Working PT + Studying for the Bar Exam?

[BlockedQuebecois]

7 hours ago, myth000 said:

Contrary to certain portrayals in pop culture, the legal field does not harbor "original geniuses." If you possess enough understanding of the bar exam's content to pass, it implies you've acquired or studied the concepts and facts from some source. Your knowledge didn't emerge from a vacuum or without any study.

Maybe you just haven’t met them!

I know a lot of people who have a strong intuitive grasp of what the law is going to be and the ability to reason by analogy across fields of law. If you are good at those things, and good at writing multiple choice exams, my experience is that the bar exam is easily passable without preparation. 

With that said, and as I said before, law students should still study! The costs of failing are high, and failing because you didn’t study is obviously dumb. But it is silly to suggest that no law students could pass without studying, not least because people do, every year 🙂 

Edited February 16 by BlockedQuebecois

[epeeist]

TL;DR: I don't think working <=20 hours a week will interfere with preparation for the bar exam. But I don't know OP.

I've been a volunteer tutor through the LSO for years on the topics of civil litigation and professional responsibility for those who've failed the bar exam (if you fail LSO offers up to 5 hours of tutoring apportioned amongst the subjects you did poorly in). So I have a basis to opine, albeit anecdotal (including test writers' self-assessments).

Overwhelmingly the most common cause of failure is time management - taking too long looking up answers (instead of having the confidence to answer what you're pretty sure of without spending extra time to look up to give more time to look up stuff for more difficult questions etc. - I've posted advice previously so not repeating here). That's not something that is fixed by having more free time to read materials more, it can be helped by writing practice exams under timed conditions. Sometimes people are slower readers than average, that's not something that can be addressed my spending more times on materials though it can be worked on with enough time. Stress is another common factor, again not helped by having more free time (obviously if someone is so stressed out by working PT that they're afraid they'll fail, that would have an impact). Some rarer situations are e.g. people who've never written a multiple choice exam (I've met some foreign-educated lawyers who know the law well, but don't have practice with multiple choice questions, that's something that can be worked on but not by reading materials more). And so on, the point is that the reason most people fail is not they didn't have enough time to read the materials. There are also some fair criticisms of how the materials present some topics less clearly than they could (e.g. typically in an hour-hour and a half I can clarify the most common difficulties are with claims/cross/counter/TP, joinder and intervention, limitation periods, cost consequences of offers to settle or wrong court, motions interlocutory or final, summary judgment types, simplified procedure, advise doing chart/graphic for appeal routes, some multiple choice exam suggestions, and whatever other topics the person wants to cover and/or sample questions they have issues with).

In fairness I have encountered a few people who did have life issues (e.g. extended illness) that interfered substantially with preparation, but for most people (again, anecdotal small sample size but matches what I've heard more generally) failing the bar exam is not due to lack of time to study the materials.