Some Thoughts on Passing the California Bar Exam

Now that I have passed the California bar exam on my first try (which, by the way, is not statistically significant because three-quarters of first-time takers passed), I thought I’d share some thoughts on the process for future supplicants to the Office of Admissions for the State Bar of California.

First, the one thing that is most immediately bearing on my mind is the surprising fact that it was much easier to sleep the night before the results came out than the night after. Other people might have a different experience, but Mary and I were both unable to sleep for most of last night. There was just too much running through our heads. While you are waiting for the result, the best approach, in my opinion, is the stoic one: there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome, so there is no point in worrying; put it out of your head. But once the result comes, and it is positive, you have passed a huge milestone that will undoubtedly irrevocably alter the rest of your life. There is a lot to think about. It’s a lot like trying to sleep through the night before Christmas when you are a kid.

Second, regarding how to pass the bar exam, there are really only three things you have to do: work hard, learn the law, and practice. Ignore anybody who tells you different, or tries to give you some kind of snake-oil formula that does not primarily involve hard work and long hours of intensive study.

Likewise, be wary of the advice of the people who say things like, “The bar examiners just want to see if you think like a lawyer; it doesn’t matter if you know the law.” In some very important ways, that is good advice, but it can be perilously misleading. The only way to learn how to think like a lawyer is to learn the law. You need to get deep inside the mechanics of how the law works before you can truly think like a lawyer. So craft your outlines, make your flash cards, or both, and get ready to memorize a whole bunch of information.

Probably the most important part of the bar review process is getting a broad knowledge of the law into your head. This will almost force you to see patterns, recognize relationships between different areas of the law, and begin to synthesize those deep, underlying theories that cause you, almost unconsciously, to think like a lawyer. You will need that ability on the bar exam because they will give you essay questions with issues that seem completely foreign and you will need to reach into those deep patterns and find something that has both analytical integrity and reasonable applicability to the situation at hand.

If you are thoroughly prepared, because you have been working hard, studying, and practicing for the ten weeks or so before the exam, you should find that the experience of actually taking the exam can be a relatively relaxing event, because it is so cathartic. You have brought yourself to this peak of knowledge and mental agility with the law and you will find yourself in the weeks leading up to the exam wanting nothing more than to give the people around you a short dissertation on just about every legally significant event that you witness. You will find yourself standing in line at Starbucks one morning on your way to the bar review course and thinking about when, exactly, title to the coffee passes from them to you, or whether the menu on the wall is an offer to form a contract, or whether your order is an offer to form a contract. Everywhere you go, it will be law, law, law. So when you finally get to the bar exam, and you get to put all that down on paper (or, more likely, into your SofTest word processor), it will be an enormous relief. Suddenly that crazy urge to lecture everybody on the law will evaporate, like it never existed at all.

So when you take the exam, stop studying. There is nothing you are going to learn the night before the exam, or on either of the two nights in the middle of the exam, if you failed to learn it during the weeks before the exam. Once you get to your hotel, the time to prepare is over. So just stop studying.

And stay at a nice hotel. The State Bar will give you a list of hotels where you can get a bar exam discount, and there will be good places on that list. Eat good food, go for walks in the evenings, and enjoy yourself. Mary and I stayed at the San Mateo Marriott and ate most of our meals in the hotel restaurant. We still talk about how good that food was. It was pretty expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, the bar exam is an enormously important task, and you do not want to screw it up by increasing your stress level with uncomfortable or less-than-enjoyable surroundings. If you expect to be cash-poor by the end of bar review, like I was, then keep a few hundred dollars worth of credit open on a credit card to pay for your bar exam accommodations. When you pay the bill later, with those exorbitant finance charges, it will sting a little, but you will be glad you did it.

So, to sum up, here is how to pass the bar exam. Work hard, learn the law, and practice before the exam. Relax, enjoy yourself, and pamper yourself during the exam. Try not to think about the results after the exam. When the results come, you will feel relieved, elated, excited, and terrified all at once. Good luck sleeping.