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Where he and I disagree is on how risk-averse the average law graduate should be when preparing for the bar.  And, of course, everyone should determine his own level of risk-tolerance.  When I took the California bar, a year after law school (after my clerkship ended), I took Bar/BRI, made flash cards, commiserated with my friends, and made it through the test relatively unscathed.  Twenty years later, when I sat for the Nevada bar, I looked a lot more like Kevin Costner in Tin Cup.  (Remember the scene where he's wearing every golf-swing gadget ever made?)  I took Bar/BRI again, bought flash cards and old bar review books off eBay, did the computer-generated review tests, made outlines of my outlines of my outlines (I'm not kidding!), and basically worried myself into a tizzy, because I know how awful I am at memorizing things and how bad I am at taking multiple-choice tests.

The stakes were much higher for me the first time around.  I had a law firm job and, even though the firm would have kept me around if I'd needed to take the bar exam a second time, my career would have been stalled for a bit during the extra time, and my stress level would have shot through the roof.  I was a tenured full professor when I took the Nevada Bar and my life wouldn't have changed one whit had I not passed (although I probably would have lost some credibility with my students had I failed).  

Here's what I think that Ilya and Jim Chen (his post here) and I are all saying (Jim, let me know if you agree):  like Robin Williams's character in the movie Dead Again, it's important to know what you are.  

In the movie, Williams plays a disbarred (or whatever you call a de-licensed doctor) shrink.  Kenneth Branagh plays a detective who, among other things, may be trying to quit smoking. Williams tells Branagh that "[s]omeone is either a smoker or a nonsmoker.  There's no in-between.  The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that.  If you're a nonsmoker, you'll know."

So, when it comes to studying for the bar, you're either risk-averse or risk-taking.  The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that.

Good luck on this summer's bar exams--in every jurisdiction.

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