255: Quick Tips -- Best Bar Exam Study Habits for Takers w/ ADHD

Alison also runs The Girl’s Guide to Law School. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review or rating on your favorite listening app, and check out our sister podcast, the Law School Toolbox podcast. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. You can reach us via the contact form on BarExamToolbox.com, and we’d love to hear from you. And with that, let’s get started. Welcome Back! Today we are going to talk about good bar exam study habits as an ADHD or ADD taker.

Even if you do not have ADD or ADHD these tips can be helpful if you are someone who has trouble focusing, staying on task, or with time management Before I begin, it is important to keep two things in mind. First, everyone with ADD and ADHD experiences them differently. I will be giving you great study tips to prepare for the bar exam throughout this episode, but that does not mean these tips will work perfectly for you.

Some might work better than others, and you may need to make adjustments to those that do work to make them perfect for you. It is important to stay in contact with your mental health professionals, doctors, and support system throughout bar prep, and find people who may be able to give you a more individualized plan, if needed.

Second, if you are planning on applying to receive accommodations during the bar exam, be sure to look into the rules for doing so provided by your jurisdiction as soon as possible. For more information on applying for accommodations, be sure to check out Episode 72 of the Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast! With that, let’s get started with some study tips! The first study tip is to create detailed study schedules.

Although your bar prep company will give you an agenda for each day, it may not be as detailed as you need it to be. As an example, your company might tell you to watch a lecture on negligence and complete two torts essays on Monday. If you are someone who has trouble staying focused when tasks are just floating around in your head, this will not be a thorough enough schedule for you. You would likely benefit from a more detailed and stricter schedule.

We can take that example schedule above, and turn it into something like this:

You can make study schedules not just for the day you are currently on, but for the next day as well. This helps you close the study day knowing exactly what the next day will bring. This way, when you wake up in the morning, you never have a moment where it is unclear what you need to be doing. Nothing ruins a productive workflow like having to stop and think about what you should do next. Planning out your days a day in advance can help you maximize your focus and productivity.

You might also benefit from incorporating more breaks into your schedule than someone without ADHD or ADD. If you struggle with staying focused and on task for longer periods of time, you should be working breaks into your daily schedule. You should incorporate as many as you need, as frequently as you need them, without giving yourself too many breaks that you fall behind in your prep. For example, you could try out the Pomodoro Method.

This is where you work for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break. This way you only have to be focused for 25 minutes in a row before you can rest and reset. For some people, 25 minutes might not be enough time to completely shift into focus mode, maybe 50 minutes on and 10 minutes off could be better. Experiment with different time blocks and do what works best for you. There is one thing to be cautious of, however, with the Pomodoro Method.

If you use the Pomodoro Method or something similar to learn the law, you do want to phase out this method a couple of weeks before the exam. Depending on your accommodations, you likely will not have the time to only stay hyper focused for 25 minutes and then take a five minute break repeatedly throughout the exam. So be sure to slowly build up your endurance as you work through bar prep.

The next study tip is to think about the study strategies you implemented in law school that helped you memorize and understand the law. Although studying for the bar exam is different from studying for law school, if certain techniques in law school helped you memorize and understand the law better, you should continue to implement those throughout your prep.

For example, maybe you found color coding really helpful in your outlines because it allowed you to stay focused and visually grasp the importance of different concepts. If that is the case, you should color code your bar prep outlines as well. Maybe instead of outlines you found that mind maps or flowcharts worked best for you. . If that is the case, you should continue to make flow charts or mind maps for each topic tested on the exam.

Our next study tip is to prioritize outlining and planning your essays and performance tests. This comes in two forms. First, take the time to outline an answer for every essay and performance test you see on the bar exam and in your prep. For the essays, after you read the fact pattern you should take 1-2 minutes to quickly sketch out your ideas and organize them in the order you plan on discussing them. This allows you to go into writing your answer with a game plan.

Without an outline, there is a good chance you will not discuss everything you planned on because you will forget smaller issues as you begin writing. You will also likely run out of time because you will spend too much time thinking through all of the ideas floating around your head. In addition, you will likely write a very unclear answer.

If you do not have an outline to work from that organizes your answer, you may be jumping around from issue to issue just trying to get everything on the page. Second, you can prioritize making attack outlines for each highly tested topic on the essay portion of the bar exam during your prep. As someone with ADD or ADHD, it might be difficult for you to spot an issue and know exactly what to write in the correct order off the top of your head.

