In just a few weeks, over nine thousand applicants will take the July 2019 California Bar Exam. As evidenced by years past, perhaps only 50 percent of those applicants will pass the exam. After two to three months of intense studying this expected pass rate is quite bleak. In the final two weeks before the California Bar Exam or California Attorney’s exam it is crucial to focus on differentiating your overall responses. While the MBE portion of the exam retains a non-differentiated status, a bit of creativity and overall sophistication can separate a passing essay from a failing one. As premiere providers of California bar exam prep for attorneys here are the challenges we’ve seen.
Presumably you have studied the law and memorized each and every legal element to the extent that you are able. By this point in the process most bar exam applicants have fallen short on practice. While we all know “practice makes perfect” we tend to cast aside our practice in favor of rote memorization. California bar examiners like to see certain words grouped together. The experts at Executive Bar Review carefully work with applicants to craft responses that have a natural ebb and flow. Conveying “reader friendly” responses is key. Over the next two weeks we encourage all prospective applicants to seek the advice of an expert on how to present passing responses incorporating all the knowledge you have gathered thus far. By way of a simple example; if presented with a 6thamendment issue, most applicants might create a heading that simply states 6thAmendment. A better response would have a heading that reads: The 6thAmendment Right to Counsel. A far better response might read – The 6thAmendment Right to Counsel is applicable at all critical stages of the Proceeding. While all three headings are technically correct, only the third more specific one will yield a passing score.
Spend your remaining two weeks before the California Bar Exam working on the paragraphs and groups of words that will differentiate your response. If you are unsure what those words might be, get some last-minute expert assistance. Doing so can be the difference between a successful result and having to repeat the exam. From all of us at Executive Bar Review we wish you the best of luck on the July 2019 California Bar Exam.
