The Frustrations of Studying for the Bar Exam: A Regular Routine Will Get You Through!

            I remember that I had about a week left before the bar. I would be taking the New York Bar and was scheduled to drive up at the end of that week from my apartment in Washington, D.C. to Albany, New York with two of my fellow recent grads. We had booked a motel room and would use it as our base of operation for the two day exam. We would be taking the bar exam at an edifice named “The Egg,” a massive complex which now serves as Albany’s Center for Performing Arts. Given that, I was hoping that this would not turn into my own personal “Greek Tragedy” on the upcoming date of my “performance.”

     I thought that I was ready. It was time to intensify my rounds of practice testing. I would start out with shorter tests at the beginning of this last week, then do two full blown Multistate exams at the end of the week, pack and set out for Albany to make history. I took the first short thirty minute exam on Monday evening. I started at 7:07 pm and answered about 25-30 questions, stopped and went over the answers. I tallied my score. I had missed half of the questions.

          It was at that moment that the flood gates erupted. I simply “lost it.” Everything that was on my desk – books, paper, pens, markers, Post-It notes (even a stapler) --  went crashing up against the walls and the carpeting of my apartment. My black and white cat who – only moments before had been nested calmly in a corner sleeping – now sought cover in what passed as my living room, eyes stricken with terror.

        I soon regained my composure and sat, breathing heavily, in my desk chair. Thoughts of failing the bar exam filled my mind. . . . Why does everything depend on this ONE stupid test? Why don’t my THREE YEARS OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS count at all in this process? This is simply not fair!

       Ten more minutes past and I started to re-group. I started feeling better. I was now energized. Instead of being a complete summer disaster, my “meltdown” had been cathartic. I suddenly felt ready to start again and continue my test taking activities for the week. I managed to keep with my routine and continued with my studies that night and the rest of that final week.  I eventually made it to Albany (and beyond).

       Bar preparation is many things to many students. Everyone experiences it a little differently, given individual personalities and temperaments. Usual feelings include: being tired (most of the time); anxious; cranky; on edge; calm (almost never); and academically focused (some of the time). All of these emotions normally swirl through the head of a law student doing bar prep – sometimes all at once! Some days are better than others. Some days we are “Conquerors.” Some days, we are the “Conquered.”

DEVELOP A ROUTINE AND STICK TO IT

   

         Given everything that bar preparation is, I hesitate to give specific advice because law students all have different ways to go about studying, much the same way that they had different approaches to going through and succeeding in law school. But the one piece of advice that I can give you is “be consistent in your daily routine.” Get a schedule and stick to it. Do not deviate from it until you have completed the last question on the exam:

   The routine that worked for me was as follows:

•          Early morning two mile run (you must have an exercise component in your schedule. It will not work for you if you don’t - trust me.)

•          Bar review classes (morning/early afternoon);

•       Back to apartment – outline the day’s classes (before dinner);

•           Short break to eat; 
•           Prep for next day’s classes by reviewing bar company’s outlines (early to late in evening);

•          End the night watching an episode of “Perry Mason” on a classic television station (say, 11:30 p.m);

•      Weekends: study and review Saturday and Sunday (break Saturday night – Saturday Night Fever!);  Sunday break (2-6 pm to get out and “smell the flowers”..out and about in Our Nation's Capital), then back to studying to 11:00 pm (no “Perry Mason” on Sunday night)

This was me. However it works for you, just stay with it. 

       

     Criminologists and prison wardens (I love this ironic parallel!) have told me that the key reason that everything is so regimented in prison is that there is more of a sense of calm and purpose in inmate behavior when it all works the same way, every day. The inmates learn what is expected and perform as expected.

        

    The same reasoning applies to the law student studying to pass the only exam that really matters in his/her young legal career. As anxiety starts to set in as the exam dates draw nearer, the student has the comfort of the “regularity” of the daily schedule to draw on for strength and the sheer will to get through the volume of work needed, and  to absorb all the material needed to pass the bar exam (it worked for me anyway).

          

  The life of a law student studying for the bar is not pleasant. It is a grueling marathon to the finish line. It is the one time in the student’s life when it is permissible to be compulsive and anal. Find a schedule that works for you and stick with it. As a side note, I was introduced to running while studying for the bar. While I never got up to running a marathon, I spent almost my entire legal career as a trial lawyer running 5K- 15Ks races– a pleasure that I would not have had if not for taking up running as part of my bar prep routine.

        

    All things will pass, as will the grueling period of your bar preparation. Attack it with all the energy and perseverance that you have. I know that you simply will not believe this now but you may even have “fond (or least, some funny) memories” of studying for the bar as you continue through your legal career, see, my apartment “meltdown,” above for confirmation of this fact. By the way, my cat needed months of therapy (and much catnip) to recover fully!

           

 . Best Wishes to all who are now studying for the bar! . . . One question though: does reading this blog fit into your schedule for today???!! 

                                                   Perry Mason ponders an objection. 


Stay tuned: ...there will be a Part II to this story. . . "The Frustrations of Getting Bar Exam Results"