We have all heard the rumor that your bar prep course will basically re-teach you law school in a matter of two months. While this may be partially true, it is important to remember that bar prep is infamous for a reason. It involves memorizing and in some cases, learning, an enormous amount of information in a short period of time. While you should take classes you enjoy in your last two years of law school, try to fit in some classes that will make your bar study learning curve more bearable. Here are some examples:
1. Evidence: This is a very important one. Evidence can truly be a beast. There are a number of rules and they intertwine. There are also limitless exceptions and exemptions to those rules. *Cough cough, hearsay!* Your bar prep course will take you through most of this. However, the bar companies usually host a lesson lasting three or so hours and after that, it is up to you to keep up with the bar prep company’s outlines and sample questions. It took me an entire semester to barely understand evidence. I greatly benefitted from having an expert teach me evidence over the course of an entire semester. Evidence in law school set a strong foundation that I used as a solid launching pad for bar prep.
2. Secured Transactions: I did not take this class in law school but wish I did. I found the concepts of perfection, Article 9 of the UCC and attachment of a security interest difficult to grasp for the first time while cramming for the bar. Taking this class in law school would have been especially helpful because this is an MEE topic and therefore not even guaranteed to be tested. Having a strong foundation here would have definitely saved me anguish.
3. Corporations: This is another MEE subject (Business Associations). Corporations is a good class to take generally. Taking this course as a 2L with entire classes dedicated to the business judgment rule and agent-principal relationships allowed me to use the bar prep lectures as a great refresher instead of being my first time seeing the topic. This is another MEE subject that is extremely complex and without a strong preview, can take up a lot of time to learn material that might not even be tested on your exam.
Best of luck on the bar!
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