Pass or FailCome bar results day, how will you take the news? Will you be victoriously screaming, “I passed, I passed!” or, will you be crippled by the devastating news that you failed. Well, it doesn’t have to be quite so dramatic, if you can visualize each scenario in advance and plan for whichever takes place. That’s how I came up with my Plan A and Plan B for bar results day.

I was inspired by the blog post from Bar Exam Mind: Fear of Bar Exam Failure where I learned about Tim Ferriss’ technique for defining your worst case scenario by listing all the things you could possibly do to keep it from happening and then define how you will recover if the worst case scenario actually comes true. In my case, having already written the bar exam, I certainly couldn’t do anything to change my results now, but I could use this method to face my own fears of what if…. Read More →

Student biting pencil by imagerymajestic FDP.net-100117152California Bar Exam results for July 2014 bar takers will come out on Fri. Nov. 21, 2014 at 6:00 pm PST. It really is agony that bar takers have to wait so long to find out if they passed, so, the big question is: should you do any studying during that long waiting time just in case? The answer to this question will depend upon how confident you are that you did well. It really is so hard to know, especially when you consider that the pass rate for California bar takers is generally below 50%. How do you know if what you did was good enough?

15 Weeks to Review 15 Subjects

There are 15 subjects tested on the California bar exam: Civil Procedure, Community Property, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Corporations, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Partnerships, Professional Responsibility, Real Property, Remedies, Torts, Trusts, and Wills. (See our BarIssues.com FAQ on how we categorize the bar tested subject of Business Associations.) With 15 weeks to go until results day, why not stay up to date on your rules of law? If you have any doubts at all on whether you passed, set up a 15 week plan right now so that you allocate one week to each subject. Your “studying” for each weekly subject can be as light as reviewing your outlines or as heavy as doing some practice MBE’s and writing a few essays. You are the best judge of what you think you need to do.

Results Day Will Be Here Before You Know It!

Then, when you do hit that button on your computer on results day to find out if you passed, if the news is not good, your preparation will have paid off knowing that you can do it the next time around. Or, if the news is good, then the extra review you did could never be a waste of time as you will be well prepared to enter into your field of law with “the law” fresh in your mind. Good luck on November 21st!

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