Bar Exam Success: A Comprehensive Guide
Description
Reduce Distractions, Increase Focus, and Manage and Protect Your Time
Employ Powerfully Effective Learning Strategies
Develop and Stick to Your Schedule
Practice and Hone Skills for Success on MBEs, Essays, and MPTs
Cope with Stress and Pressure, and Help Your Friends and Family to Help You Succeed
Enhance your Positive Growth Mindset, Personal Wellness, and Sense of Belonging
Transition with Confidence from Law Student to Professional
This book is written from the perspective of a bar mentor, your "trainer at the academic gym," with concrete advice on how to handle the many challenges facing today's law students. There are dozens of self-assessments, tools to help you face very real challenges on every level, and to organize and prepare to pass the bar exam. The book includes trustworthy advice and powerful personal examples from the author's decades of helping students pass bar exams nationwide. The book is uplifting and positive, while harnessing cutting-edge, scientific learning theories.
The time spent studying for the bar exam that so many people dread and think of as a hazing ritual can be an empowering stage, if you approach it with the right attitude, get yourself equipped for success, and then work really hard. The author calls legal education "a power tool for social change." Passing the bar and becoming licensed will allow you to wield that tool and find opportunities throughout your professional life to do well and to do good.
Whether you are first in your law school class or last, this book will help you achieve your goals and set you on a lifelong cycle of success.
Reviews / Votes
Professor Berman has written an illuminating and helpful book, drawing on cutting-edge social science, that teaches students how to master the bar exam and flourish in law school. Her insights are shaped by years of experience and advances in psychological and learning sciences. If law students read this excellent book, perhaps as early as when arriving to law school, they will develop skills they can exercise and master to achieve success." - Victor D. Quintanilla, Indiana University Bicentennial Professor; Professor, Indiana University Maurer School of Law; Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences"From helpful study tips to suggestions for minimizing distractions, this book is an excellent resource to guide students through the challenges of bar study. Professor Berman is a seasoned professional, who condenses years of experience into easy to read and follow advice, perfect for anyone serious about passing the bar exam." - Paula Manning, Professor Western State College of Law
"Wanting to shape your destiny, this book is a must-read coaching manual with action plans to boot. Professor Berman takes the mystery out of bar prep, providing hosts of inspirational tips, courageous learning strategies, and concrete wisdom for overcoming the oft-expressed intimidation that so easily immobilizes many from achieving bar exam success--success that is well within the grasp of all law school graduates aspiring to serve as professional attorneys--none be barred. This book is not meant to be read but lived. Navigate your path through this book and you will be well on your way to passing your bar exam." - Scott Johns, Professor of the Practice of Law and Director of the DU Bar Success Program, Denver University Sturm College of Law
"This is a must-read book for law students and law professors. It provides practical suggestions so that students can be successful in law school, law practice, and the bar exam. It is fun to read and can be used by students on their own or in a class. The self-assessment tools are particularly valuable. As a law professor, I look forward to using this valuable resource with my students." - Jane Bloom Grise, Director of Academic Enhancement and Assistant Professor of Legal Writing, University of Kentucky College of Law
"This book is a fantastic resource. It offers an approach, starting in 1L, that can help varied types of students develop critical skills needed for success on the bar exam with a mix of skill-building and metacognitive strategies that also help students succeed in law school. I am excited to incorporate these strategies in my 1L and 2L classes." - Nicole R. Lefton, Assistant Professor of Academic Support and Bar Preparation, Director of Academic Support and Bar Preparation, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
"I love the book and use it as a personal reference to coach my students, especially those who are first generation. It captures high expectations for success and normalizes the sense of inadequacy that they all feel and fear. It helps them to acknowledge it and push past it in both substance and tone. The underlying expectation is that the reader will pass the bar exam. When they read it, it keeps them tethered to their goals and their practical strategies amidst the panic, because it builds in intentional recursiveness." - Kimberly Williams D'Haene, Director of Law Academic Success, Georgia State University College of Law
"If I could give only one resource to someone who wants to increase the likelihood of passing the bar exam, it would be this book. Author Sara Berman tells the truth about the challenge of bar preparation while showing the taker how-through preparation, planning, and practice-success is achievable. Rather than scaring them, the book encourages bar takers. That, itself, is why I will refer all my students to it." - Benjamin V. Madison III, Professor and Director of the Bar Passage Initiatives, Regent University School of Law
"This book is like having a personal trainer help you prepare for the bar exam. It is a doubt-busting, confidence-boosting, interactive tour guide on the road to success. Sara Berman gives practical advice on motivation, time management, financial planning, and more. This book both explains and motivates-students will be wise to take Berman's advice, encouragement, and support." - Catherine (Cassie) Christopher, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Bar Success, Texas Tech University School of Law
"Along with the excellent strategies on studying and test taking, Professor Berman illuminates the unspoken barrier to success, namely the student's mindset. This guide aptly describes the various barriers encountered by students and suggests interventions to maintain a positive and healthy outlook for success." - Rodney Fong, Associate Dean for Academic Achievement, Institutional Assessment & Bar Preparation, and Clinical Professor of Law, The University of Illinois at Chicago John Marshall Law School
More details
Person
addition to writing, Sara J. Berman currently serves as the Director of
Programs for Academic and Bar Success at the AccessLex Institute Center for
Legal Education Excellence in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining AccessLex,
Berman served as a professor of law and director of academic and bar success
programs in law schools in California and Florida, and lectured in bar reviews
for more than two decades, helping thousands of students pass bar exams
nationwide. Berman gained expertise in distance learning in legal education
through 15 years on the faculty at a fully online law school. She has published
two books and numerous articles on the bar exam and learning for law
students, and coauthored primers on the civil and criminal justice systems,
written initially for self-represented litigants and extensively used by law
students preparing to become tomorrow's lawyers.
Content
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................................................................vii
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................................... ix
PART I: FIRST-TIME BAR PASSAGE: ONE AND DONE.............................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION TO PART I .......................................................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Set Your Goal and Commit to Success.
CHAPTER 2................................................................................................................................................................................29
Develop a Plan for Success: Your GPS to Bar Passage
CHAPTER 3 ...............................................................................................................................................................................61
The Transition from Student to Professional
CHAPTER 4................................................................................................................................................................................81
Get Ready for Success: Reduce Distractions, Increase Your Focus, and Manage Your Time
CHAPTER 5 .............................................................................................................................................................................107
Get and Use Quality Expert Help: Reliable Bar Review Courses, Academic Support Faculty, and Trusted Mentors
CHAPTER 6 .............................................................................................................................................................................129
Enlist Your Troops and Lose the Naysayers: It Takes a Village of Positive People
CHAPTER 7 .............................................................................................................................................................................153
Write and Post Your Schedule, Then Adapt It to Maximize Productivity
CHAPTER 8 .............................................................................................................................................................................183
Practice Tests: The Heavy Lifting
CHAPTER 9 .............................................................................................................................................................................261
The Home Stretch: Eliminate Distractions and Embrace Success
CHAPTER 10 ...........................................................................................................................................................................285
Celebrate Your Achievement and Acknowledge and Thank Those Who Helped You (Then Set Your Next Goal!)
PART II: REPEATING THE BAR EXAM: THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME ..............................................................................295
INTRODUCTION TO PART II ...................................................................................................................................................297
CHAPTER 11 ...........................................................................................................................................................................299
Why Didn't I Pass the Bar Exam?
CHAPTER 12 ...........................................................................................................................................................................311
I Feel Like I Was Kicked in the Teeth
CHAPTER 13 ............................................................................................................................................................................321
Rethink ¿Failure¿ and Use Your Previous Experience as Preparation for Success
CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................................................................325
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................................................................327
ENDNOTES ..............................................................................................................................................................................331
INDEX .......................................................................................................................................................................................339
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ..............................................................................................................................................................349