This should be a last resort, though. You want to pass the bar exam ASAP or at least use the next exam as a real experience: a mock exam with feedback.

Be honest with yourself. It can feel overwhelming and hopeless with a job and an exam to study for. Or you may be overestimating the exam and underestimating yourself. But once you know the truth, you can do something about it. Just don’t make an excuse to delay the exam.

Bottom line, you’ll have to be creative with your constraints.

5) Whatever your situation, this is why you want to design a personal plan—a bar prep study schedule to know how to allocate your time thoughtfully, instead of doing random things.

Productivity comes from clarity (and enjoyment). So let’s get a better idea up front how we should spend our time. Not based on what someone else tells you… but based on what makes sense to you.

Again, templates and schedules made by someone else are good places to get ideas and kickstart your own.

You could just use or adjust whatever default study schedule you get from your bar prep company. That’s fine too. I’m not being sarcastic. It really can work, at least as a starting point. It’s designed to work for the common denominator.

I just sometimes hear about how they regret it by the end because they end up doing random tasks rather than actually learning.

OR…

If you’ve read this far, you might suspect there might be a more effective way to attack your bar preparation.

And that is to design your own study schedule, catered to your unique needs.

Since you are the dean of your own studies, you can make a curriculum that serves YOU. One that will give you clarity and won’t leave you lost (or unmotivated).

Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing right.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Take a few hours now to save weeks or months of feeling lost. If you don’t have a direction to go in right now, you might as well set this up now instead of doing random things every day.

If a bad plan is better than no plan, a good plan is better than a bad plan.