Month: September 2009

Essay Advice: Write like a lawyer

by

Many bar applicants lose sight of the fact that the bar examiners are testing your ability to communicate in a lawyer-like fashion.

Perhaps your law school professors were forgiving of your stylistic errors as long as they understood your arguments. If so, bear in mind that in many states the essays will be graded not by law professors, but rather by practitioners (lawyers and judges). When these attorney-graders read your essay, they are asking themselves only one thing: Is this someone I would want to deal with on a legal matter? If your essay answer is filed with sloppy language, sloppy reasoning and sloppy conclusions, they will conclude that you are not.

Ask any attorney practicing today and they will tell you that there is already a surplus of bad lawyers in the profession. Therefore, if you fail to communicate your answer in a lawyer-like fashion, you may remind the graders of all the terrible lawyers they are already dealing with on a day-to-day basis and they are going to want to weed you out now lest they end up sitting across from you someday on a legal matter and have to decipher your incomprehensible pleadings and correspondence.

On your bar exam essays, always write in full sentences and pay attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Be sure that your answers are responsive to the questions asked and are based upon logical arguments. Make use of the IRAC method and always reason your way to a lawyer-like conclusion.

Do not forget that the bar exam is all about proving to the bar examiners that you are worthy of being granted admission to their profession.

Best time to sit for the bar exam

by

When is the best time to sit for the bar exam? For most people the answer is the same: immediately after graduating from law school.

The reasons for this are clear:

  1. Academic readiness. You are at your peak in terms of academic performance when you are fresh out of school. You have honed your study habits and you are accustomed to taking law school exams.
  2. Retention of substantive law. Your memory of your law school subjects is freshest right out of school. You will certainly forget most of the substantive law that you learned over time. Therefore, the longer you wait after graduation to sit for the bar, the more information you will need to re-learn.

Do not think that if you put off the bar exam to give yourself more time to study, that you will have any advantage over those who jump right in to bar review after graduation. I have heard this rationale before. It strikes me as nothing more than procrastination.

If you must postpone for financial, medical, or other unavoidable reasons, that is one thing. You should not try to study for the bar exam when you are under stress or unable to give it your all.

However, if there is nothing holding you back from taking the bar exam after graduation from law school, then do not look for excuses to put it off. If you think you need extra time to prepare, then look into getting your bar review materials early and begin your preliminary bar prep during your final semester of law school.