My Journey to the New York Bar - Revision revision revision!

I took this photo exactly one month before the February 2017 New York State Bar exam. The closer it got to exam day, the more anxiety seemed to kick in. 

I was still working three days a week, so I had at least 8 hours in the day where I wasn't thinking about the exam. But when evening came, it was time to hit the books again. By this time, I had stopped learning new content. Whatever I knew, I knew and was it was instilled in my brain somewhere and I was holding on to the belief that everything would come flooding back to me when it was time to answer the questions in the exam, (which by the way it did and I even got excited in the exam when I experienced this lol, but I'll delve more into that in a later post).

During the last four weeks leading up to the exam, I focused on strengthening my knowledge on the topics I previously struggled with first time round; tackling any exceptions to rules that I was still unsure about and tightening my essay and multiple choice exam strategies. When there's twelve areas of law which you have to learn for a two day exam, especially when you're re-sitting exams, you really don't want to spend time going over what you already know. It's what you don't know well where your time and effort needs to be spent.

In the multiple choice questions, you know that there are two completely wrong answers. You have to use the power of elimination techniques to eliminate those wrong answers, from reading the closing sentence of the question (and maybe a few sentences above the closing sentence), before you read and analyze the whole question, so that you can narrow it down and focus on the two remaining answers. When you've got 200 fact pattern multiple choice questions to answer (separated by 100 questions in the morning and another 100 questions in the afternoon, in three hour exam segments), time management is everything.

I was constantly doing essay and multiple choice practice questions every other day and reviewing my answers. This was really helpful second time round, as I didn't spend as much time as I could have on practice questions when I sat the bar exams for the first time in 2016.

During the last few weeks, I was still somewhat antisocial, not doing much with others outside of work and studying, but I did spend time in between study breaks to go for walks, exercising, and going to church. Prayer, meditating on the scriptures and being outside around nature kept me sane!

Although it was an intense time, I refused to allow it to completely take over my life, to the point where I may become obsessive about the exams. I had to have a balance and so do you. Get enough sleep (your brain and body needs this), go to the gym (or exercise at home) to let off steam, go for walks, bake, cook, sew, paint or do whatever you find therapeutic and relaxing to help you take your mind off things for a few hours when it gets a little bit too much. When you go back studying, you will feel rejuvenated and have a clearer head to think and absorb more information. You may even see things you didn't notice before.

My Journey to the New York Bar - Focus During the Holidays

When I logged into Facebook three days ago, an “On This Day” picture posted three years ago, popped up. It was a selfie picture I took on a Sunday afternoon with my study materials on the dinning room table, just before I started studying for a few hours. It was during the start of the Christmas holidays and I was taking advantage of the holiday season to fit in some quality study time.

I was thinking that during this holiday season, many people here in the UK (and in other parts of the world) have time off work until the 7th of January. Many are using this time to unwind from what has been a very busy and even stressful year; catching up with sleep; spending time with friends and family and just enjoying the time they have off work.

I’m all about taking time out to unwind, rest and spend time with family. However, I’m not all about using the holiday season as an excuse not to do anything at all; leaving everything until the New Year! There are some things that we really need to get done now, before the New Year, to make way for new things to take place or so that we can move on to the next thing.

Many times people around me ‘advised’ me not to work so hard, to enjoy my time off etc. I believe some said this with good intentions so that I wouldn’t burn myself out completely (which by the way, I did have Christmas Day, Boxing day and New Year’s day off, to rest) however, I had exams to prepare for, which after the Christmas holidays, would only be a month or so away. I couldn’t afford to take the whole holiday season off like everybody else around me.

With all due respect, they were not on the same path as me, so therefore, they couldn’t understand my grind and the hard work I still needed to put in, regardless of the season or time of the year it was.

It is the same with you who are sitting or resitting the bar exams or any other exams in the coming months or starting a business and working on achieving something within the next few months. We are not living the same life as those around us. Our commitments and responsibilities are different and therefore, the time we have off and how we make use of our time will also be different to others.

By all means, take time out to rest and enjoy time with those around you, but don’t forget that you have a goal to work towards within the first few weeks and months of 2019 and only by putting in the hard work now, will you achieve the results you want. No one can do this for you, only you can, so be wise with your time and make the most of it.

Work hard now and play later!

My Journey to the New York Bar - Upped My Game

Now that I knew which areas of the substantive law I needed to strengthen my knowledge on, I got myself organised by creating a study plan. I really went to town with my study plan, setting out certain days of the week to study specific topics and divided each session between revising notes and doing both multiple choice questions and essay questions for each topic.

 The areas of law where I felt more confident in, I studied on the days I worked, whereas, the areas of law where I knew I needed to spend more time on, I used Thursdays and Fridays to focus on them as I was no longer working on those days.

I decided to take on board a suggestion given to me first time round which I initially dismissed. The suggestion was to wake up between an hour and a half to two hours early to studying before work. As a person who really likes her sleep, the thought of waking up at 5.30am to study before getting ready to go to work, was really difficult! I didn’t like the idea at all! I would rather sleep late and be up until 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning studying then wake up at 5.30am!!

However, when I thought about the benefits of doing this, I decided to do it. I had to be disciplined and go to sleep a little earlier than usual so that I had sufficient sleep. I mainly did this on the days that I worked in the office (which was Monday-Wednesday) because after work I knew I would only get a maximum of two to three hours of studying done, before my brain would want to retire for the night. I used the early mornings to revise notes and read through the text books and used the evenings to go through exam practice questions and review my answers (and make additional notes of the answers I got wrong so that I could revisit the topics).

This literally was my life for 10-12 weeks leading up to the exam! Study, work, church repeat.

I had already invested a lot of time and money into this and as I believed it was the path for me to take and succeed in, I had to see it through until the end and make the necessary sacrifices to achieve what I had initially set out to achieve.

My Journey to the New York Bar - Back to the Drawing Board

By the time I arrived back in England, I had already decided to re-sit the Multi-state Bar Exams in February 2017. I reasoned with myself that as I had just over two and a half months to study and prepare for the exams, if I had a good study plan and focused well, I would be alright! I knew I needed to 'up my game' and change my strategy to get the results I wanted, which was to pass the bar exams.

I contacted Bar Bri International so that I could re-enroll onto the bar review course. What I really like about Bar Bri is that if you enroll onto their bar review course for the first and you do not pass the exam, you can re-enrol for free! You're not required to go review all of the video lectures again (unless you want to) and you can just focus on reviewing the topics you want to. You also get access to the same support you had before. I didn't make use of the full video lectures this time as I had sufficient notes that I took first time around. But the short 'bite-size' review videos were great to refresh my memory on the substantive law.

I was assigned a new mentor and I was quite happy this time round as she was a great help and very approachable. I felt I could relate to her especially because she didn’t pass the bar first time and passed on her second attempt, and was therefore able to guide and support me through the process of resitting the bar exams. One of the things I was taught was just to focus on the substantive law that I didn’t know well. Don't look through what I already know but put all my focus on what I did not know well; the topics I knew I struggled to grasp and understand.

The New York State Board of Examiners allow you to request a copy of your exam papers and answers so that you can review them. I thought about requesting them to see which questions I got wrong so I knew where I need to improve. But as I was in the UK and it was drawing close to the Christmas holiday season, I didn’t know how long it would take for me to receive them and I didn’t want any delay. I knew very well the topics I struggled with leading up to the exam and what I needed to spend more time on.

I went through my old lecture and revision notes, as well as my answers to the practice multiple choice and essay questions I did before as they served as a good indicator of where I needed to focus. Constitutional law was first one on that list LOL. I don't know why but it was the subject I struggled with the most, followed by criminal procedure and evidence (with its many exceptions!)

 By this time I was well into my new role at work and decided to continue working 3 days a week so that I could have Thursday and Fridays free to study the whole day as well as weekends and weekday evenings on the days when I was working during the day.

 So my prep for the bar started on 11th November 2017...

My Journey to the New York Bar - Different Perspective

I flew to New York on Wednesday 2 November 2016 to sit the The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) on Saturday 5 November. This exam relates to the professional conduct of lawyers and must be passed, along side the Multistate bar exam and the New York Law Exam, in order to be admitted as an attorney in New York.

I had barely studied for this exam because I was still nursing a tooth abscess that had turned into an infection and now had also affected my body so much, that my joints were in pain. I was constantly feeling feverish and unable to concentrate or sleep properly. I was still on antibiotics and taking pain relief, when it was time to fly to New York, but I had just got my mind back on focus and determined to see this journey through until the end.

I did a bit of studying during the 7 hour flight. In between studying, I watched the film Selma and cried so much LOL. I don't usually cry when watching films but this film touched me so much. I couldn't hold back the tears!!

When I arrived in New York, I used the three days I had left to study as hard as I could. I spent most of my time in the library and only went out for fresh air and to eat. When exam day came, I felt relatively well and ready for the exam. Whilst waiting in line outside of the exam venue, I started speaking to a young lady. She was telling me that one of her friends had recently qualified as a licensed attorney after failing the bar exam more than five times!

After I told the young lady about my recent experience of finding out that I didn't pass the bar exam, she told me that despite not passing, I did well to get passed the 200 mark because apparently, a lot of US law students have previously struggled to reach over 200 and get the marks needed to pass first time. The fact that I wasn't so far off from passing the exams, having only spend three and half months studying for the bar exam while working, I didn't do too bad! I had not thought of it in that way and speaking to her actually helped me to see the positive side of the results and having confidence to re-sit the exam in February 2017

I also did my own research,  I think as a way to console myself, and discovered that Michelle Obama, President Franklin Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton and John F. Kennedy did not pass the bar exam first time. Benjamin Cardozo who has a law school named after him in New York, failed first time! Reading these stories definitely helped to remind myself that I was not a failure nor did this have a reflection on my intellectual ability, but simply that I needed a better study strategy and to work harder.