You might benefit much more from planning out a step-by-step process for attacking these issues. For example, subject matter jurisdiction is the most highly tested civil procedure topic on the essay portion of the Uniform Bar Exam. Take some time with your notes, lectures or outlines, and create a subject matter jurisdiction attack outline, or attack plan. This would likely look like:

In addition to making very basic step by step attack outlines for those highly tested topics, you should take it a step further and pre-write your rule paragraphs for those topics and memorize those rules. This will help you be able to spit out a rule paragraph on the exam without having to think about it.

If you see a federal question jurisdiction issue, you can automatically type “Federal question jurisdiction is when there is a federal question on the plaintiff’s well-pleaded complaint,” without even having to think about it. This will save you both time and energy as you work through the essay portion. If you are thinking how am I supposed to memorize all of that law word for word?, this next study tip might help you out.

Instead of using passive study techniques to memorize the law, you need to be focusing on active study techniques. Active studying helps to keep your brain engaged, which is extremely beneficial for people with ADD or ADHD. To help maintain focus, you should replace reading your outline over and over again with active learning techniques that cater to your learning style.

Many people with ADD and ADHD classify themselves as kinesthetic learners because they have a natural inclination to move instead of staying seated for long periods of time. Because of this, it is important for you to do some sort of physical movement while you are studying to stay focused on and memorize the material. By doing some sort of physical movement, you are giving your brain and body an outlet to be stimulated, allowing the rest of your brain to focus on the material at hand.

There are many ways you can incorporate physical movement into your studying. One simple way is to write the law out multiple times. Re-writing “Federal question jurisdiction is when there is a federal question on the plaintiff’s well-pleaded complaint” over and over is a great way to physically move your hand while thinking about the rules, which can help you memorize quicker. Another way is to go on walks while reading your outline or flipping through flashcards.

You can walk outside, on a treadmill, or in circles around your room while reading the law. Each is a great way to get your body moving, allowing you to stay focused on the law in front of you. A final way to memorize as a kinesthetic learner is to keep your hands busy. Using a stress ball or fidget toy while studying can give your mind enough of a physical outlet to allow you to stay focused on the rules you are trying to memorize.

Instead of being a kinesthetic learner, you might be an auditory learner where you need to hear yourself think in order to memorize. One way to incorporate this into your bar prep is to teach the law to yourself or a friend. Look at yourself in the mirror and try and recite strict products liability from memory. Afterwards, review your notes and study what you did not say correctly. Then try reciting it again from memory, and repeat this process until you have the law memorized.

If you are able to explain a difficult concept to a friend, or to yourself in the mirror, it shows you have a deep understanding of the law. Another auditory technique is to use mnemonic devices. A mnemonic is where you use a series of letters or words to represent a larger, more difficult concept. One example is MYLEGS in contracts. Contracts subject to the statute of frauds are those dealing with Marriage, Year, Land, Executors, Goods equal to or over $500, and Suretyships.

Another example is DOTS in secured transactions. A secured party is a creditor who is trying to protect themselves from DOTS, or Debtor, Other Creditors, Trustee in Bankruptcy, and Subsequent Purchaser from Debtor. Mnemonic devices can help you with memorizing all the law because they allow you to recall large amounts of information that are normally incredibly difficult to remember, and they allow you to retrieve information from your long-term memory very quickly.

There are also many ways to incorporate active learning into your study routine as a visual learner as well. One way is through mind maps. A mind map is an alternative to the traditional outline where you combine words and drawings with lines representing the relationships between concepts onto a single document. When you finish, you should have a big spider web full of different colors, drawings, and words, representing a subject, like freedom of speech.

A mind map is a great tool to use if you have ADHD or ADD because it helps you organize the information visually, which will help you process, understand, and memorize the information better. Our final tip is to do a quick review of that day’s work before you go to bed. By this, I do not mean you should do all of your studying before bed, or even any intense studying before bed.

What I mean is that you should take 10-15 minutes before you fall asleep to quickly scan over the outline or mind map you made that day, or the material you were working on memorizing. This allows your brain to process the information as you are asleep and will help you retain information easier when you are awake. The bottom line is that studying for the bar exam with ADHD or ADD can pose a lot of challenges. But that does not make studying or passing the bar impossible.

If you use these study tips to build good habits that work best for you, believe in yourself, and be resilient, you will be able to pass. And with that, we are out of time. If you enjoyed this episode of the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast, please take a second to leave a review and rating on your favorite listening app. We would really appreciate it. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss anything.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to Lee or Alison at [email protected] or [email protected]. Or you can always contact us via our website contact form on Barexamtoolbox.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon.