The best ways to pass the bar exam

Wondering how you can ensure higher grades on a law school essay exam?

The key is to go into the exam with a solid roadmap, which means mapping out every possibility and writing down model answers for each possible question.

I’ve mentioned this approach before, but today I will demonstrate how to do it.

Shout out to Amier for the suggestion.

Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.

The Roadmap Approach: Mapping Out Every Possibility

Overview

Whether you have a closed or open book exam, you need to have a detailed roadmap.

What I’ve noticed with my students, is that they only prepare a rule outline, which should

be the starting point in your preparation, not the final product.

A roadmap, diagram, battleplan, whatever you want to call it, will guide your every step

during the exam process.

This type of detailed roadmap is even more necessary on timed exams, where you need to

spend most of your time on applying facts to law, not thinking about how to organize

the exam.

Follow this approach, and you will have effectively shifted organizatio n from exam day to exam

prep, giving you a competitive advantage over your classmates who didn’t prepare

a roadmap.

So with that, let's jump in.

Roadmap

So let me show you a roadmap for the beginning of a negligence exam.

Now the approach I use here, you can use for any exam: torts, contracts, property, bankruptcy, tax, you name it.

So, let's just jump in and you'll see what I did here, to help me understand how to write a negligence exam.

So the middle columns are the rule statements, and then I have various comments on either side to help me know

where that particular rule statement should go.

Let's just start reading the first paragraph.

The issue is whether X committed negligence against Y when X did this thing.

On exam day you'll figure out who X and Y are.

So on the exam it may be, the issue is whether Sally committed negligence against Tyrone when Sally did ...

when Sally ran her car into his car.

Negligence occurs when defendant owes plaintiff a duty, breaches that duty, is the actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff's harm.

Y will or will not prevail.

But do you see what I've done?

I've designed, what I think, is the ideal paragraph.

Versus what most of your colleagues will do.

They'll have a rule statement and they'll create this on the fly.

You save a lot of time by creating this in advance.

Let's keep going.

So the second paragraph, I have a little comment that it's the duty rule, and then it's the second paragraph.

Did X ow Y a duty of care?

Duty is a legally recognized relationship, where the defendant owes the foreseeable plaintiff a duty of care, measured by the appropriate standard of care.

Then, in little brackets, I need to apply facts to law here, and then a conclusion: X did or did not owe Y a duty of care.

So my first paragraph is done, my second paragraph is done.

I just have to add in X and Y, and a few relevant facts.

The next issue is determining the standard of care that applies in this case.

In negligence, absent an exception, the default rule is the reasonable prudent person standard.

So, so far so good.

These three opening paragraphs will be the same in every negligence exam.

Now, we start getting to some variations.

So I have standard of care, then I have the RPP.

And you'll see off to the right, where it says begin here, but if negligence per se, begin with that.

And we'll get to negligence per se momentarily so you can see how we incorporate negligence per se into a negligence exam.

And also the RPP standard.

So let's go on.

Oh, and so the way I've structured this, I sort of have the default model answer.

How I would run a normal negligence essay.

And then sort of the variations in different places.

And then seeing where and how to incorporate those variations into the exam.

So the reasonably prudent person will exercise ordinary care under the circumstances.

S will be held to this standard of care.

Physical

Now, you'll see this thing called options.

I will use this next option, that says RPP physical, when there is a physical disability at issue.

Physical qualities ... and by the way, just to give you an example, let's just use me and my blind eye,

so you can see how I would incorporate this into this essay.

Physical qualities are taken into account by a jury, which changes the standard of care to that of the reasonably prudent person

with the same disability under the circumstances.

Professor Baez is blind in his right eye, so Professor Baez will be held to the reasonably prudent person with blindness in their right eye.

So do you see how I did that?

But I will only use this paragraph here if that's something I'm being tested on.

If it's not being tested I ignore it.

It's an option.

Mental

Next, am I being tested on, somebody with a mental disability.

Mental conditions are irrelevant in determining liability and they do not change the reasonably prudent person standard.

Here, even though Mat has schizophrenia, that mental disability will not be considered and Mat will be held to the reasonably prudent person standard.

But again, I only use this if there's a mental disability at issue.

If not, I skip it.

Alternative

Then I move to alternatives to the RPP.

I've even thought about, how do I transition from the default standard to an alternative.

So I've written out a transition sentence.

Why would you do that on exam day, when you can think about it now, before the exam?

Write it all out, prepared, so on exam day you just copy and paste--it's done.

However, under these facts the default rule does not apply.

Instead, the court will apply the child standard.

Children are held to a different standard, where their conduct is compared to that of other children

with the same age, experience, and intelligence under the circumstances.

Then here I would add some facts.

I should have put here application.

Here we know that Johnny is eight years old, and so he will be held to the standard of care of the typical eight year old who lives in a city.

Whatever the facts tell you about Johnny.

Then we see another option.

What if you're being tested on a child engaged in an adult activity?

Then we have some stock language ready to go.

However, the child standard of care will not apply when the child engaged in an adult activity.

An adult activity includes things such as driving a car, flying a plane, operating construction equipment or anything else that normally only adults do.

And then any other options that might apply.

So let's say you're dealing with the land trespasser rules.

Well, then I would have a separate paragraph for trespassers.

Negligence

Then people who are legally on the land in common areas.

All those various rules you learned in torts.

So now let's move to negligence per se.

I just want to give you this as an example, because this is one where most students, if they thought about it before hand, would have done well on the final.

But they had not really planned out how to deal with negligence per se.

So here, I have a little notation to myself.

Begin the standard of care discussion here when you have a statute.

In this situation the court will determine whether a ... I don't know what it is yet.

Is it a statute, an ordinance, some other law, so I would plug that in there.

will be used for establishing the standard of care rather than the reasonably prudent person standard.

The court will consider three things before allowing the law to be used as the standard of care.

One, is the law appropriate in setting the standard of care.

Two, is the law of the type that was designed to protect against the type of harm that occurred?

And three, is the plaintiff within the class that the law was designed to protect?

If all three tests are met, then the judge will allow it to be used to establish the standard of care.

Under these facts the plaintiff will or will not get to use negligence per se.

Then I go through the three tests.

I'm not going to go through them here--you get the idea.

And then I would get to a transition.

And this is where most, many students, get confused.

Under the rules, if you understand negligence per se, it's discretionary.

The judge does not have to allow negligence per se to be used.

So we need to transition back to RPP.

Remember, we decided to talk about this first.

However, if the judge determines that negligence per se cannot be used, the plaintiff can proceed by using the reasonably prudent person standard.

Then my instructions tell me, go back and follow RPP.

So you see how I have structured this.

Standard rule statements and then instructions that lead me, on exam day, to the one direction or the other.

Conclusion

By the way, if you have an open book exam, this level of preparation makes your exam even easier as all you have to do is retype

the relevant portions of your answers right into the exam, then you spend most of your time using the facts to support your conclusions.

Another reason for creating this type of outline is to help you learn the law at a deeper level.

Most of your classmates will spend their time reading and rereading their outlines, which is absolutely the least effective study method.

It creates the illusion of learning, but almost no real learning.

When you take your rule statement, from your rule outline, and then prepare this new type of roadmap, your brain is making stronger connections to the law.

But more importantly, creating your own roadmap will expose gaps in your knowledge, allowing you to fill in those gaps before exam day.