 Anyway, back to the MPRE exam. I received the exam results about five weeks after sitting the exam and was happy to learn that I had passed the exam and scored a high mark too! This was definitely a confidence boost in preparing to re-sit the Bar Exam.

My Journey to the New York Bar - The Lesson

When it finally sunk in that I had not passed the most rigorous, intense and stressful exam ever, I thought to myself, I have two options; feel sorry for myself and give up or analyse where I went wrong and start preparing to resit the exam in February 2017. I chose the latter, bearing in mind I was due to fly to New York in just under 4 days time to sit the MPRE so not pursuing things further would really be a waste of my time and money.

I had the task of telling my parents, siblings and a few other people that I had not passed the bar exam. They had been waiting for my exam results too so I thought it was only right to let them know. My brother was surprised that I didn't pass and so was my mum. A friend of mine (though I know it was with good intention) commented that I should see if this is what God wants me to do. I knew deep down this was what I was meant to do and just because I did not pass first time, did not mean it was not for me.

 In life, we don't receive everything in the way we expect. There are things we will fail at multiple times until we reach where we want to be but through the process, we are forming resilience and maturing. Our character is being shaped and we are learning something (that's if we allow the experience to teach us).

 Sometimes we are not ready to receive what we want but through the process of waiting and working towards it, we are becoming the person we need to be. And when I look back, I see that's why I didn't pass.

 No way would I have been ready to achieve that level of success if I had passed first time. I probably would have become big headed boasting that I passed the New York Bar exam first time while living and working in the UK and only having 4 months to prepare for it.

 Although I was only 25 marks short of what I needed to pass the exams, I saw that my work and study ethic was quite lazy to be honest. I didn't take in all the tips and advice that were given to me throughout the course and leading up to the exam. Though I did make sacrifices, looking back there were things I didn't do because either I couldn't be bothered to do them or because it was too uncomfortable for me, such as waking up early in the morning to study before going to work and opting only to study in the evenings and weekends. 

There are different reasons why other people didn't pass but for me, I saw the reasons mentioned above were why I didn't pass. I only realised this when I did some soul searching, a self analysis and reflection of my journey so far.

 I knew that in order for me to be fully prepared to sit the exam again, I would need to up my game. I would need to have a completely different mindset, basically be the version of myself that I needed to be, to become a lawyer and not just a person with the potential to become a lawyer.

My Journey to the New York Bar - The Exam Results

A few months after sitting the bar exams in July, the anticipated day arrived… the exam results.

I had moments where I felt really anxious and fearful at the possibility of failing. To me, failure was not an option because I had invested too much time and money into this.  I had never experienced this level of anxiety over exam results. Not at school, college, university or waiting for my postgraduate exam results! Then again, the bar exam was a whole different ball game!

A week or so before the main bar exam results came out, I received my exam results for the New York Law Exam (NYLE) and failed by one mark! I couldn't believe it, just one mark away from passing. When I reflected on my attitude and the time I actually put into preparing for the NYLE, I honestly thought it would be a walk in the park and therefore I didn't dedicate as much study time to it as I should have. Even though it was an open book exam, I didn't really use my notes to double check my answers before submitting them. So this was definitely a knock back for my confidence especially as I was still waiting for the other exam results.

I had reached a point where I had to put the anxiety in God's hands and say to myself, ‘if I pass, then great, if not, it's not the end of the world!’ From the moment I did this, I had peace inside of me and I was no longer worried about my results. I started planning for the next one.

The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) was coming up in November 2016 and I decided to book my place and flight ticket to sit the exam in New York. This was the third exam needed to qualify as an attorney in New York. All together there are three exams applicants to the New York Bar have to pass which are; 1) the two-day multistate bar exams 2) the New York Law exam 3) the MPRE.

By mid October I had my place confirmed and started studying for the MPRE. Bar Bri International sent me the booklet that contained all the materials needed for the exam. This one didn't look as difficult as the others and the recommendation given was to spend around 25 hours studying, which would be enough to pass. As I started to study for it, I developed a tooth abscess which was so painful I couldn't concentrate properly. My face started to swell up and the dentist prescribed me with antibiotics.

October 28, 2016, I was in bed feeling unwell. When I woke up around 8am, I checked my phone and saw a lot of WhatsApp notifications. They were from the Bar Bri Crew group chat created for those who were enrolled onto the home study programme for the bar exam. The exam results had been released!!! I quickly went to check my emails.

I opened the PDF document and starting reading though the opening sentence which read.. “You are hereby notified that you did not pass the New York State Bar Exam..” I became somewhat numb. I just sat on my bed staring at the document, then put my phone aside and lay flat on my back. I don't know if it was because I was feeling unwell at that time, but I had no reaction whatsoever at that moment. My heart didn't sink as I expected it to. I just laid there…