Approaching and Passing the Bar Exam

by Professor Jim Gray

They say the secret to success in the stock market is simple: just be sure to buy low and sell high. By the same token, you could say that the secret to success on the bar exam is equally simple, just score high by choosing the "best" of four possible answers to various fact patterns on the 200 item multiple choice portion of the test and by answering the call of the question in a way that demonstrates an understanding of both the law and the role of facts and their interplay in a series of essay questions.

Bar preparation starts at Orientation. Bar success requires a combination of inspiration, calculation, and perspiration:

• Inspiration: finding the best ways of securing your knowledge of the law;
• Calculation: figuring out the rules, strategies and tactics necessary to play the different testing 'games' successfully; and
• Perspiration: spending the time and effort necessary to master the fundamentals.

This Bar Counsel column is part of the Bar Task Force's efforts to support UDC-DCSL students and graduates in finding the best ways, figuring out the rules and getting ready to master the fundamentals.

A New Blackboard--Using the Internet as a Bar Preparation Resource

Blackboard is the University's web-based course management system.

Blackboard allows faculty to place course documents, syllabi, exams, and other kinds of information in one spot on the Web-accessible by the students in the course. It also allows the instructors to establish links to other sites in cyberspace. Last year, Professors Morin and Terzano set up a Blackboard course site in connection with the not-for-credit Bar Preparation course being offered in the Spring. This summer, our Bar Task Force team has built on that base and expanded the information available.

This site should be of interest to 1Ls as an introduction to the bar and to upper class students and alums as a resource. In the spring, this site will once again serve as the course site for the non-credit bar preparation course

The following is a brief description of the site and its current contents:

Under the heading "Course Documents," you will find:

(1) Bar Counsel columns from earlier UDC-DCSL Advocates discussing differing aspects of the bar exam; (2) Advice pieces, such as a short summary on Mortgages prepared last summer in response to a request by a May graduate who was studying for the bar.

Under the heading "Staff," you will find information on Professors Morin, Terzano, and Gray. Under the heading "Books," you will find a list of books and similar resources that members of the Task Force have identified as helpful sources of advice.

Under the heading "Links to Other Sites,"” you will find hyperlinks (click and leap) to:

(1) the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ site– These are the people who put together the four multistate components used by various bars, namely the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), the Multistate Performance Test (MPT); the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) and the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)– www.NCBEX.org;

(2) State Bar Sites – Currently there are links to the web sites of ten states (including the District of Columbia);

(3) Bar Exam Resources– This includes articles of interest and a link to a site entitled Barexam.org (which is affiliated with CALI — Computer Assisted Legal Instruction) and which has links to the web sites of all the state bar examiners.

(4) Bar Exam Preparation Companies – This link lists and gives brief descriptions of services offered by a number of Bar Preparation Companies with button hyperlinks to their respective websites.

Look for the following additions in the near future: a chart comparing basic bar subjects and UDC-DCSL offerings and the addition of CALI exercises that may help refine MBE test-taking skills.

To access the course site, go to udc.blackboard.com, and follow the procedures for entering as a guest ("preview"). Go to courses and enter in the search engine the course ID which is Law 005.

The "Seventh" Semester (Revisited)

The following is adapted from a column that originally appeared in the August 2000 Advocate; we think it worth repeating at the beginning of a new academic year.

Studying the law in a full-time law school program requires three full years of study, i.e. six regular semesters. Unofficially, however, there is what ought to be called the "seventh semester"--the semester when the recent law school graduate has to go back to revisit first-year courses, second-year courses, and third-year electives, as well as learn a course or two on the fast-track. This "seventh semester" is a reality for all law students.

Although cheaper than law school tuition, the cost of the seventh semester is not cheap. However, trying to avoid the costs of bar preparation is almost certainly penny-wise and pound-stupid. For most students, it is not a time to be working at anything other than bar preparation. The educational loan folks will give you a special bar loan but they do not recognize this period as part of your education, so it counts against your post-graduation grace period.

Students should begin thinking about and planning for this seventh semester early in their law school careers. For students planning on taking the bar in certain states, the first year may be the most economical time to register for the bar. Another reason may be locking in bar course fees.

Bar Prep Courses Prepare You Differently For The Bar

The goals of law school and bar preparation are different. Legal education is preparing a person to think, act and behave like a lawyer. The bar exam tests some of that but does so in a very artificial manner–with a heavy emphasis on speed and recall and test-savviness.

Hopefully, the difference between a first year student and the same student at the end of his or her third year in terms of approaching, analyzing, and resolving a case or a problem is tremendous. But, in December, does the 3L remember the elements of a basic Tort doctrine, as well as he or she did at the end of the first semester of school as a lL completing the course. Probably not.

Here comes the Bar Prep Course! Graduation arrives and in less than 12 weeks, the May graduate is facing a two or three day battery of tests. This testing is on matters that may, or may not, have been covered in the six basic courses of the MBE (Multistate Bar Exam) -- Contracts and Sales, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts -- and in the variety of upper-level subjects tested on the Essay portion of the exam.

Bar Prep courses provide a condensed summary of these subjects (without having to dissect cases). Students review what they covered in their actual courses and necessarily are also introduced to many topics that their particular course did not reach. In ten or so weeks, they are recovering three years of law school and, perhaps, taking on all together a semester’s worth of brand new material. This is basically true for students everywhere.

Students should: KEEP this reality in mind; BUDGET mentally and fiscally for a seventh semester--without working; WORK hard on learning the fundamentals; and KEEP the essay portion of the bar exam they expect to take in mind when planning their courses so as to minimize the number of brand new subjects that must be mastered for the essay portion of that bar.

Registering for the Bar as a 1L

Some states have special requirements for students to register their intent to take that state's bar as early as their first year of law school. The penalty is usually a much more expensive bar fee later on. Florida, for example, charges a non-registered examinee $875 to take the bar; this is $500 more than the $375 charged registered students who can register as lLs for as little as $75. California, Illinois, Iowa, and Florida are among the states that have student registration requirements.

MPRE Preparation Program Available

The Practicing Law Institute (PLI) is a non-profit organization that has been conducting legal education seminars for many years. Several years ago PLI entered into the bar preparation arena by providing lectures and study materials using the internet and CD-Roms. Students getting ready for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) may wish to prepare for the exam by using PLI’s on-line MPRE Review and preparation site at http://www.mbe.pli.edu/. The website is FREE OF CHARGE. Copies of the CD may be purchased as well.