I still fondly remember the judge for whom I interned as a 3L.  Knowing that bar prep was coming up and sensing my anxiety, he asked me about my plan.  I told him that the bar prep company each day would provide lectures, outlines to read, some more outlines to read, and then finish things off with some outlines to read.  When I told him that the program started just after Memorial Day and ended the day before the exam, he was astonished.  His advice was to save myself all that money, take three weeks off from work, and study from July 4^th until the exam.  He said that would be plenty.

Of all the advice my judge gave me, this was the one bit I did not take.  His guidance was well-intentioned, and I appreciated his attempts to calm me down.  But as the Type-A person that I am, I could not rest without feverishly checking off each scheduled study item.  His was advice I could not take.    

Twenty-something years later, students still receive that advice.  They insist:  “The partner at my firm said that she took just two weeks off for the exam and did just fine.”  The partner professed:  “You’re a smart kid.  You don’t need to do all that work.  Just watch the videos, read the outlines, and you’ll pass.”  Happy to internalize this message so as to mentally corroborate the partner’s flattering assessment, students’ confirmation biases drive them to adopt suboptimal learning behaviors. 

And then they fail the bar exam.

The practicing lawyers who give this advice sometimes believe that the bar exam world is a static place devoid of change.  However, recent substantial reforms severely limit the applicability of their experiences.  Below the fold, I describe those changes and how they require more careful advising.