law school success – Page 2 – Law School & Bar Exam Success

Don’t forget to Breathe!

How tense are you right now? How much learning is blocked from coming into and staying in your brain because of nerves.

My constant refrain that I ask bar takers and other students getting ready for exam to tell yourselves is: “Turn Panic into Power and not Paralysis.” That power phrase appears in my books and articles and in most every talk I give to students preparing for high stakes exams.

There are many steps for turning panic into power. Step one is always to breathe. We’ll talk about next steps in future blog posts.

July Bar Takers: Five Prompts for Bar Success Planning, Starting Now

If you are taking the July bar exam, start planning now. Here are five prompts to get you started:

1. Where will you live after graduation?

2. Do you have a place to study that is conducive to learning?

3. Have you lined up all the bar review resources you will need?

4. Have you let your family and friends know you’ll be gone in June and July – and, have you taken care of all summer obligations so that you can either handle them by May or put them off until August?

And, last but not least, for now,

5. Do you have enough money saved to live for two months after graduation without working?

#barexam, #barexamtips, #barsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent

Ten tips to manage procrastination

Many students share that as midterms and finals approach, and during bar prep, they find themselves unusually eager to clean their homes, review and delete old emails, clip their toenails. You get the idea – anything other than studying!

Here are tips if this is your situation:

Know that procrastination is normal. Lose the self-criticism.
See some procrastinating as a positive. Sometimes, it does serve a useful purpose – helping re-charge your batteries so that you are all-in when you are studying.
If your procrastination is paralyzing, rather than positive, seek help from reliable, expert resources.
Think of an academic goal as a series of finite projects. It is more tempting to avoid something that feels like a huge challenge. Identifying tasks as doable parts of a project makes them more approachable.
Once you identify the various tasks, ask yourself if any of them feel overwhelming, and see if you can get some help with those pieces of the puzzle.
List what you tend to do when you procrastinate and schedule specific, limited time slots for those things. Don’t make them guilty pleasures. Make them a controlled part of your day. For example, if you procrastinate with social media, you may find yourself losing many hours. If you know that every day, you have social media “office hours,” you will be less apt to use that as an escape.
Study first, then take your time “off.”
Adopt a routine. Being on a schedule will help your body and brain “accept” that you just do particular tasks at certain times. You just do.
Talk to yourself about how good you feel when you accomplish what you set out to do. And, if it’s helpful, remind yourself how icky it feels when you don’t. Simple example: many people have a habit of never going to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink. No matter how tired they are, they just don’t procrastinate on that one. Why? They find it pleasant to wake to a clean sink and very unpleasant to wake to dirt. They also realize that the task gets more difficult the longer food sticks to dishes. And, they know that a sink for of dirty dishes attracts bugs.
Articulate why your big goals are important and valuable. And give yourself props for all the hard work you are doing.

#studysuccess, #academicsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent, #ASP, #barsuccess

Bar Exams and Law School Differ

For example, when you go into your Civ Pro final, you knew you would be tested on civil procedure. Bar examiners will fire questions at you on dozens of subjects, in random order –and they won’t be labeled! You’ll have to figure out what subject you are in, hopefully before even reading the full question.

The are many differences. The one I am thinking about today is with the MPT. Format your answer the way the Task Memo (sometimes called the Sr. Partner Memo) tells you to.

When my students show me beautiful Memos, for example, formatted just the way their Legal Writing professor told them to write and ask why they got low grades in bar prep, I simply say, “You need to follow the instructions for this exam.”

In practice, you may work for and report to different partners who will have completely different styles. You may appear before different judges who have different rules in their courtrooms. Likewise, when you are writing for the bar exam, write for bar graders.

In bar prep and on the bar exam, forget for a moment what you learned in law school and in any legal work experiences. Follow the bar examiners’ directions. (I say for a moment because all that learning will come back and be utilized when you are in practice.)

For more bar success tips and strategies, read or listen to the audio book of Bar Exam Success: A Comprehensive Guide –available on Amazon, ABA Publishing, and West Academics (free for certain law students who have West Academics subscriptions).

