Advice: Before Barbri

So. This is the first of my advice posts to you, if you are taking the July 2008 CA bar exam. This will be useful if you're exactly like me. Otherwise, not so much.

The exam.

First, one thing I would do is to find out as much about the exam itself as possible. I recommend Travis Wise's site for this.

Very briefly, the exam will be toward the end of July. It'll be three consecutive days, with the first and third days involving writing, and the second a bunch of multiple choice questions (MBEs). The MBE multiple choice questions are not California-specific and are administered nationally. They cover, in equally portions, Conlaw, Contracts, Crim law and procedure, Property, Torts, and Evidence. You will do 200 of these on day two. On each of the first and third days, you will do three essays questions, and a performance test. The essays can cover any of the 14 CA subjects, sometimes two subjects at once. For the performance test, you don't need to know any law. Instead you will learn the law in a file given to you, and then draft some work products.

You should also know the scoring system. Talk to people who've gone through the process. Know what to expect from Barbri. Become an expert on the process itself.

Take bar-related classes.

It's your last year of law school and I'm sure there are interesting classes you want to take. After all you'll never be in this setting again and I don't blame you. But do give some thought to taking classes solely with an eye towards the bar exam. I did this for Wills & Estates and felt good about it. It's really hard to learn in Barbri. When the summer begins, it will be full-days after full-days straight lecture. And when I say "straight lecture," I mean some guy (or gal) reading a 50-page outline verbatim, slowing down enough only to allow you to fill in the blanks on the lecture notes. There is no time to think. So, if you're a naturally curious person who likes to think about stuff as you learn new things, do that before Barbri, or get over it.

Prepping early.

I started prepping at about this time last year. Probably overkill. Frankly I didn't think it helped that much. However, I do think it helped me feel calm and in-control. If you're the sort of person who gets psychological benefits from starting early, go for it.

One very popular thing to do is to get the PMBR materials. PMBR (I never knew what the letters stood for) is probably the most popular bar prep course after Barbri. It only preps you for the MBE portion of the exam. People disagree on the value of their live courses, but their material is excellent. Get their audio lecture CD's and their blue and red practice exam books. A good time to get all this is now, b/c there is a flood of this material being sold on the internet by people who have just passed. Listen to the CD's when you can, and start doing some practice questions in the blue and red books. Don't worry if you don't feel like you know the law. Just do it. When you miss questions, write them down somewhere, either in an outline or on flash cards. Don't time yourself.

As for the non-MBE subjects, I got an Examples and Explanations for CA Community Property. I didn't really think that book was very useful. I got more out of my schools' Wills & Estates class, which covered a little CP for our state. So now you know I come from a CP state. I also got Jeff Adachi's Bar Breakers books, although I never actually used them. Finally, you should know that the the non-MBE subjects are much less important than the MBE subjects. So don't worry about trying to learn the non-MBE subjects perfectly.

Logistics.

Although there is no need to start studying, I do, however, recommend that you start planning. During the winter break, you should start an application on the California State Bar's website, and download the moral character app. You'll need to round up your past bosses to fill out questionaires for you. Most people submit their moral character apps in Februrary or March. If you're going to do Barbri, and most of you are, go ahead and sign up for it. Signing up early makes it cheaper, I think.

If you are from out of state like me, consider whether you want to live in CA and do Barbri live, or stay in your own state and do video. There is also an ipod option, which I don't know anything about. I chose to do Barbri in SF, but I sort of regret it. First, living in SF is almost certainly going to be more expensive than where you are now. I thought I was going to enjoy SF a bit during the summer, but realistically there is just not that much time to do anything. Of course, there may be some value to listening to live lectures and avoiding that flight to CA right before the exam. If you are going to be car-less like me, I recommend taking Barbri at St. Mary's Cathedral and staying at the Fillmore Center in SF. The neighborhood is very walkable, there is a lot of good Asian restaurants, and you live right next to a Safeway.

One thing that went wrong for me was the movers. I didn't blog much about it but I was pretty upset. I didn't receive my furniture until mid-June. For about three weeks the only things in my apartment were a suitcase, an air mattress, and Barbri books. They even ended up charging me $500 extra (which the firm paid). Later I found out many, many online movers are basically criminals. There are websites devoted to exposing the scammers and you should do some research.

MPRE.

If you haven't taken the MPRE by now, you should get it out of the way next spring. I believe you can take it after the bar exam, but why? When you prep for the MPRE, don't blow it off. It's easy to pass the MPRE, but PR will also be on the bar. But not the judical code. Attend the Barbri lecture. Do the practice exams. Try to get things straight when you prepare, so that not only can you recognize the right answer, but explain the rules in your own words; you will almost certainly have to write essays on PR. So learn it.

PMBR.

I didn't take the PMBR live course, even though my firm would have paid for it. They offer a 6-day class before Barbri begins, and a 3-day class (basically a simulated MBE exam and review) after Barbri ends. Since I began my MBE prepping early on and had all their materials, I didn't feel like I need to waste time sitting through the live course. Also, some people complain that PMBR's simulated exam is way too difficult. My feeling is that taking a test that much more difficult than the real thing may throw off your instincts. You may start to overthink things on the real exam. Actually the concensus this past summer was that the MBEs were super-tough, so maybe the PMBR simulated exam was not so far off the mark. Anyhow, different people have different opinions on this, but you have my two cents.

Test site and handwriting.

At some point before you graduate, if you've applied on the CA State Bar website like I'd advised, you'll be asked to pick a test site and decide whether you want to type or handwrite. I handwrote. The conventional wisdom is to do what you did in law school. The passage rate for writers and typists are about the same, so you're not disadvantaged either way. I read somewhere that illegible handwriting actually works in your favor, if you have good headings. You will hear a lot of theories about how to game the essays during the summer. Handwriting is nice b/c (1) it is cheaper and (2) you avoid having to deal with any problems with your laptop, Examsoft, etc. As for test sites, I've heard good things about Sacramento. Someone told me San Mateo is next to a highway and loud. I took it in Oakland at the Oakland Marriott / Convention Center. It was great. My firm paid for it all so I stayed at the Marriot all three days. But if you're paying yourself, pay a visit to that area. There are cheaper hotels right next to the Marriott, so you can save some money.

Tie up loose ends; have some fun.

Don't leave major tasks that you can't do in one day into the summer. Finish that paper. Finish painting the house. If you can help it, stop working / job hunting for a while. Anything that competes for your time with Barbri will cause you stress.

Also, try to enjoy your last semester of law school. If you take Barbri seriously, you will have very littel fun until the end of July. But also, don't party hard right up to the start of Barbri. It will be a shock to your system when Barbri gets going. This is perhaps a good reason to take the PMBR 6-day, or move away from your law school town right after graduation.

So that's it. Basically, when late May rolls around, you should have a place to live, have an idea of what the bar exam is all about, preferably have done a bit of prepping (or taken the PMBR 6-day), feel relaxed, and be ready to devote full attention to the Barbri program.

To be continued...