10 days

The bar exam is officially 10 days away. Of course there are always the same conflicting feelings. I'm glad that it's only 10 days away. That means that I get to start having fun in 13 days. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure that I'm 10 days away from knowing everything I should know (or even 67.5% of what I should know). The 67.5 isn't arbitrary. It's what I need to get right on the bar to pass. I have been counting down the days till I get to go back to school and see Taz and my friends. I've also been having fantasies of staying up there for a whole month, mooching off friends (for places to sleep) and generally being unproductive except for a steady, unmotivated job search. Did I mention that I don't really want a job?

So I think medical school is officially not an option. I've gotten more rejection letters than I care to admit and no interviews. I'm not really sure why, but I really can't be too upset. I mean I do have a law degree and medical school would mean I'd be in school for at least another 7 years. Who needs that? So now I'm down to grad school or job. I'd say my chances at grad school are about 50/50 and so the job search is going to have to happen whether I'm ready for it or not. The real world sucks, man!

I wish I could say that I've been regularly studying for the bar and that I'm saturating my life with Texas legal knowledge, but that would be a lie. Instead I have gallivanted off to Oregon to see my brother, gone wedding dress shopping with and for a friend, read a couple mediocre books, and socialized a bit too much. Don't get me wrong. I have been studying, just not as much as I probably should. I have gone to every single BarBri class (Oil and Gas and Consumer Rights twice cause they were over my head), every single PMBR class, and been studying with a partner about 1/2 the days. But I'm still way far behind.

Here are some bar exam study tips I'd suggest. First, take every single law school class that is tested on your state's bar exam. Learning this stuff in 6 weeks is just not fun. I am having to learn the following subject matters without prior course work for my exam:

Tax
Community Property
Secured Transactions
Bankruptcy
Consumer Rights
Family Law (I took one in school, but not the right one)
Oil and Gas

This is all on top of all the Texas nuances I have to learn. A friend taking the bar exam in Illinois said to me that all of the BarBri lecturers there continuously make fun of Texas and their need to have unique laws to make themselves stand out. To that I say FOOEY!!!

When you are done taking all the classes you need, make sure you take PMBR. The class is awesome. If not for the lectures (which aren't bad but aren't great), for the sample questions they have. They basically go into the exam, take the multistate, and spend a significant portion of the exam time (1/3) memorizing questions so that they can provide you with questions. Not to mention that 35% of the questions on the mulitstate are repeats. That means if you get lucky, and PMBR is on top of their game (which they seem to be), you could have 20% or more of the multistate questions in your possession before you even take the exam. That's some pretty cool shit! They have been sued 2 or 3 times by the bar examiners for copyright infringement which means that their questions have got to be pretty darn close to the real thing.

The last thing that I think is really important is scoping out the exam site. Drive there, time how long it takes to get there, get a hotel room nearby if necessary, figure out where you are going to get lunch, park, and generally scope it out so that you can visualize how things are going to go at exam time. I think that my trip to the exam site has considerably reduced my stress level.

Other than those three suggestions, just make sure you study lots and don't go insane. Although, you should keep in mind that I have not yet taken or passed the exam, so this advice is fairly worthless - at least for the time being.

Now I should really go to sleep. I've wasted enough study time blogging.