Studying for the Bar...

Nah. The bar was a while ago. But I'm working on the ASVAB now, so can we get together some kind of group that will watch parts of movies about the military and assess the technical and decision-making skills on display there?

You taking a review course or lone-wolfing it?

Which state? I'm curious.

I know a guy who just took the CA bar exam back in February awaiting the results.

You gotta take the review courses. Where else can you get volumes of useless review materials that you'll never use again? As an added bonus, you'll be included in any one of the multitude of future class action suits against BAR/BRI. Good times.

Good luck. The California Bar was a nightmare to prepare for.

I did Barbri, but not PMBR (had a scheduling conflict) and I passed pretty easily. Doing the timed practice tests helped a lot. I probably spent 2 hours a day studying outside of class, boosting that to 4 to 6 hours a day in the two weeks leading up to the bar. Taking the bar was one of the worst experiences of my academic/professional life. I got a pretty bad migraine midway through the second day. The only thing that kept me from walking out on the test was knowing it would just mean I would have to wait six months and then go through that exact same hell again. Good luck!

I took the Pennsylvania bar in 1996. In February of that year they started grading the essay portion, which was a low blow because the pool of test-takers were all failures from the July '95 test, or multiple offenders. The pass rate was less than 40%, and I remember Bar-Bri trying to talk us all down from the ledge that the essays weren't really that hard, without offending those in the room who had contributed to the lousy numbers.

Good luck. If it's any consolation, I was sure right up until the day or two before the test that I was going to fail (but that I would be sure to pass on the second go-round) and I ended up doing really well. And I was still clerking until 4th of July.

Take Barbri (I did, it was very helpful), make the movie game into a drinking game, and save it for after you've taken the bar. You'll thank me later.

As any of the Chewer Jurists can attest, the key with the bar exam is to not let it fuck with you. Go to the class, (which at the very least forcesyou to pay attention for a few hours) put a few hours in afterwards each day, rinse and repeat. You'll do fine.

Also remember these pitfalls:

The BarBri schedule is a CYA. I've never met anyone, including my old roommate who massively overstudied, who did EVERYTHING on the BarBri daily schedule. Its overkill and just makes you think that you aren't doing enough.

Your early practice exams could possibly suck. If you do the practice written tests and multiple choice quizes, you might not do as well as you think you should. Don't worry, it'll come to you.

But remember there are alot of morons who had no business going to law school in the first place out there. Most likely there are a few in your BarBri class. These are the people who make up the majority of the people who fail. They never had a shot.

The rest of the people who fail are like my former sublettor who was smart and very good at standardized test, but decided to not go to the classes (she asked for my notes the first four weeks) and spent most afternoons and nights getting hammered.

Like a said above, just put the time in and the rest is cream cheese.