Wednesday, June 27, 2012

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"

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Persistent Dream



 
           
            I remember that it had been a beautiful spring day in May. I had just finished my last exam as a college student at the University of Maryland, College Park and – after four tumultuous years in my College Park university cocoon – it was finally time for me to leave this academic environment and enter the working world.  

            I was somewhat apprehensive and nervous as I headed back to my apartment located just off the campus. I had not planned to return home to my parents who lived in New York at that time. I had hoped to remain in the area and look for employment as a high school teacher (my degree was in English Secondary Education). As I was about to take that last step and walk off campus and head to my car for the last time as an undergraduate, I stopped and took a long and expansive look at the tree-lined student “Quad” area with its many stately Oak trees. All was simply gorgeous on a sunny May afternoon!…. It was at that moment that I had that thought again: “the nurturing academic environment of a college campus would be a wonderful place for me to pursue a teaching career” thought.

            If that thought had gone through my head once, it had gone through me a hundred times. Frankly, college teaching had been my dream since about my sophomore year in college. However, I never gave the idea serious consideration, nor did I ever sit down and ask myself why I kept coming back to college teaching, or, at least, see if it were a feasible option for me. I simply turned my head back to the road and headed on out of that university for the last time. I moved on and exchanged my subsidized existence as a full time college student, for a high school teaching job with little pay but much personal satisfaction.

            I had missed the moment and let the dream slip away on that May afternoon . . . .

I take every opportunity that I have in speaking with our law students here at North Carolina Central University School of Law to listen for, and then recognize, the “moment,” i.e., the inner call to their dream career, “passion” or whatever you want to call it. . . What if it doesn’t come? What if I can’t hear it?. For most, it will indeed come. You just have to be open and be listening.

 When I experienced the call to my dream (to higher education), I dropped the ball.  I simply dismissed the thought, never giving it a proper hearing and serious consideration, though a professor had even suggested that I apply to a graduate studies program and then a teaching fellowship. After a circuitous path taking me through both public and private law practice, I have finally picked up the ball and returned to my dream as a educator in an academic environment  (where I should have been from day one, I might add. However, at the same time, with no regrets for a fascinating legal career in the middle.)   

Times are extremely difficult now for law students who are seeking work in a legal industry that appears to be changing and evolving into new something quite different than it had been in the recent past. Law firms are remodeling and restructuring; public interest entities now in hiring “freezes” and work is now at a premium. Therefore, this “dream thing” must be carefully thought out now. It’s not enough to just say that you are being “called” to be a lawyer. Explore your reasoning: to make good money?: this is not a “persistent dream,” it is naïve foolishness and a student who goes to law school to make money (or another equally superficial motive) would certainly be heading for a “train wreck.”

The "dream thing" will again hit you once you are in law school and have cleared that first hurdle. Recognize it in the form of what area of  law you may wish to enter as your specialty. You'll feel the drive . .i.e. to litigate, to enter a specific government agency, civil, criminal. .  . what's that area of practice that you are always thinking about?? Here comes your "persistent dream" --right at you!

Law school is not for the faint hearted these days, but I write to tell you that if you can take all this in, and still have the drive and desire to pursue a legal career, don’t let all the “prophets of doom” deter you. Think it through, make reasonable choices about school costs and career options and then follow your “persistent dream.”

Philip A. Guzman, Esq.




Revised from an original publication in the NALP Bulletin, September 2010