Full-time worker bar review support group Forum

[TheLegalOne]

Holy crap, 48 days left. I don't know how we're supposed to be covering all this material with the limited number of hours that we have in a day. Feels literally impossible--I can't even figure it out.

I was just thinking the same. I still feel out of sorts trying to sync my review course with my tutor assignments. It feels like I'm just completing a long checklist and not retaining anything.

[redblueyellow]

Holy crap, 48 days left. I don't know how we're supposed to be covering all this material with the limited number of hours that we have in a day. Feels literally impossible--I can't even figure it out.

I was just thinking the same. I still feel out of sorts trying to sync my review course with my tutor assignments. It feels like I'm just completing a long checklist and not retaining anything.

I did a Civ Pro essay question today and I outlined the test fairly decently, but when I attempted to put down the exam down on paper, completely blanked and couldn't even get all the elements down correctly. Applying the facts was relatively easy, but how am I supposed to do that if I couldn't even get down Personal JX's template correct!?

[InRemington]

Checking in from Florida. We're a 50/25/25 state so I'm focused heavily on the MBE.

Working full time has been FAR harder than I thought. I bill 8 hours a day but it takes me about 9-10 working hours to do it so it's eating at least 2 good hours of my planned study time. The firm is understanding and I'm going to start cutting back a bit on billalbes and try leaving the office at 5:30 sharp.

So far my schedule is up at 5am, outlining from 6-7, Kaplan Qbank from 7-8a, work all day, then 7-8:30 another 33 MBE's.

Saturday / Sunday 10-12 hours mainly listening to lectures on 1.5X, outlining and doing checkpoint quizzes.

No essay prep so far.

I'm gonna pass....I'm gonna pass......I'm gonna pass....

[texlaw]

Holy crap, 48 days left. I don't know how we're supposed to be covering all this material with the limited number of hours that we have in a day. Feels literally impossible--I can't even figure it out.

I'll be happy if I can reach Themis's magic number of 75% completion by the end of July.

[gk101]

Had to work over the weekend and I am 3 lectures behind now. Fuck

[myrtlewinston]

Hi from NY! I have a small business. I'm trying to suspend operations during Bar review, but it's hard as I need the income. Thankfully, I work from home.

[desperate4lawschool]

NY bar taker checking in as well. The next two months are going to suck big time. Between end of quarter madness at work and studying without any bar prep course are bound to be quite fun

[myrtlewinston]

NY bar taker checking in as well. The next two months are going to suck big time. Between end of quarter madness at work and studying without any bar prep course are bound to be quite fun

That sucks. Can you afford a tutor? He or she could help you zoom in on the necessary.

[texlaw]

NY bar taker checking in as well. The next two months are going to suck big time. Between end of quarter madness at work and studying without any bar prep course are bound to be quite fun

What materials are you using to prepare for the bar?

[Bar Slayer]

Had to work over the weekend and I am 3 lectures behind now. Fuck

I would avoid lectures if you're part time studying due to the lack of efficiency. Watching them and taking notes feels like you're making progress, but if you want to get the most bang for your time/energy, you should do minimal review and just jump right into practice. It will hurt and feel horrible, but you'll retain more than passive learning.

[SpAcEmAn SpLiFF]

Had to work over the weekend and I am 3 lectures behind now. Fuck

I would avoid lectures if you're part time studying due to the lack of efficiency. Watching them and taking notes feels like you're making progress, but if you want to get the most bang for your time/energy, you should do minimal review and just jump right into practice. It will hurt and feel horrible, but you'll retain more than passive learning.

Just wanted to add to this: I'm retaking the CA bar this coming July and I was working full-time when I failed in Feb. I felt like I was making progress by going through the lectures, but in retrospect, I didn't get nearly enough practice because the lectures took up so much time.

[myrtlewinston]

I watch the Barbri lectures because I learn well that way. Some have been great, but some were dreadful.

[gk101]

Had to work over the weekend and I am 3 lectures behind now. Fuck

I would avoid lectures if you're part time studying due to the lack of efficiency. Watching them and taking notes feels like you're making progress, but if you want to get the most bang for your time/energy, you should do minimal review and just jump right into practice. It will hurt and feel horrible, but you'll retain more than passive learning.

