Welcome back to the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast. Today, we are talking about pre-writing on the bar exam, as part of our "Quick Tips" series. Your Bar Exam Toolbox hosts are Alison Monahan and Lee Burgess, that’s me. We’re here to demystify the bar exam experience, so you can study effectively, stay sane, and hopefully pass and move on with your life. We’re the co-creators of the Law School Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the career-related website CareerDicta.
Alison also runs The Girl’s Guide to Law School. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review 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. Today we are going to talk about pre-writing for bar exam essays.
By “pre-writing” we mean taking time to outline or otherwise plan your essay answer before you start writing. In particular, we will talk about different options for pre-writing, such as writing out an outline on paper versus typing one into your exam software on your laptop. We will also talk about how much time you should spend pre-writing and outlining, as well as discuss the level of detail to include in your outline.
But before we get into our pre-writing best practices, let’s address an important question we get from students: When you only have 30 or 60 minutes to write your essay answer, why should you spend time pre-writing at all? The idea of pre-writing bar exam essay answers may seem counterintuitive. In fact, when faced with timed bar exam essay practice, many students find themselves anxious to start writing their answer.
Some even feel the urge to start writing before they finish reading the question. Students often say that they want to start writing as soon as possible because they do not want to forget what they think of as they read. Not wanting to forget any of the issues you spot is a valid concern. But jumping straight into writing your answer is the wrong way to achieve that goal.
You are actually far more likely to miss or forget issues if you jump straight into writing your answer rather than taking time to outline first. And you are almost guaranteed to miss things, run out of time to talk about major issues, and/or fail to adequately address the question prompt if you start writing an answer before you read the entire question. For example, let’s imagine that a Contracts essay question asks you whether the contract is enforceable against the seller of goods.
While reading the facts, you spot that the Statute of Frauds defense is a major issue raised by the prompt. As soon as you finish reading the question, or worse - before you finish reading, you jump straight into writing your rule and analysis for the Statute of Frauds issue. By the time you finish writing that section, you have completely forgotten about preliminary or minor issues that you spotted before you got to the facts that are relevant to the Statute of Frauds defense.
And you either also forget or did not even read the facts after those relevant to the Statute of Frauds issue. So, you are also not sure if there are any additional issues raised by the facts at the end of the question. At this point, you are running tight on time. And you must decide whether to go back and re-read the question to check for additional issues or move on to the next essay. Neither is a great option.
If you have done more than one practice bar exam essay, you have likely noticed that bar exam essay questions contain more than one issue. And you lose points by missing any of the issues, even if the ones that you miss are preliminary or minor. So ideally, you need an organized way to keep track of all the issues you spot before you start writing - that is why taking a few minutes to write out a quick outline of all the issues you want to address is beneficial.
That way, after you write each section, you can use your outline to trigger your memory about the other things you must address. Referring to an “outline of the issues” is much more efficient than combing back through the facts to re-spot issues you either forgot or missed. So while the compulsion to just start writing is natural, it is not helpful.
Rather, you will likely have more time to write a complete answer if you take a few minutes to pre-write, meaning outline your answer before you start writing. Moreover, your answer will likely be better. Anyone who has read a lot of bar exam essay answers - including bar examiners - can spot a failure to outline a mile away. Answers that students “just start writing” tend to feel frantic and disorganized. Frantic, disorganized answers are not a good way to earn points on the bar exam.
Remember, bar exam graders must read and grade a large number of essays in a short period of time. Disorganized answers are harder to read and grade, So they make a bad first impression on the grader. More importantly, bar exam graders are not on a treasure hunt to award points as they read your answers.
In other words, if your discussion of formation is weaved into your Statute of Frauds section as an afterthought, a bar examiner may miss that you address formation and not give you any points for discussing that issue. All of this to say it is to your advantage to outline. It will make you more efficient and your answers will be better. If you are still unsure, we dare you to give it a try on your next several practice essays. Then you can be the judge!
Now that we have hopefully convinced you that pre-writing bar exam essay answers is worth your time, let’s talk about the best practices for doing just that. Let’s start with a general pre-writing strategy: First, read the question prompt for the fact pattern. Next, carefully read the facts, underlining and taking notes as you spot relevant issues and legally significant facts. Then, draft a short outline of all of the issues you need to address in your answer.
Under each issue, jot down the applicable rule using shorthand if possible, as well as a couple notes to trigger your memory regarding the facts that are relevant to that issue. As noted above, there are several different methods you can use to outline your answer. For example, you may prefer to handwrite a short outline at the bottom of the page containing the essay question.
