100 Words for my Friends Taking the Bar Exam

Posted on by Luis Villa

Things I did to myself before the bar:

  • Did only a fraction of the practice I should have.
  • Felt underprepared and terrified, just like you feel now.

Things that happened to me during the bar:

  • Day before the exam, while studying poolside at the hotel: got a sunburn.
  • First day of exam: stung by a bee.
  • Last day of exam: computer crash, requiring me to handwrite the last section of the exam. Haven’t hand-written for three hours straight since college.

And I still passed. Even got invited to be a grader.

So: moral of the story: don’t panic; you’re not as underprepared, and it isn’t as hard, as you think it is. You rock. You’ll pass.

Published by Luis Villa

8 thoughts on “100 Words for my Friends Taking the Bar Exam”

  5. Thanks so much for this!! I needed it. I have not studied nearly as much as I am “supposed” to have. I need all the encouragement I can get :)

  6. I just read this to my wife who will be taking the North Carolina Bar in a week and it seemed to help her spirits.

  7. I just finished it. Began studying regularly but halfheartedly after graduation. Leading up to the exam: went to a conference for a week where I did not study at all. Came home, mildly sick. Went to a weekend conference. Got really sick. Gave a talk on the day I felt okay enough to get out of bed. Had 5 days left to study. Crammed.

    May have gotten every criminal procedure question not having to do with the 4th amendment wrong, since that’s the only part that sticks in my head.

    My consolation is that other people I think of as generally intelligent and on top of things also got several questions horribly, horribly wrong, so hopefully we all scrape by together. I am told that completely making up the rule but with good style and reasoning still gets partial credit. I hope so, because I am pretty sure I wrote several new laws.

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