Just wanted to add to this: I'm retaking the CA bar this coming July and I was working full-time when I failed in Feb. I felt like I was making progress by going through the lectures, but in retrospect, I didn't get nearly enough practice because the lectures took up so much time.

yeah I am doing a bunch of multiple choice questions every morning. The lectures just help me get familiar with the topics and the questions reinforce what I learn

[Scarletlady]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to offer some encouragement to you all. I worked full-time (40-50 hours/week) during Bar Prep last summer. I will not lie, it was kind of awful, but manageable. That being said, I did manage to pass the NY/NJ Bars, so it is completely doable. The best advice I received was to run your own race. The darn BarBri mocked me for months, but I stuck with it (admittedly never caught up), didn't let my mind get the better of me in the process, and did what worked for me.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, lend some tips, or scheduling ideas.

Best of luck!

[texlaw]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to offer some encouragement to you all. I worked full-time (40-50 hours/week) during Bar Prep last summer. I will not lie, it was kind of awful, but manageable. That being said, I did manage to pass the NY/NJ Bars, so it is completely doable. The best advice I received was to run your own race. The darn BarBri mocked me for months, but I stuck with it (admittedly never caught up), didn't let my mind get the better of me in the process, and did what worked for me.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, lend some tips, or scheduling ideas.

Best of luck!

Thanks for this! Now that we are approaching one month before the bar exam, how did you approach studying during your final month of bar review, and did you make any adjustments to what you did prior to that?

[redblueyellow]

Last night, I literally said "F*** this, I need a break from my work and bar prep." I bought a ticket to San Diego and flew down there. Now I'm exploring the city and I'll be back Sunday night.

[gaagoots]

Last night, I literally said "F*** this, I need a break from my work and bar prep." I bought a ticket to San Diego and flew down there. Now I'm exploring the city and I'll be back Sunday night.

Enjoy yourself!! I was in San Diego last weekend and said the same thing, glad I did. I got hit with 3 motions this week they had same day filing deadlines. I kept thinking, it's PT practice don't bitch.

[Jchance]

Checking in, signed up for the CA bar. I have 1 lecture left, been tackling the MBE 3 subjects at a time (the ones I enjoy doing to get the momentum going), have not done any essay/PT yet.

[myrtlewinston]

Last night, I literally said "F*** this, I need a break from my work and bar prep." I bought a ticket to San Diego and flew down there. Now I'm exploring the city and I'll be back Sunday night.

Good for you!

[myrtlewinston]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to offer some encouragement to you all. I worked full-time (40-50 hours/week) during Bar Prep last summer. I will not lie, it was kind of awful, but manageable. That being said, I did manage to pass the NY/NJ Bars, so it is completely doable. The best advice I received was to run your own race. The darn BarBri mocked me for months, but I stuck with it (admittedly never caught up), didn't let my mind get the better of me in the process, and did what worked for me.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, lend some tips, or scheduling ideas.

Best of luck!

Congratulations on passing TWO Bars!

How did you memorise the New York Practice and Crim material?

[Scarletlady]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to offer some encouragement to you all. I worked full-time (40-50 hours/week) during Bar Prep last summer. I will not lie, it was kind of awful, but manageable. That being said, I did manage to pass the NY/NJ Bars, so it is completely doable. The best advice I received was to run your own race. The darn BarBri mocked me for months, but I stuck with it (admittedly never caught up), didn't let my mind get the better of me in the process, and did what worked for me.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, lend some tips, or scheduling ideas.

Best of luck!

Thanks for this! Now that we are approaching one month before the bar exam, how did you approach studying during your final month of bar review, and did you make any adjustments to what you did prior to that?

Sorry for the delayed response.

I think one of the most important things you need to focus on is not burning out. Its hard to fight the impulse that more is better and if you do more you pass. A few caveats to keep in mind, I never studied in a group, used flashcards or pneumonics because those methods simply never worked for me. Which leads me to an important point, do what worked for you in law school, trust me, it will work again. I also burned a couple of vacation days in July to play catchup.

Throughout, I kept a relatively rigid schedule:

6:00-6:30am wakeup and coffee
6:30-7:30am review notes from previous night or multichoice answers
7:30-8:15am get ready for work
8:15-8:30am commute (NOTE - (i commuted on a bus) issue spot essay and read answer; usually was able to do 1, 2 if traffic)
8:30-9:00am read outline/notes
9:00 - noon WORK
noon - 1pm read outline/notes
1:00-5:30pm WORK
5:30-6:00pm read outline/notes
6:00-6:45pm Gym/run and Dinner
6:45-7:15pm commute (issue spot essay and read answer)
7:15-11:00pm (midnight if I was up for it, but never later, sleep is extremely important) assigned BarBri lecture/essay/multichoice

For every hour of studying I would give myself a 10-15 minute break. But that also meant for the hour I was studying, I was actually being productive about it. Knowing I had breaks built in got me through each study block.

On the weekends, my "WORK" and "commute" periods were just replaced with more study time and getting assignments done. I also shuffled my runs to the am. I had a hard stop time for studying of 6pm on Saturdays and spent the time with friends or running errands. Sundays I would study in the evening if I felt it was necessary.

Towards the end I did breakdown and get the Leansheets, I found them pretty helpful for driving home the barebones material and carried them in my purse the last couple of weeks and read over them anytime I had a spare second. A word of caution though, they track very nicely to the Barbri outlines, but I did note several typos or errors, so if something doesn't seem right verify the material.

[Scarletlady]

Edited. Deleted. Hit submit twice, sorry.

[Scarletlady]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to offer some encouragement to you all. I worked full-time (40-50 hours/week) during Bar Prep last summer. I will not lie, it was kind of awful, but manageable. That being said, I did manage to pass the NY/NJ Bars, so it is completely doable. The best advice I received was to run your own race. The darn BarBri mocked me for months, but I stuck with it (admittedly never caught up), didn't let my mind get the better of me in the process, and did what worked for me.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, lend some tips, or scheduling ideas.

Best of luck!

Congratulations on passing TWO Bars!

How did you memorise the New York Practice and Crim material?

There is no kind way around the fact that NY Practice and NY Crim are beasts -- tons of material and lots of exceptions. For these I used, what I affectionately refer to as "studying triage." There is so much material that it is impossible to know it all. But, some material shows up at higher frequencies than others and that is where you focus your study. Think about it, if the question ends of being unclear or really obscure the majority of test takers will miss it... you need to know the big ticket items, if you know the others its a bonus. I googled a couple NY Bar Exam Frequency lists but liked Smart Bar Prep's the best since it had a really solid breakdown by topics and rules.

I think traditionally, in NY Practice they test summary judgment and motion to dismiss standards at a higher frequency than almost every other topic. That is most likely because they are important to know, but also because they can be easily woven into other questions.

Crim was little bit different. My main focus was on knowing crim for the MBE. So when I was studying crim, every time I reviewed the MBE rule I would write or mentally note the NY exception or difference. In my mind, the MBE rule and NY rule always travelled in a pair and this kept me from getting confused. As for the degrees, I stuck with a tip from my friend who sat the exam the year before -- you only need to know 3 degrees of anything, the highest, the middle, and the lowest. The rest you can kind of work out.

To rest your mind, review the most recent exams. When I sat last summer, I though all the questions were pretty straightforward with no real tricks.

[FloRida15]

Hello all... checking in from NY, but will be sitting for the FL bar. I am a NY attorney and am working full time. This is proving to be extremely challenging and exhausting (as you can tell from the 1:00 am post). Typical day is work from 9 to 6:30, study from 6:45 to 12:30 or 1:00 am and then about 8 hours per day on the weekends. I did a similar schedule 5 years ago and passed the NY/NJ bar exams. Seems harder the second time around. 4 more weeks and it's all over. I do wish FL would just let me waive in -- wouldn't that be nice!!

[Bubbles 4 Life]

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