As a non traditional law student, managing work, family, and bar study can be quite the challenge.  But starting early has been a real big help.  If you are like me and getting ready to take the bar exam, start early!  Setup a manageable schedule and stick to it no matter what.  When you think that one day skipped won’t matter, that will lead to two, then three, then four…you get the picture.

Hang in there and it can be done.

After my exams I never crack a casebook or look through an outline.  Once my answer has been submitted I have recorded my knowledge of the particular question.  The time for second guessing and analyzing is over.  Don’t stress out about things you cannot change.  My best advice to every law student who has just taken an exam is this: forget about it.  You have earned the right to relax for a while.

Remember, if you cannot change it, forget it and move on.  If you perhaps feel that an essay answer is appealable, then you can review your notes.  Until then you should give your mind and body a well deserved break.  God bless and have a great day.

• The night before the exam do not study.  If you have not learned the material by now you simply will not learn it.  Last minute studying up until the very moment of the exam increases your stress levels.
• The night before the exam spend time with your family.  Watch t.v.  Go to a movie.  Do anything that helps you to relax.  Your brain will function much better when prompted to recall information if it is relaxed and fresh rather than stressed and hurried.
• Eat a healthy dinner the night before the exam and a healthy breakfast the morning of the exam.
• An hour or two before the exam drink a glass of orange juice.  Stay away from sodas and too much coffee.  I say too much coffee because I gots ta have my java. 
• If you don’t exercise regularly, begin walking at least one week before the exam.  Exercise releases stress and makes your body feel better and your mind more responsive.
• Have a positive attitude.  You are in law school.  You are probably working as well and raising a family.  This is a great and difficult accomplishment.  If you have made it this far, you have no reason to doubt yourself now.  If you have prepared and studied like you should, you DO know the material and you WILL do fine on the exam.
• Don’t listen to other students; they are not you.  It is not about other students’ experiences.  It is all about how you have prepared for the exam.  Never let another student make you believe that an exam is impossible to pass simply because he or she did not pass it.  For all you know that student may not have studied like you did.
• Arrive early for the exam, especially if you commute to classes like I do.  Allow for weather and traffic.  The last thing you want is to be stressed out about being late and running out of time.
• A few minutes before the exam begins, forget about everything else in the world.  It is just you and that exam for the next three hours.  Believe me, everything will still be there when you are finished.
• During the exam don’t second guess yourself.  If you have prepared properly and you believe an answer to be correct, it probably is.  I made that mistake last term and changed an MC answer at the last minute.  I’m sure you know what happened there.  Yes, I had the correct answer the first time.  Don’t check you common sense at the door when you sit for your exams.
• Finally, after the exam is over, FORGET ABOUT IT!  You cannot change your answer now.  You are finished so move on.  If need be you can appeal later.  But for now, do not worry about something you can do nothing about.

The term is almost over.  If you have done your job in preparing exams will go fine.  God bless and have a great day.

The cram-and-regurgitate method may get you by for now, but when the bar exam rolls around you may be up the creek.  So when you study, study hard and actually learn what you are studying and not merely memorize it.

So why the title of Law School Limerick?  Well, when I was in the third grade one of my assignments was to come up with a limerick to share with the class.  A limerick is a five-line poem with a very strict form.  For a third-grader it was no easy task.  In other words I had to really work at it.  Here is the limerick I came up with:

There once was a hair on my head.
I saw it and said, Oh, it’s dead.
I saw a big pie,
and started to cry,
just maybe my hair wasn’t fed.

The point?  The point is that I still remember that limerick after 25 years.  I worked and worked on it until I had what I thought was an “A” grade, and it was!

If we as law students really want to be great lawyers some day we must dedicate ourselves to really learning the material rather than merely spitting it back out on an exam.  I realize that most of us non traditional law students do not have a lot of time to spare.  But with some hard work and dedication we can still learn the material.  We just need to be creative and find better and more efficient ways to study.

I hope that this lesson on limericks has been helpful and informative.  God bless and have a great day.

Well, I passed.  While the MPRE is no bar exam, it is a small step in my legal journey to becoming a fully licensed lawyer.  I was elated to see my score and know that I had successfully passed my first required professional exam.

If any of you other non traditional law students out there have not yet taken the MPRE, have faith and do not discount it.  It is not the most difficult exam on earth, but it will require some substantial study to pass.  Much is common sense, but there are some questions that appear to be completely counterintuitive.  Remember, legal ethics are not a measure of your morality but merely a test of our knowledge of the ethical considerations we must make as lawyers.  God bless and have a great day.

If you are studying for the MPRE I wish you the best of luck.  I realize that this is probably our first “real” exam that is required for our professional license.  Just remember that there are other classes that must not be neglected.  Study hard, manage your time, stay focused, and take time to relax.  You will do fine.  Hopefully, so will I.  Good luck on the exams, God bless, and have a great day.

Without jinxing myself I think the exam will be no problem to pass with the proper study.  Much of it is common sense it appears to me.  But I am still rather excited because this will be my first real-life exam that is required by the Bar.

I am sure that many of you as well are studying for this same exam.  I would advise you to take a review course; it will help solidify the concepts in your mind.  Also, try to take the MPRE very close to your enrollment in your legal ethics class.  The concepts will be fresh in your mind.  Wish me luck.  God bless and have a great day.

Human nature I guess.  But I have found that my life is much better when I just concentrate on other things and forget that which I cannot change.  Law students are taught to think, to analyze, and then to think and analyze again.  But there must come a time when it is finished.  That time for a law student is when the final paper is handed in (if appeals are not an option).

So, after you have worked hard and done your part, forget about it.  Move on and concentrate on the many other things that you have to do.  It will make your life a lot easier.  In short, don’t worry about what you cannot change.  God bless and have a great day.

If you know the case (which you should) it should be a privilege to carry on a legal banter with the law professor.  Show the professor what you know and that you have studied the case.  You may just learn something in the process that might have not occurred to you before.

But it seems invariable that many times we will just sit there and hope the “other guy” is called on.  Even if we have a question we may be hesitant to ask it for fear of sounding like an idiot.  We patiently wait for the “other guy” to ask the question we are thinking of, as if he is reading our mind.  This is probably more true of nontraditional law students who are generally older and may feel like they should be smarter and wiser than some of their younger colleagues.

Your law professors are there to teach and you are there to learn.  Don’t be afraid to ask a question that you feel is pertinent.  Come exam time you may wish you had.  God bless and have a great day.

I finally gave up and took a bluebook and hand-wrote my exam. I think I did pretty well and I was able to finish well before the time limit, but the stress of finding out at the last minute that my software did not work was a little unsettling.

After I got home I called the support line and found out what the problem was and corrected it. The moral of the story is that you should always be prepared for the “unthinkable” to happen during exam time. Don’t stress about it, just be prepared in case something happens. And always check, double check, and triple check your software! God bless and have a great day.