My Thoughts on "5 Reasons Why Law Students Fail the Bar Exam"

The Student Lawyer Blog recently published an article titled, "5 Reasons Why Law Students Fail the Bar Exam." There's a lot of good advice in this article. But let me add some additional thoughts to each of the reasons identified.

Reason #1: My experience is that examinees spend more time studying the MBE than any other section on the bar exam. This is not surprising since the MBE makes up one-half of the exam in nearly every jurisdiction. However, the MPT is worth a solid 20% of the overall score on the Uniform Bar Exam. This is a significant amount of points for a section of the exam that’s completely in the examinees’ hands. Examinees don’t need to know any law for the MPT—all of the law is given to them in the Library. Rather, examinees need to know how to synthesize and analyze the vast amount of information to craft a lawyer-like work-product in a relatively short amount of time. This requires consistent practice by working on those skills over a period of time.

Reason #2: I agree that examinees studying for the bar exam do not spend enough time focusing on the highly tested topics on the MBE. But, worse, I sometimes find that examinees spend an disproportionate amount of time studying concepts that might rarely appear on the bar exam. For example, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, based on its released MBE Subject Matter Outline, has indicated that negligence questions will make up 50% of the Torts multiple-choice questions on the MBE. This means that anywhere from 12 to 13 questions might be negligence-based questions. However, some examinees will spend the same amount of time during their summer studies focusing on negligence as they do reviewing the Rule Against Perpetuities, which might appear on one or two questions on the MBE. After all, RAP is identified in one of four subtopics within a Real Property category (“I. Ownership of real property”) that has been identified as a category that will appear in only one-fifth of the 25 Real Property questions. In other words, When study time is limited, the rate of return of studying RAP is not very great here. Pay attention to the Subject Matter outlines released by the NCBE.

Reason #3: While it is important to focus on the highly tested subjects on the MEE section, it’s just as important—if not more important—to focus on the frequently tested topics within each subject. For example, while it’s important to know that Civil Procedure is the most frequently tested MEE subject, it’s just as important to know that when Civil Procedure is tested, concepts like jurisdiction (subject matter, personal, and supplemental) and joinder are often tested. As another example, it’s important to know that if you’re confronted with a Torts essay question, you’ll likely see a test question that contains a negligence issue.

Reason #4: I see too many examinees go through their bar review courses mindlessly completing assignments and checking off boxes on their “to do” list rather than taking the time after each assignment or task to digest the information and material they just reviewed, whether it be keeping a log of missed questions, misunderstood concepts, or areas of improvement. This kind of active review and focus is important to understanding and retention.

Reason #5: Time management is important, and one can only work on time management by actually working through test questions under timed, test-like conditions. Often, when I work with unsuccessful examinees, I ask them how many essays and MPTs they completed during their studies leading up to the bar exam. Inevitably, they say none, maybe one or two. It’s so important for examinees preparing for the bar exam to be able to have that experience of completing essays and MPTs as they will experience them on the actual bar exam. This can only be done with a significant amount of practice.