Is the bar exam really so difficult?

The bar exam is extremely difficult. It may be the most difficult of the professional licensing exams. As a '23 graduate—who was already a CPA—said, "That was much harder than the CPA exam!"

Preparing for the exam is extremely stressful; it’s the most stressful part of the law-school experience. Unfortunately, three years of law school are not enough to prepare a future lawyer to pass the exam. So your loved one will have to study—and study hard—for the 10 to 12 weeks leading up to the exam. 

Remember how your loved one felt during law school final exams—distant, preoccupied, overworked, and stressed out? That’s how they will feel during bar prep—except bar prep lasts for three months, not two or three weeks. It’s a marathon. Your loved one will be studying eight-plus hours a day, five and a half days a week. To succeed, they need to treat bar prep like a full-time job.

What can you do to help?

Give them space and time

Your loved one needs to study for 500+ hours this summer to be ready for the exam. That’s the equivalent of a full-time job and then some. So while they may be physically present, their mind will be elsewhere. Bar prep consists of watching hours of video lectures for each of 17 topics, reading and memorizing volumes of legal rules called “outlines,” and answering thousands of practice questions. All of this takes lots of time and tremendous mental effort.

Many families plan summer vacations, reunions, and other activities for the summer. Please don’t pressure your loved one to participate! They need to maintain focus on the bar exam, and they should never go more than two consecutive days without studying. Save that family vacation for August—after the bar exam. Your loved one will be able to enjoy it without the bar exam hanging over their head, and they will need some R&R after taking the exam!

We do recommend that every prepper take a full day off every week (unless other commitments, like employment, make that unwise). And most preppers take off the 4th of July to celebrate the founding of the nation whose laws they will soon swear to uphold. So you—and your prepper—can look forward to those days off.

Give them emotional support

As noted above, bar prep is extremely stressful and occasionally overwhelming. Emotional outbursts happen. Meltdowns happen. Words of encouragement can help. “You’ve got this!,” “I believe in you!,” “keep your eyes on the prize!,” and similar verbal support can help your loved one keep plugging away. Just listening to your loved one’s rants about the bar exam can also help. You can’t fix these problems, but you can assure your loved one that everything will be ok.

Give them physical support

Consider delivering the occasional meal or ordering takeout. If your loved one has kids, offer to babysit or take the kids for an outing or sleepover. Deliver groceries. Mow the lawn! Little things like these can free up some much-needed time and mental bandwidth for your loved one to study or rest.

Financial support is always welcome!

If you can, consider providing financial support. Working a paying job during bar prep decreases an examinee’s odds of passing the exam because it cuts into study time. And financial insecurity only adds to bar-prep stress. So if you’re in a position to financially assist your loved one, consider doing so.

What support does the law school provide?

The law school provides both structured and on-demand support for all our graduates during bar prep. Every JD graduate receives a mentor. We publish a weekly blog to help preppers stay on track (you’re reading one of those blog posts now!). Bar prep involves “midterms” (major practice exams in late June or early July), and on those days we provide testing rooms to simulate exam day as closely as possible—and we’ll serve lunch on those days, too, just like we will on exam day (at the DFW testing location). Professors John Murphy and Nicole Deutsch are available for on-demand consultations seven days a week to talk about substantive law, study techniques, and exam-day strategies—or just to give a pep talk!

We want your loved one to pass the bar exam as much as you do, and we’ll do everything in our power to make that happen!

What happens after the exam?

After the exam, your loved one will have to wait about 10 weeks for the results (early October for the July exam; early April for the February exam). The wait can be excruciating and nerve-wracking! Questions like “How do you think you did?” can push an examinee over the edge. Gentle encouragements like “You did your best, and that’s all you can do” might be easier to accept.

Thank you for all that you have done and will do to support your loved one on their law-school journey. With your help, they’ll BTHO the bar exam and realize their dream of becoming an attorney!