Category Archives: IRAC

Essays, Fundamental, IRAC, Issues, Strategies

Bar Exam Success Commandment 4: I Will Give You Actual Confidence (to Identify Issues Without Issue Spotting)

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The angel on your shoulder whispers to you as you hallucinate from studying…

Don’t cry, you’re going to be a fine lawyer… You’re a good person no matter what… Life is short, just YOLO it…

Screw you, it doesn’t matter even if you never appear again! We’re trying to pass the bar here!

This is the last of a four-part series on what I think are fundamental study strategies, whether you’re a first timer or a repeater. They are fundamental in that they are important concepts that I focused on that made a difference in my second attempt, but you can tailor the concepts to your own needs.

Part 1: How to Gain a Superpower for the Bar Exam
Part 2: Time to Apologize to Math Now (and Improve Your MBE Score)

As mentioned at the end of Part 3: How to Exploit Scarcity on the Bar (and Improve Your Essays), recall that you can still salvage partial credit for incomplete rules and application. But without identifying the right issues, you get zero credit for those unraised issues.

I mentioned the WHAT (identifying issues) and said I would tell you the HOW (to systematize that mystical process).  We try not to use the s-word (“spotting”) around here. We don’t randomly “spot” issues that we happen to catch in the stream of facts.

This was actually one of the biggest game-changing insights I had for my second time.

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Essays, Fundamental, IRAC, Issues, PTs, Strategies

Bar Exam Success Commandment 3: How to Exploit Scarcity (and Improve Your Bar Essays)

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Excuses, excuses… Let me know if any of these sound familiar.

We like to tell people we “don’t have time” or that “time is the most valuable resource” or that “life is short~” (even though we love to procrastinate).

You’ll never hear me say that last one. Life is actually really long! Can you even imagine being confined in prison for more than 1-2 years? Compare that time to our lifespan of 80-90+ years. Having lived 31 years already feels like forever, and with my luck, I’ll have to go through it two more times.

Point is, we do have a lot of time at our disposal. We just choose to squander a lot of it, too.

Whatever “squander” means to you, if that’s the way you want to live your life, I support your right to do so. But don’t blame the human condition or your age for a “short” life; blame yourself.

Then what’s the true scarcity of this world? What is the one thing that’s radically limited and expires very quickly?

Money? Everyone wants it, but you can always make more.

Time? You don’t necessarily lose time forever. You can get your time back to do what matters to you: Hire a maid instead of cleaning, get takeout instead of cooking, get Magicsheets & Approsheets to assist with practice instead of painstakingly recreating condensed outlines and essay attack sheets, etc.

(BTW the time for investigating and hemming and hawing is over; do not get them if you’re a tool collector who wonders why they’re so overwhelmed)

I think there’s something even more scarce.

Read on to see my answer and how you can use this scarcity principle to give yourself an edge on the written portions of the bar exam.

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Essays, IRAC, PTs, Q&A

How to Apply Rules with IRAC: It Rubs the Lotion on Its Skin

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When I hear the word “apply,” I think of lathering a lotion onto my arm. I can feel my pristine skin doubting whether this inferior substitute for smoothness is going to serve any purpose.

Of course, I’m incapable of shifting my thoughts away from the bar for too long. The nightmare is never over. So I start to think about how the lotion is the rule and my skin is the facts. My skin acquires a flowery smell, maybe even nominal protection from certain forms of ultraviolet light waves. The outcome is a beautiful result, unlike the jumble of facts given by the bar examiners.

On bar week, you’re the away team. When the proctor monotonously instructs you, “It rubs the rules on its facts,” you’d better do just that, lest you be hosed like Brazil in World Cup 2014 (this was relevant at the time of writing). Put away the picture of your loved one. Only death and other serious medical conditions can save you now.

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