What courses do people recommended for Bar Exam?

[lawjunkie]

Currently in 2L, any courses people recommend taking that helped for the bar exam? 

[123]

Others might disagree. But at least for the Ontario exam, I wouldn’t take a course solely to help me with the bar exams. I found law school courses didn’t have a tonne of overlap with the exams. Even if they did, I’d forgotten most useful details from second year by the time I wrote the bar. Also, the answers are in the materials, it’s an open book exam, and the materials aren’t conceptually difficult. 

[goosie]

I haven't taken the bar exam yet, but I've heard that having Tax and Family Law can be helpful. I've more often heard things along the lines of @realpseudonym's advice though, and certainly people have overwhelmingly told me that the exams test your ability to find information in the materials quickly more so than your actual knowledge of the subjects being tested.

EDIT: I'm also talking about the LSO licensing exams here.

Edited December 20, 2021 by goosie
clarification

[Snax]

I found civil procedure and real estate to be helpful for the bar exams, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to take them if you aren’t otherwise interested in the courses. They just allowed me to save time reading through the bar material sections because I already knew most of the content in those sections. 

[easttowest]

I don’t think the Ontario exams are worth taking courses to prepare for. I regret studying for the barrister and the solicitor was more annoying than hard. 

[99problems]

1 hour ago, lawjunkie said:

Currently in 2L, any courses people recommend taking that helped for the bar exam? 

I was once thinking about taking certain courses solely for the purpose of the bar exam, but after some discussions, I concluded that it is not worth it since the materials will not overlap perfectly and you will still have to study the subject for the bar exam anyway. Think about it this way, how much information do you retain from your 1L courses, specifically the first semester?

Take the courses that you are more interested in; chances are you will perform better.

[Judgelight]

The bar exams pretty easy just read the materials once and make your own index. 

[criminallyminded]

I recently passed the LSO bar exams and I would not recommend taking law school courses for them. Just reading the material and doing practice exams is sufficient. At this point, I even question whether reading the materials actually helped.

And while I could see the retention benefits of making your own index, as suggested by @Judgelight, I think the time it would take to make it well is not worth it. There are free exceptionally well made indices out there and you save a ton of formatting time which can be put to better use doing practice exams.

Edited December 21, 2021 by criminallyminded

[easttowest]

Just use the detailed table of contents that comes with the materials and add notes to them as you read.

Making an index sounds awful and I found the ones you can buy unwieldy. 

[Judgelight]

1 hour ago, criminallyminded said:

I recently passed the LSO bar exams and I would not recommend taking law school courses for them. Just reading the material and doing practice exams is sufficient. At this point, I even question whether reading the materials actually helped.

And while I could see the retention benefits of making your own index, as suggested by @Judgelight, I think the time it would take to make it well is not worth it. There are free exceptionally well made indices out there and you save a ton of formatting time which can be put to better use doing practice exams.

The point isn't necessarily retention, the point is you actually know how to use your index. I have a friend who fail the bar exam - why? He went into the exam not knowing where anything in the index was located and didn't know how to use it.

So, you can either spend a bunch of time reading the materials and becoming familiar with the fancy index you just created, or just read everything and then create your own index.

It isn't time consuming at all - i think I spent a week or maybe 2 on the above.

[BlockedQuebecois]

It wasn't time consuming, it just consumed a bunch of time! 

Two weeks is more time than I spent studying both exams combined. The idea of spending that time making an index sounds like absolute hell, particularly when the LSO gives you a comprehensive table of contents. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[Rashabon]

I was part of a group that updated an existing index to reflect the new materials. I used that index precisely zero times because it's just not efficient.

[123]

Someone gave me their indices. I used them zero times on the barrister exam. They might have gotten me two or three additional correct answers on the solicitor exam, when I couldn't find the subject matter in the table of contents.

If you can get your hands on an index, that might be beneficial. But if you're doing a lot of it yourself, then a week or two of work seems like a pretty high price to get the handful of questions that aren't in the TOC. 

[SlytherinLLP]

Bar exam is easy - I wouldn't worry as a 2L. 

I followed @BlockedQuebecois's approach generally re highlighting, timing and studying the detailed table of content (was that on the old forum?).

50 pages a day, read Professional Responsibility section twice, ended up not highlighting after a while because it was distracting and studied the table of content carefully. I printed the UoT index, never used it.

Bought the practice exam from Emond and found it a total waste of money. Might be useful just in terms of planning your timing strategy. Also I think there are scanned copies floating around somewhere from earlier years.

The only courses that might be helpful to take are some "business law" oriented classes: income tax, real estate, securities etc. just to gain familiarity with terminology and core concepts. Not necessary but I find some students tend to find the solicitor materials hard to digest if all they've taken is employment, family law etc.