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I hope that through part 1 and part 2 of this post series I have made clear how important it is to practice doing the exact tasks that you will be asked to do on the bar exam. It is incredibly important, despite the fact that it deviates from the standard approach that you will probably see most of your friends taking. There is good reason for it, and it really does work. I personally bet the bar exam on it, and I won. I have complete faith that it can work for you, too.
This approach may *sound* like more work (and harder work), and it may seem like there is a lazier, more passive option out there. But the truth is, once you get going, you will find that this is actually a lot easier than you thought it would be. You learn faster and you learn better. And not to be dismissed as inconsequential is the incredible amount of confidence you will gain in the process. Each day you mark down that you did 35 MBEs and 3 full-length practice essays, you will be so incredibly proud of yourself and your progress. That same confidence will be with you in the bar exam, which is invaluable! There won’t be anything on that bar exam that you’re not equipped to handle, and that’s something you can’t buy. So I hope I’ve convinced you of how trustworthy and superior this approach is. Here’s a fun little story to entertain you, and which makes my point in a way only a true story can! While in law school I participated in a mock trial competition. My partner and I were 1Ls, and we were evening students. That means we hadn’t had Evidence or Civ Pro – no classes that would give us any basis for understanding the rules of trial. As 1Ls, we were supposed to be paired against another 1L team. An error was made, and for our very first mock trial (on a Friday night) we were pitted against 2Ls who had had both Evidence and Civ Pro, not to mention an entire extra year of law school. It was a massacre. We had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t know when to make objections, what to object to, how to correctly ask a leading question or even question our own witnesses. It was an extremely painful, stressful and embarrassing situation. But we were learning from each mistake we were making. After the blood bath, we regrouped, evaluated the destruction, and re-assessed our trial skills before the next round the following morning. Saturday morning, we were placed against another 1L team for the second round. This 1L team was in the day program, so they actually had more legal knowledge than we did. But we had learned a lot the night before and were confident in our new skills. We creamed them! We advanced on to face our next opponents. It just so happens that we had advanced on to face the same exact 2L team we had competed against the night before. But this time, things were different. Really different. We knew what to do this time. We realized they had been getting away with murder on Friday night because of our lack of knowledge. When they tried the same tactics this time, we shut them down. Over and over again. I was even able to get their most hostile witness to impeach himself on the stand. The night before I couldn’t even get him to talk. We beat them, and the look on their faces was priceless. They were completely shocked not only that we were winning, but that we were the same team they had humiliated the night before. We were bad ass. Even though we felt humiliated and defeated on Friday night, we learned more through that short struggle that we would have in a year of a trial skills class. Why? Because we weren’t listening to lectures about how a trial works, how to object, how to preserve the record, how to claim privilege, etc. Instead, we learned by doing, and that type of learning is the best kind. {Did you find this post helpful? It came straight out of my book, The Goat's Guide: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing for the California Bar Exam on Your Own}
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