Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Bar Exam (Part 1)

Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Bar Exam

To: Bar examinees and those that are bar-curious.  

Forward
These are my lessons learned from the Bar Exam.  At this point I still don’t know if I even passed the exam but I felt pretty comfortable in taking it.  I finished each section with time to spare and had a clear understanding of every section I took.  These musings are what I used to study, what I wished I knew, shoutouts, methods that worked, what I didn’t think worked well, and general information for getting through this time.  Take what you will from it and know that my method may not work for you.
Moreover, I would like to thank Camille, Aiden, and Lili-bug for being understanding and letting me alienate you guys for the two-plus months I had to put in to study, let’s pray it was worth it.  I would also like to thank Everett for all your personal time you spent teaching me how to answer multiple choice questions and especially corner office to study in; Donnie for keeping me accountable; and Andy for keeping it real and keeping me from going mad from studying alone.  
Good Luck, Have Fun, God Bless!
- Dave Olivas, JD.

Don’t Panic1

1.  Pretest

The bar exam was one of the best experiences of my life.  When I say this I do not mean it was pleasurable, quite the opposite.  The three days were grueling and intellectually draining, but the feeling of accomplishment of surviving it and knowing I did the best I could do with the preparation I had.  The only way I could describe this is a marathon runner doing her thing.  While it sucks during the run the feeling of accomplishment at the end is incredible.  

- What the bar consist of
        The Texas Bar Exam consists of three day mental “jumping-in” process that will test the mettle of all candidates.  As this is a state licensing exam the threshold is set lower than law school exams; 675 out of 1000.  The low threshold does not mean the test is a cakewalk by any means.  Instead, it is a challenge that, if you prepare properly, you will survive.
The test is three days long usually the final week of February or July.  Day One has the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), and Procedure and Evidence (P&E) tests and counts for 20% of the entire exam.  Day Two is the dreaded MBE (Multistate Bar Exam), 100 multiple choice questions in the morning and 100 in the afternoon.  Day Three is six essays in the morning and six in the afternoon.

 

Day One

      The MPT is can-you-perform-as-a-lawyer? exam.  This is the only part of the exam that you cannot really study for.  BUT, do not neglect PREPARING for it.  In 90 minutes you take all the facts and laws they give you and create what they ask you to compete.

      The P&E is as close as you can get to an Undergrad exam.  Rote memorization and practice, practice, practice will allow you to finish the 20 short answer questions for both Texas civil and criminal procedure and evidence rules.  This test will bring you from the beginning of a case through the pre-trial, jury selection, trial and post trial.  The short answers are required to be handwritten on five lines after the questions.

     

Day Two

      What else is there to say?  You will have three hours to answer 100 multiple choice questions in the morning and three more hours to answer 100 more after lunch.  The questions range from six areas of law, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Evidence, Criminal procedure/Criminal Law, Torts, and Property. The area of law here is multistate so you will be asked about the majority rule and the common law.  The following day will focus on Texas Law.

Day Three

      Twelve essays and six testing hours separate you from freedom; six essays in the morning and six in the afternoon. Here you will see:

·         two wills essays,
·         two family law (including community property),
·         two property (to include Oil/Gas),
·         two Business Administration (Corporations, Partnerships),
·         two UCC; Commercial Paper (UCC 3) and Secured Transactions (UCC 9),
·         Consumer Law, and
·         Either Guardianship or Trust

The three hours for six essays in each session.

Remember this test is a minimum competency exam, you’re not expected to know EVERYTHING.  Once you master that concept the bar will seem slightly less daunting.

Studying comes in two phases:  Learning the law and Practice and memorizing.  

Learning the law.

Here is when I would sit through the lectures. took notes and started outlining the subjects into ONE PAGE outlines that I could quickly refer to when I was practicing essays.  I would also use this time to focus on small pocket areas of law.  For instance instead of studying Torts I would study only strict liability. then move to some other pocket area in Torts.  My way of learning may not work for everyone.

The Practice/memorize part comes closer to the test date, figure around two weeks out.  At this point my one page outlines were done and I was practicing essays.  Usually, two-four of my weak areas and two different strength areas (for confidence boost).  

The Texas Bar Exam is not an easy feat.  It will beat your brain into submission and God help the person who takes this test cold.  Approximately 75% of first time takers pass the exam.  I’d be willing to bet, dollars to donuts, that  their preparation has helped them reach the 675 passing score.  