In particular, if you preferred handwriting your notes in law school, you should try writing an outline on scratch paper before you start typing an answer. As with note-taking, writing an outline engages the brain differently than typing. It often requires more cognitive processing of the information, because you can usually write slower than you would type. This additional processing may help you organize your answer more coherently.
Additionally, in the unlikely event that your laptop crashes, you have the security of a written outline to help you get back on track. That being said, outlining on scratch paper is not for everyone. And you may find the idea of taking time to write words that will not become part of your answer inefficient and/or anxiety-inducing. If that is the case, you may want to try typing your outline into the exam software in which you will eventually write your answer.
Then, once you complete your outline, you can simply go back to each section and fill in your answer. Additionally, in the event that you are running short on time to complete your answer, you at least have all the issues outlined in the answer that graders will read. Of course, leaving answers in outline form is far from ideal. But it may ultimately earn you slightly more points than failing to address an issue at all.
Alternatively, you may find that traditional outlining - whether on scratch paper or on the computer - is not the best way for you to organize your thoughts. If that is the case, you may want to try using a diagram or what we call a mind-map outline. To create a mind-map outline, you will start with a major issue in a circle in the middle of the diagram. Then, you will draw branches out to related issues or sub-issues that you must address, and notate relevant facts for each issue.
As with everything in bar prep, there is no one-size-fits all approach to outlining. So use your practice essays to test different methods and find the method that works best for you. Ultimately, the “right” way for you to outline is the way that leads to you writing the best exam answer. But you can also ask yourself a few questions to evaluate your outline itself.
Did you miss any issues in your outline? Did you fail to note any important facts? Did you confuse any major and minor issues? And is there anything that you think you could have added to your outline to help you write a more complete and/or well-organized answer? Remember, figuring out your exact outline strategy may take some trial and error. That is why it is so important to start doing practice essays from the very beginning of your bar study period.
And it is equally important to incorporate pre-writing as part of your process from day one. Now that we have talked a bit about different strategies for outlining, let’s talk about how long to spend on your pre-writing process. Again, there is not a one-size-fits all answer here. However, we generally recommend that students spend about one quarter to one third of their time reading and notating the question and facts, as well as outlining.
For example, if you have 30 minutes to complete an essay question, plan to spend about five minutes reading and notating the question prompt and facts, and another two to three minutes outlining. This will give you at least 22 to 23 minutes left to write your answer. That may not seem like a lot of time, but as we discussed, remember that you will likely be able to write more efficiently because you will have organized your thoughts before you begin writing.
On the other hand, if you have 60 minutes to complete an essay question, plan to spend eight to 10 minutes reading and notating the question prompt, and four to six minutes outlining. Again, this leaves you with 75% of your time to write your answer. If you find that these time divisions do not work well for you in practice, try adjusting by a few minutes on either end.
As with determining the best outlining approach for you, developing your exact timing strategy may take a bit of experimentation. But these general benchmarks should give you a good place to start. This leads us to our last topic in today’s podcast: How much detail should you include in your outline? As you may have noticed from our timing recommendations, you do not want to spend more than a few minutes on your outline.
So the level of detail you include depends on what you can write in that time. Remember, when possible use shorthand, especially for rule statements, and try to jot down just the basic relevant facts. This is another area where practice makes passing. So, as we mentioned earlier, the sooner you start doing practice essays and incorporating pre-writing as part of those practice essays, the better your essay outlines and answer will be on the day of the exam.
Here, at Bar Exam Toolbox, we assign practice essay questions to our students as early as the first week of studying. We also have several exercises designed to help student master outlining and writing passing bar exam essays. In particular, our Writing of the Week exercises walk students through the process of reading, outlining, and writing a bar exam answer with a step-by-step video tutorial.
These exercises will make the idea of doing practice essays at the beginning of your study period less daunting, while still giving you the benefit of practice right away. If you have questions about what we discussed today or would like more information about our customized bar study schedules and/or Writing of the Week exercises, please reach out to us via our website contact form on BarExamToolbox.com.
We would love to help you find additional resources regarding pre-writing for the bar exam, give you more information about our Writing of the Week exercises, or put you in touch with one of our excellent bar exam tutors to receive feedback on your outlines and essay answers. And with that, we’re 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’d 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 at BarExamToolbox.com. Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk soon!