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I am not sure if anyone else is in the same boat as me or not, but I would appreciate any help you can provide.

I graduated from a T20 law school back in 2012. I forked out over $3k to take the Virginia bar with BARBRI and almost completed the course. Since I was working full time at the time, I didn't feel ready to take the bar and withdrew the week before the test.

BARBRI allowed me to retake the program for free which I followed through. I took all the lectures, took all the notes, and did some full outlines based on the lecture notes, the conviser, and the full outlines. But then I got medical issues that prevented me from taking the test, so I withdrew again. Then getting married came and work commitments, then I never took it. I moved to NY and now want to start being an attorney (that's why I went to law school after all) and want to pass the test.

What I see as my biggest problems are my lack of confidence and my inability to determine what's important and what's not. I do the lectures and somewhat understand the material (tbh most of the stuff I had forgotten), then don't believe that's enough information to pass. There's no way that the bar would be that simple, right? So i start going through the conviser and the long outlines, then I'm more confused!! Sometimes it almost feels like it's contradicting one another. So to "clarify" I buy the Kaplan outlines, the flash cards, etc. but at the end, I am drowning in books and information. I don't know what to study, every time there's a rule I don't know, I freak out... The frequency charts also freak me out bc I'm thinking if that hasn't been tested in a long time or infrequently, maybe it'll be on THIS test, so at the end, I feel like I need to memorize everything.

Although I magically managed to get into a relatively good school, I was not by any means top of the class. I'm not a good test taker and struggle with time.

I'd ideally like a bar prep that doesn't drown you in information to cover their behinds and that is realistic about the fact that some people don't have two months off to study full time...

Any recommendations?? Thank you

i spent probably 85 hours studying for the bar total, while working full time, and passed. it's not a difficult exam, just focus heavily on the MBE. you have plenty of time to dig deep into some of the harder MBE subjects if you start now.

lacrossebrother wrote:i spent probably 85 hours studying for the bar total, while working full time, and passed. it's not a difficult exam, just focus heavily on the MBE. you have plenty of time to dig deep into some of the harder MBE subjects if you start now.

Agree. A lot of friends and also some law professors told me the same.

desperate4lawschool wrote:I am not sure if anyone else is in the same boat as me or not, but I would appreciate any help you can provide.

I graduated from a T20 law school back in 2012. I forked out over $3k to take the Virginia bar with BARBRI and almost completed the course. Since I was working full time at the time, I didn't feel ready to take the bar and withdrew the week before the test.

BARBRI allowed me to retake the program for free which I followed through. I took all the lectures, took all the notes, and did some full outlines based on the lecture notes, the conviser, and the full outlines. But then I got medical issues that prevented me from taking the test, so I withdrew again. Then getting married came and work commitments, then I never took it. I moved to NY and now want to start being an attorney (that's why I went to law school after all) and want to pass the test.

What I see as my biggest problems are my lack of confidence and my inability to determine what's important and what's not. I do the lectures and somewhat understand the material (tbh most of the stuff I had forgotten), then don't believe that's enough information to pass. There's no way that the bar would be that simple, right? So i start going through the conviser and the long outlines, then I'm more confused!! Sometimes it almost feels like it's contradicting one another. So to "clarify" I buy the Kaplan outlines, the flash cards, etc. but at the end, I am drowning in books and information. I don't know what to study, every time there's a rule I don't know, I freak out... The frequency charts also freak me out bc I'm thinking if that hasn't been tested in a long time or infrequently, maybe it'll be on THIS test, so at the end, I feel like I need to memorize everything.

Although I magically managed to get into a relatively good school, I was not by any means top of the class. I'm not a good test taker and struggle with time.

I'd ideally like a bar prep that doesn't drown you in information to cover their behinds and that is realistic about the fact that some people don't have two months off to study full time...

Any recommendations?? Thank you

Yeah. Make your own outlines for each subject using the lecture handouts as a guide. It is critical that you structure the outlines in a way that makes it easy to absorb the material. The CMR is your best tool for this. Use the CMR to organize the material that is presented in the lecture handout. But don't bother going into all of the little details in the CMR unless you are not confident about the depth your lecturer covered a particular topic.

I would make these outlines after each days' lecture. Use the weekends to catch up if you fall behind. You can go ahead and skip the worthless assessments to save you some time. The assessments quiz you on a level of detail that your lecture probably didn't cover. They are basically designed to scare the crap out of you.

After you finish your last lecture, start absorbing your outlines.

How do you guys know what to memorize and what to skip? Are you guys purely going by the frequency charts provided by Barbri and the likes? My biggest struggle is to be fine with not knowing everything....

desperate4lawschool wrote:How do you guys know what to memorize and what to skip? Are you guys purely going by the frequency charts provided by Barbri and the likes? My biggest struggle is to be fine with not knowing everything....

You're not going to know everything... Trust me. You need to get that idea out of your head. I averaged over a 50 on the essays in NY and know for a fact I didn't know anywhere close to everything that is technically testable material. The MBE got me, solely because I didn't do enough practice questions and the ones that I did do, I wasn't reading the explanations to the ones I got wrong. That's where the bulk of the progress has been made for me, even though I've only been studying for two weeks. You figure out the tricks that the test-makers are trying to draw you into making with either the wording of the questions or answers.

desperate4lawschool wrote:How do you guys know what to memorize and what to skip? Are you guys purely going by the frequency charts provided by Barbri and the likes? My biggest struggle is to be fine with not knowing everything....

You need to get over that. You're not going to know everything. If you approach studying with the idea that you have to know every rule and every nuance and are striving to get 100% on the bar exam, you're going to go crazy. Your goal is simply to pass exam by earning the minimum number of points.

How do you do that? By looking at areas where you can get max points with the least amount of effort. As others have said, it's the MBE. If you don't try to outsmart it and talk yourself into selecting wrong answers, it's an easy way to bank points. Also, essay graders aren't interested in seeing great or creative analysis. They're lawyers who are grading essays in their spare time and are interested in checking boxes as quickly as possible. Essays are about issue spotting and rule articulation. You don't need to know EVERYTHING to pass. Read the model answers from your jurisdiction. You'll see that they're far from great examples of legal writing and frequently have misstatements of law, yet they're model answers. Spend some time looking over those essays to see what the examiners are looking for.

The bar exam is a test of general knowledge. I wouldn't skip any subjects, but focus on the core areas that are always tested. If you bank enough points in those areas, it won't matter if you get a subpart question out of left field that you have to BS. You can say "you got me!", make something up, and then move on.

The conviser alone is probably enough to pass if you read it 2-3 times. If you went to a t-20 school you could probably just use your school's outline bank for the 7 MBE questions and pass. Your problem is you withdrew from the exam when you >90% would have passed, and outside of your self-confidence, withdrawing = failing. The consequences are 100% the same.

I created an account just to respond to this because I really identify with some of your worries (or at least what I perceive some of your worries to be).

Honestly, you're never going to know if you learned enough until you take the test. Just go through with it. And if you fail, you fail, but at least you'll learn something in the process.

You've already invested so much time and effort into the bar exam WITHOUT EVER TAKING IT. I understand that life sometimes got in the way, as it tends to do. But please don't just spin your wheels because you're scared.

Plenty of people feel like you, and plenty of those people pass. And some fail, but they survive.

Just keep that in mind. I don't mean this post to belittle you or to discourage you. I really hope it motivates you.
And if I'm way off base in this response, I apologize. I struggled with a lack of self-confidence when I took the bar (before, during, and after), and I know how that feels.

desperate4lawschool wrote:I am not sure if anyone else is in the same boat as me or not, but I would appreciate any help you can provide.

I graduated from a T20 law school back in 2012. I forked out over $3k to take the Virginia bar with BARBRI and almost completed the course. Since I was working full time at the time, I didn't feel ready to take the bar and withdrew the week before the test.

BARBRI allowed me to retake the program for free which I followed through. I took all the lectures, took all the notes, and did some full outlines based on the lecture notes, the conviser, and the full outlines. But then I got medical issues that prevented me from taking the test, so I withdrew again. Then getting married came and work commitments, then I never took it. I moved to NY and now want to start being an attorney (that's why I went to law school after all) and want to pass the test.

What I see as my biggest problems are my lack of confidence and my inability to determine what's important and what's not. I do the lectures and somewhat understand the material (tbh most of the stuff I had forgotten), then don't believe that's enough information to pass. There's no way that the bar would be that simple, right? So i start going through the conviser and the long outlines, then I'm more confused!! Sometimes it almost feels like it's contradicting one another. So to "clarify" I buy the Kaplan outlines, the flash cards, etc. but at the end, I am drowning in books and information. I don't know what to study, every time there's a rule I don't know, I freak out... The frequency charts also freak me out bc I'm thinking if that hasn't been tested in a long time or infrequently, maybe it'll be on THIS test, so at the end, I feel like I need to memorize everything.

Although I magically managed to get into a relatively good school, I was not by any means top of the class. I'm not a good test taker and struggle with time.

I'd ideally like a bar prep that doesn't drown you in information to cover their behinds and that is realistic about the fact that some people don't have two months off to study full time...

Any recommendations?? Thank you

The most important thing you need is confidence. If you go into this worried or unsure, you will not do well. You can never know everything. Research the top 5-8 subjects they test on and focus on that. I made mini MBE outlines and quized every night. That's it.