For those of you taking the Bar/bri course or if you just ordered the Bar/bri books for your bar exam prep, you will find two sets of outlines. One set is the Conviser Mini-review book, containing all the rules you’ll ever need come bar exam day. The second set are two books, which contain more extended versions of each rule.
Do yourself a favor. Take the two larger books, and hide them or give them away so you never see them again. Not only will you save on space, but you’ll also save on time.
In the beginning of my bar prep, I decided I would be extra prepared by reading these extended outlines in the bigger books. I soon realized that not only was I having a hard time remembering the rules, I found myself running out of time to do all my other assignments, such as multiple choice and essay questions.
Later, I realized how useless it is to merely read the rules anyway, whether it was Conviser or not. It’s more effective to learn and memorize the rules in a situation where I was applying what I was reading to a specific exam fact pattern or actually making an attempt to memorize the rules I didn’t know, as opposed to just reading through them.
After receiving recommendations from the Bar/bri people themselves that I didn’t need the larger books, I stopped reading them and have never looked at them since. The rules provided for in the Conviser are more than enough detail of what you’ll need. Besides, it’s the way you use the rules and your analysis, not your rule statements that will win the day for you.
Best of luck with your bar exam prep.
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Article by Dustin Saiidi
Dustin has written 134 awesome articles.
Dustin Saiidi, author of The 7 Steps to Bar Exam Success, graduated in the bottom half of his class, but passed the bar exam on his 1st attempt. He shares how he overcame those challenges and gives tips, advice, and strategies so you can pass your bar exam, stress-free.
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Even the Conviser is overwhelming. I would go one further and say it’s best to rely on the class lecture notes. Condensing the notes (with Conviser only as a reference) is quite possibly a waste of time, but when I got my hands on some well written condensed lecture outlines (15-20 pages each) it helped me focus on practicing more questions and learning more law. The lecture notes don’t have everything, but you can add things in as you go along with the essays or practice questions.
Internalizing the law is important and so are outlines. My scores didn’t budge for years because I focused almost exclusively on practice and not on retention.
That’s interesting. I ended up not spending a whole lot of time on class notes. I would go to lecture and write the notes down just to get a ‘first read’ into my head, but after that I didn’t spend too much time. But hey, if it works for you, that’s what is most important!
Where did you get the condensed lecture outlines?
Hi Dave,
I spoke with Legis. The outlines can be found here: http://frustratedbarexaminee.wordpress.com/materials/
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