-  Choosing a test prep

Commercial Bar Prep is essential to passing the bar, in my humble opinion.  After I graduated from school my uncle, a Texas lawyer, showed me a string of emails to see how I would approach the issues he was working on.  I told him:  “Uncle Carlos, I just graduated law school.  You know I don’t know shit about the law!”  He chuckled and said, “you have a point, it’s not until after you’re done with the bar will you have the knowledge.”
I am not a proponent for any commercial bar prep over the other.  Each has success and each will give you the tools to pass the bar.  The tools may differ but it’s using these tools that will prepare you.  A hammer is useless unless you pick it up and strike a nail.  Your mountain of books will arrive and you will be instantly intimidated at the sheer knowledge of law you’re expected to comprehend.  As my buddy Andy would put it:  “we’re expected to know an ocean of law, fortunately it’s only an inch deep.”
The bottom line here, pick one that you can afford and follow what they suggest.  Don’t get bogged down in the minutia and don’t fight their answers.  Pick up a few pointers and move on.  
    -  Sticking to the schedule

The journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step.  These commercial bar prep businesses have helped thousands of people in the same position you’re in now.  They know the ins and outs better than I can explain.  Follow their schedule but remember they don’t know your own strengths and weaknesses.  Play to your bolster your strengths and become knowledgeable in your weaknesses.

    -  Making it your own

In making it your own, you will apply more effort to your weaknesses and while avoiding neglect to your strengths.  You will always find something new to learn up to the point you enter the convention center and the proctor says “Good luck, you may begin.”  

These commercial guys know how to organize their information, but do not limit yourself to what they suggest; use it as a base and build off of it.  I practiced P&E questions and tried to do an MPT here and there.  I found this practice paid off just for the peace I had while taking these tests.  The bar prep you get will have all the areas and may have you practice one section for two or three days.  I had contracts for three days and family law for two.  I used that time to learn UCC 9 and Consumer Law, classes that I didn’t take in school.  

Fortunately, my test prep had proficiency tests at the end of the lecture.  I would take that and focus in on the weak areas, then spend time working on my weak areas of law.  To do this I would focus on the pocket areas as I mentioned before.  My bar prep suggested 10 MC questions in that particular area and I would do about 15-20 untimed and would read EVERY answer explanation.  The explanations taught me more than the lectures did.  I could see HOW the law worked and WHY it was applied in that situation.  I would begin to recognize situation and predict what the answer was, then because of a small change in the fact pattern, an exception would trigger.  Every wrong answer I would get I took as an opportunity to learn.  It was still discouraging to get lower scores but better to get the crap scores now than on Day Two.  As long as I would pick up a nugget here and there I was amazed how much I retained when reading hypos and seeing the issues CLEARLY.  

When approaching the weaknesses it gets easy to say “I’m going to punt on UCC 9 because I didn’t take it in law school.”  My mentor Donnie verbally chastised me into learning enough law to discuss all the areas of the exam with some degree of proficiency.  In other words, I had enough to “bullshit in a bluebook” and actually know what I’m talking about.  I found that after a few weeks of practice I would understand what the test makers were looking for in their exams and if asked I could discuss certain areas with proficiency.  While I would not get 100% on that essay, I would a hellovalot better than the guy who skips it.

Mentors.  I work best if I am accountable to someone.  I knew shortly after I began that being accountable to myself would not cut it and after talking with my friend Lori Ann, she told me about additional work she had to do for her mentor.  “Mentor?” I asked her. “How do you get one of those?”  Fortunately, she gave me the know how and I asked the academic support director Everett for help and he appointed me one of his mentors, a recent bar taker.  If you don’t have one, get one if you can.  I had Donnie.  His intensity and fervor kept me honest and my devotion to duty kept me accountable to him.  I wanted to skip a few areas but at his insistence and efforts UCC 9 became a strength; one more exam I did not have to worry about.  I wanted a mentor just so I could have someone to hold me accountable.  It’s pretty easy to get lackadaisical and set yourself up for inadequacy, or be overly harsh and push yourself into a nervous breakdown.  Donnie set high-yet-tangible goals for me to reach each week.

He pushed me to learn the tiny minutia of the law with a high level of detail.  While I knew this would OVER prepare me, I would much rather have gone into the bar exam with 5 bullets instead of 4.  For the essay portion of the bar I felt completely at ease. I spotted the issues I felt the testers where looking for and on areas that I was weak I wrote  “an argument with a straight face” type of essays.  This is where I really didn’t know the area of law they were looking for but I discussed the areas I knew and tied them in somehow.  Long story short, got through all the essays and hit up every point I could in the allotted time provided.  I could not have entered taken this test with ice water in my veins if I hadn’t had people behind me, like Donnie and Everett, pushing me forward.  Additionally, I would not have felt, as my buddy Andy coined “cautiously confident” about the test without putting in the long hours required to learn the ocean of law (an inch deep).

 

1. Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy