Study Guides for Law Student Success

This edition also provides guidelines for selecting a bar review course, bar planner checklists, advice on how to manage the material you cover in bar review courses, and advice on how to learn the law so you can remember it and use it to answer exam questions. It identifies the basic skills that the bar exam tests and the precise manner in which they are tested, showing you how to target your study efforts to maximize results. Importantly, it includes structured study schedules so you can plan your time by the day, the hour, and the task for each week throughout the bar prep period. An Appendix provides sample MPT and MEE materials including guidance in outlining whether writing or typing your answer.

The 4th Edition includes the following:

A description of the bar exam landscape since COVID, including an introduction to the “NextGen” Bar Exam.
Integration of technology into the bar exam such as taking the MPRE online at Pearson VUE testing centers and using ExamSoft to write the written portion of your bar exam.
Using your laptop most effectively for the written portions of the bar exam.
A “sequence and study” method for MEEs/essays.
Outlining steps for answering the MEEs/essays and MPTs/Performance Tests to save time and maximize points.

Couched in neuroscience and Zen principles of focus, discipline, awareness, balance, and simplicity, the book provides guidance for the best daily practices for uplifting your mind, body, and spirit during the rigors of studying. A central theme is harnessing a Zen mindset to stay motivated and mentally sharp.

In addition to lifestyle and mindset, the book also offers specific, practical advice for maximizing scores on the essay, MBE, and MPT portions of the bar exam. The book outlines specific organizational/formatting tips for how to write effective (and efficient) essays under bar exam time constraints. The book is ideal for adoption for any law school bar preparation course (or Academic Support Program), providing many exercises, examples, and model answers applicable to any state's bar exam.

The professors answer students’ most frequently asked office hour questions. With clear and easy-to-understand explanations, these professors will help you reach that “lightbulb” moment of comprehension, just as they have with their own students in their own offices. You now have virtual faculty explanations available at the click of a button! The Office Hours series features a variety of notable law faculty explaining these tough topics in new and thoughtful ways.

It then shows you how to develop a set of standard strategies, create a process for approaching any MPT, and accurately assess your performance.

A Short & Happy Guide to the MPT not only identifies what skills are tested, but how they are tested, and how you can demonstrate mastery of those skills. By learning the formula, developing an efficient and effective approach that comports with performance expectations, you will be prepared to score high on any MPT and no problem will take you by surprise.

Practice multiple-choice questions can serve two purposes. The more common is that they allow you to have some sense of how you are doing—an assessment function. The less common but far more useful function is that they provide a structured study method for review of material. Few students use them that way, but those who do reap great rewards.

This small volume will show you how to use practice multiple-choice questions to greatest advantage. That involves changing the way you approach those questions. Conquering the MBE gives you a step-by-step process for attacking every multiple-choice question in every MBE subject, with lots of examples. You will discover that most questions offer review of four concepts rather than just one, and they do so on concrete contexts, not in the abstract. You will also discover that when you do this step-by-step review, one answer, and only one answer, is correct.

The authors have tutored hundreds of law students in using the method presented. It works.

It is a one-source resource for what you need to maximize your performance on the MEE—not a generic essay writing guide, but a treasury of information, issue identification, and subject area frameworks tailored specifically for the MEE. This book is not intended to replace a bar review course for the substantive law you need to know to pass the bar exam. However, a bar review course does not show you how to turn the law into point-worthy essays. We do.

We teach you everything that you need to know about preparing for and taking the MEE to achieve the highest possible essay scores, beginning with how to use the individual Subject Charts (organized by MEE subject) and Table of Issues (organized by bar administration). These charts identify every issue and sub-issue tested on the MEE over the past 14 years, thus letting you see the frequency of tested topics and gain familiarity with how they are tested. When combined with our unique strategies for writing under timed conditions, developing a well-organized answer, and writing a solid analysis, you are ready to write your way to bar passage.

Every aspect of the process is explained in detail and by example. The bar exam is de-constructed, section by section, where candidates are led through the steps they need to follow to succeed. Approaches for learning the black letter law, setting study schedules, and answering essay and multiple-choice questions are combined to maximize the likelihood of success. Each of these tasks is then configured into checklist format to help candidates navigate each step. This approach puts the candidate in control of the bar exam and not the other way around.