#barexam, #barsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent, #ASP, #academicsuccess,

Health and Wellness in Law School and during Bar Prep

It is normal to struggle. And, it’s also normal to need help. Practice self-care, taking care of your physical and mental health. Adopt daily practices of diet, exercise, positive self-talk, meditation, and others that make you feel your best. And, if you feel you might want or need them, check out the many mental health, substance use, and wellness resources at ABA for Law Students.

#BarReview, #LawSchool, #BarPrep, #LawStudent, #BarSuccess

Stay Hydrated while Studying

If your body does not have enough water, you may experience fatigue, hunger, or brain fog – all of which detract from the kind of focused attention you need for deep learning.

For those in bar prep, it helps to “train” with no food or drink during study blocks. But before and after every study session, and at every break, drink water. Type WATER into your schedule!

Imagine that plant that you haven’t watered for a while. Picture how it soaks up the moisture. That’s you when you are not hydrated. So, if you are taking a study break to read this post, grab yourself a glass of water. You will be amazed how much better and stronger you feel.

#barexam, #barprep, #lawschool, #lawstudents

Law School and Bar Passage are Worth all the Effort: Keep at it!

Remember every day, in every moment of struggle, that it is worth it. With your JD and law license, you can do well and do good, for decades to come. And we need you. You are our future leaders and future guardians of the law.

Keep believing, keep struggling, keep learning, and keep working. Slow and steady wins the race.

Ten Reasons People Pass the Bar Exam

You have an effective study schedule, and you stick to it! Slow and steady wins the race.
You devote two full months to full-time bar preparation after law school.
You clear your calendar during bar prep of outside responsibilities, commitments, and distractions.
You engage fully in the bar review process, learning everything that will be tested (especially what will be heavily test) including mastering concepts you never fully grasped in law school.
You master systems or frameworks to memorize key rules and concepts.
You enlist the support of reliable, helpful people and resources and you separate yourself from those who distract you intentionally or inadvertently.
You take practice tests and study answers to every one to determine how to improve. You approach practice tests as if training for a marathon.
You admit and manage the anxiety and nerves that are a normal part of high stakes exams and high stakes aspects of the profession.
You practice self-care throughout bar prep, eating healthy foods, getting regular and adequate sleep, and engaging in some form of daily exercise.
You believe you can and will pass.

#barexam, #barsuccess, #barreview, #academicsuccess, #lawschool

The Age of Corona Virus: July Bar Exam??

All posts on this blog are my own; they do not represent any institution.

A group of us who have been involved in lawyer licensing and legal education for many years lay out options for bar admission in the current context at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559060.

Five Powerful Ways to Engage with Law School Learning without losing yourself

New law students often raise their hands in class to share their personal opinions about cases. I’ve heard professors respond ruthlessly, “I don’t care what you think.” I will sometimes explain, “What matters, for class discussion and exams, is what the court decided and why, and not what your personal views are.” (I frequently tell my law students that I don’t want see anything written in the first person –not on law school exams and not on bar exams.)

So how to stay engaged when your opinion doesn’t matter?

Your opinion does matter, just not for class or exams. My classmates and I argued outside of class for hours every day, about what we thought about cases, about how we might have decided them if we’d been the judges –you name it. So, talk with classmates –before and/or after class!
Go to office hours. Ask your professor his or her opinion of the court’s decision in a particular case, and discuss yours.
Teach what you are learning to a friend or family member who is not in law school and share your feelings about what you are learning.
Write in the margins of your casebook what you think of a case. Don’t just “book brief” in the margins. Add your reactions, in your own words. (Read a fabulous case tonight with students about the foreseeability of a particular injury. One of the court’s splendid lines reasoned that simply because an injury had not previously resulted from the particular action in question did not mean the injury was not foreseeable. I told the students that I wrote in my margins something like, “Yup. Makes sense to me. Just like when we tell kids not to play with matches. They may not have gotten hurt before, but it’s totally foreseeable that they’ll get burned one of these days.” My students who were parents especially appreciated the editorial.
Read newspaper and law review articles that critique the area you are studying. You will find this stretches your brain and helps you see even beyond the thoughts or reactions you had. You may find support for your own views. You may find arguments that oppose your opinions. You may find you see things in an entirely new light altogether. Whatever you discover content-wise, the process itself will help train your critical reading and analysis skills.

Bottom line, your opinions and your feelings may have no place on law exams, but they are vital to your humanity. Keep them alive. Just keep them in context!