A candid, no-BS look at bar exam preparation
A big complaint about essays: “Essays are so freaking subjective!”
Good, let’s use the subjectivity to your advantage. We’re going to take advantage of the impatience of a human who has thousands of shitty essays to read.
Oh, it’s you again.
Last week, we discussed 5 counterintuitive truths about the MBE over email (not published on the blog—sign up for my emails to get the link).
At the end, I gave you a pop quiz with some essay excerpts and had you guess which one did better. I got back varying answers:
Before I reveal the winner, can I just say how this shows how subjective essay grading is?
Graders are people. They have biases like we do. They get tired. They’re not consistent. (Yeah, they’re actually not reptilian robots 😲)
The winner is…
Be honest now. Imagine you’re mentoring a starry-eyed 1L starting law school. How would you explain how to “spot issues” in an essay? How exact and specific can you get?
Is it just a mystical process where the crystal ball in your head somehow divines issues from the heavens?
The MBE isn’t the only section you gotta worry about. Every fellow repeater who retook the bar with me had to improve on their essays. Unlike multiple choice with an objectively correct answer, essays are subject to the whims of the grader.
On its surface, an essay is simply a string of IRACs (easier said than done of course). Prep companies and law school tend to focus on the “R” and “A” and assume that you already know how to find the “I” naturally.
That’s funny (not really) because an issue that’s never raised, or an irrelevant issue, is completely worthless.
But has anyone actually taught you how to identify those issues? They give you the IRAC framework and leave you to figure it out.
That’s why I’m going to explain it to you in more detail than this:
To spot issues, try your best.
