Today's post is for you to share with those who live with or love you, and want to help, but might not fully get what you are going through, taking the bar exam this July!!!
Dear Friend, Family or Significant Other of a Bar Taker:
Someone close to you is studying for the bar exam?? What does this mean for YOU? Obviously each person's experiences differ, but there are parallels. Below are some observations and stories about the challenges your Bar Taker faces and how you might help him or her succeed.
-The Bar Exam is a long haul. It is a huge challenge. It's each law student's private Mt. Everest. One does not climb mountains without proper gear; one cannot give the Bar Exam short shrift. Success on the Bar Exam requires total commitment, 100% focus, and time, lots of time. So expect your Bar Taker to be gone for the two months prior to his or her Bar Exam, and possibly for the four or five months prior.
Note: Bar Takers may be physically present but if they are doing the work they need, they will be "gone" most all the time. Your Bar Taker will be thinking about exam fact patterns while eating, showering, and likely dreaming about the exam as well.
The person you knew who may have become slightly crazed as a law student will be taken over totally by "BARitis." It's a disease to be certain. The good news is it's temporary!
- Many of those people your Bar Taker is competing against are young, single, just out of law school, and have little or no work or family commitments. They may be able to leave voicemail messages in May saying, "Will return all calls in July."
One former student of mine added to her voicemail: "If anyone wants to know what to do to help me pass the bar, please feel free to contribute to my bar fund. I'm taking off two months from work so will accept any and all gifts and loans. Most of all, thank you for understanding why I'm gone through July!" Another, a religious person, left a message asking all callers to simply pray for him. A colleague who recently passed the bar exam, first time around, called everyone in his address book in early May to say "Goodbye till August." Everyone in his world was thus put on notice that he would not be available that summer.
-Below is a list of more things you and your Bar Taker can do that will help facilitate success:
1. Plan a fun "after Bar trip." Plan something you can look forward to, a time when your Bar Taker will return mentally as well as physically, a time to reconnect.
2. Eliminate anything that can be eliminated during this June and July. Say "No" in advance to all social commitments that involve your Bar Taker. Let him or her have a "pass." (One student told of a social function he had reluctantly agreed to attend where, lo and behold, he was seated next to a hot-headed cocky lawyer who berated him the entire evening for being out rather than studying.)
If at the last minute, your Bar Taker feels s/he has put in a good enough study day that s/he is able to join you for dinner, welcome him or her. But, understand if your Bar Taker still cannot attend some function in the evening, simply because s/he needs to sleep, exercise, or just unwind.
3. Delay any important decisions, major changes (think -new car purchase, remodeling!), or arguments, if at all possible, until after the Bar. Anything that can wait, let it wait.
4. Make life during bar review as easy as possible. Ship kids off to summer camp or grandparents. Use paper plates for every meal. Some folks choose to save time by eliminating showers. (Kidding there with that last one, but you get the point!)
5. Help your Bar Taker get on and stay on a routine, disciplined study schedule. Encourage your Bar Taker to post his or her schedule on the fridge or some other central place where everyone will see it and know when study times are and when break times are.
If you have young children, it often helps to have your Bar Taker available to the family on a consistent predictable basis, even if it's limited. Knowing that Mom or Dad will be there and focused on the family for even an hour every night or at breakfast every morning is better than having that person unpredictably disappear. And study schedules help your Bar Taker too in fitting in the time for those critical, all-important practice tests. Reading through books or listening to lectures is not enough. Your Bar Taker must have quiet focused time to sit and take simulated exams, over and over and over again.
6. Participate in any inter-active studying that helps your Bar Taker. Be willing to test him or her with flashcards, if that would be useful. Agree to listen to bar review tapes whenever you're in the car together. And, be open to listening if your Bar Taker needs to vent.
7. Accommodate your Bar Taker's needs during the week of the Bar Exam. If s/he needs to be alone, respect that. If s/he needs you there, try to be there.
Note: Attention Bar Takers!!! Your job here is to be up front and very clear about what you need. Say directly what will make you the most well-prepared, well-rested, confident and happy going in to the Exam each day. Family, friends, and significant others are not mind readers. Especially if they themselves have not taken a Bar Exam, they need you to be clear in articulating how they can best help you.
8. And, last but not least for the moment, try not to take the moodiness and tension that comes with the Bar Exam experience stress you all out too much. It's over end of July! This too shall pass.
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