It can be very expensive to enroll in a comprehensive bar exam preparation course. Prices for these courses range from $1,000 to $4,000. If you can’t afford this price and don’t have a generous law firm or family member to pay for a course, how can you study for the bar exam?
Acquire study materials
First, you will need study materials. If you know someone who took the bar exam in the last year or two, ask if they still have their books. Maybe they give them to you for free or sell them cheap.
If you can’t find someone with books, check on Craigslist, E-bay, or Amazon for used bar prep materials. Because bar-tested law rarely changes much from year to year, you can usually get away with buying books that are more than a year old.
If you can’t find anything for sale online, you can try getting exam subject area outlines from a friend or search for free outlines on Google. Lots of people post their bar charts on blogs and places like DocStoc and Scribd, so you can probably find something you can use as a base to study from.
Get MBE practice questions
With the exception of a few jurisdictions, you will need to prepare for the multiple-choice portion of the bar exam known as the Multi-State Bar Exam, or MBE. Here, you’ll probably need to spend money if you can’t find used bar prep materials to buy.
Several companies sell stand-alone MBE preparation materials. The most famous of these is Kaplan-PMBR, which asks ridiculously difficult practice questions. But, if you can answer the PMBR-style questions, you should be able to pass the MBE during the actual test.
If you prefer to practice online, there are several companies that offer online MBE courses. These can be useful because you can practice anywhere you have an internet connection. I used Adaptibar when I was studying for the California bar exam and thought it was good value for money.
Find practice essays and performance tests
If you purchased a complete used bar prep course, you should already have access to that material. If not, check your state’s bar association website for sample essays and performance test questions. If your status bar does not have sample questions and answers posted online, contact your status bar and ask if you can purchase sample questions and answers.
If you literally cannot afford to buy sample written materials and your state bar association does not provide free samples, check with another state bar association to see if they have published any samples. The State Bar of California publishes sample essays and performance tests along with model responses from recent years. These are extremely useful. Just remember, the California bar allows 60 minutes per essay and 3 hours for an achievement test, so if your state has shorter time limits, adjust your practice answers accordingly.
Create a study schedule
Lastly, once you have all your study materials, you need to create a study schedule and stick to it. Write down your schedule! You want to make sure you don’t forget to cover any topics, and the best way to do that is to have a schedule to stick to. After you’ve studied for a week or two, review your schedule and make sure it still feels appropriate and realistic. Don’t be afraid to increase or decrease your study time. Get to know yourself and how you learn, and schedule your study time accordingly.
Good luck!