Giving what the essay graders want to see on the California Bar Exam: Q&A with BarEssays founder Gil Peles

When I think of supplements for the essay portion of the California Bar Exam, the first one I think of is BarEssays.

You’ve probably heard of it. BarEssays is one of the most popular study supplements for the essay portion of the California Bar Exam. It’s a collection of more than 3,000 real graded high- and low-scoring essays and performance tests from past California bar exams.

If you’ve ever wondered what an actual good answer is supposed to look like, this is how you can improve your essays—by comparing your practice essay to a variety of real graded student examples. I also wrote an in-depth review of the site here.

But how can you make the best use of it?

I asked Gil Peles, founder of BarEssays, if he would like to talk about that, and he agreed.

Here are some of the nuggets you’ll pick up from this Q&A:

  • How can you tell what the bar examiners want to see (and what you might be doing wrong)?
  • Formatting: What’s the difference about essay answers you want to write on the bar exam (as opposed to in law school)?
  • What kind of IRAC does Gil recommend for the bar essays? What should it look like?
  • How early should you start working on essays?
  • What can you do with your practice essays to get the most out of them?

Take it away, Gil:

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Coronavirus and Bar Exam Preparation (Do You Study Now or Later?)

You’re probably getting a headache from all the news about the novel coronavirus, the contradictory posts in your social feed, and companies you forgot existed emailing you random thoughts about COVID-19 (“we’re here for you”).

While I reserve the right as an introvert to smugly judge those who have cabin fever after ONE day of quarantine (what the hell’s wrong with you guys), I understand that this pandemic may be seriously impacting your livelihood—or even threatening your lives or those around you.

Bad news one minute, good news the next.

Despair and hope, rinse and repeat.

Look. Things have changed. Accept it.

We don’t have all the information. We don’t know what’s going to happen. We have to adapt to the new situation, but without panicking.

We’re all susceptible to panic. Panic causes regressive reasoning, which effectively turns us back into children. But we also have the ability to trigger a “circuit breaker” to go back to making rational and growth-oriented decisions.

Just like how we are “flattening the curve” of new infections through social distancing and lockdowns, we can “flatten the curve” of how we react to the situation.

Here are some “circuit breakers” to consider if you are preparing for the next bar exam (or just scared in general).

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Passing the California Bar Exam with the “Tripod Approach” (Just Triage These Areas)

Let’s say you have an overwhelming amount of material to learn for the California Bar Exam with limited time. (Who doesn’t?)

Or when one door opens, another door closes. You’re not consistently scoring well on the essays. You’re getting a 55 on some. You know you can get a 65 or more if you had more time. Or you just need a little push to get to a 1390 scaled score on the MBE, but then you feel like you’re sacrificing the written portion.

There are a couple of approaches focusing on a few key areas (rather than spreading yourself thin) that could bring you over the hump to pass the California Bar Exam…

This is the basis for the Tripod Approach (click to scroll directly there), which is a minimally effective approach to get the largest return for your efforts in preparing for the California Bar Exam.

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Quick and Simple Ways to Improve Your Bar Essays

A big complaint about essays: “Essays are so freaking subjective!”

Sure, the MBE is more “objective.” There’s only one right answer on the MBE.

But it depends on your interpretation of the question, the hypo, and most important, the answer choices. Yes because X? Yes because Y? Where’s the option for “yes because Z”? FML!

That’s a question for another day.

This is to say, let’s not agonize too much over the essays just because the MBE has objective answer choices and you think that’s somehow advantageous.

Let’s instead use the subjectivity of essays to your advantage. We’re going to take advantage of the impatience of a human who has thousands of shitty essays to read.

This is great because if you know how to write better on one, you’ll know how to write better on ALL of them. How many points is that worth to you?

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3 Illusions You Might Be Trapped In When Preparing for the Bar Exam

I see some strange juxtapositions whenever I make the mistake of leaving the house:

Words: “Don’t drive even after a beer. It’s dangerous.”
Action: Drives with one eye on the phone and another eye on the road

Words: “Do your civic duty and go vote. Here’s a sticker!”
Action: Actively avoids making a direct impact on the community through jury duty

Words: “I’m never drinking again!”
One month later: “I’m never drinking again!”

(My quest to restore a six-pack taught me that bursts of “never” don’t last long and that sustainability and consistency are way more valuable.)

What are some other ones? Let me know in the comments what you’ve noticed.

And then we have bar takers. Souls wandering in limbo. Not yet a licensed attorney but not a regular person either.

We see some interesting behaviors with bar takers as well:

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