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Is Failing The Bar Exam The End Of Your Legal Career?

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Is Failing The Bar Exam The End Of Your Legal Career?

You put in the time and effort to study for the bar exam and anxiously waited on your results only to learn that you failed. Now what? Does failing the bar exam mean you’ll never be a lawyer? Of course not! There are plenty of people who pass the bar on their second (or more) attempt and go on to have successful legal careers. If you want to do the same, follow these steps.

Is Failing The Bar Exam The End Of Your Legal Career?

1. It’s Okay to Mourn…But Then Get Back to Work

When you first receive your results, you’re bound to feel upset or disappointed. That’s normal, and it’s okay to indulge in those feelings for a few days. In this post, we discuss some very normal reactions to learning you failed the bar exam. Practice some self-care and speak with family and friends who can sympathize with you. But, if you don’t want to fail the bar exam to be the end of your legal career, you’ll need to pick yourself up and dust yourself off sooner rather than later.

If you are quite literally getting back to work after finding out this news, here are some tips on how to tell your boss you failed the bar exam.

2. Figure Out What Went Wrong

Next, conduct a postmortem of your bar prep and the bar exam itself. Did you think you learned the material, only to realize that your understanding was cursory at best on the actual bar exam? Did you try to learn every single MBE topic, instead of focusing on the more highly tested subjects? Or did you simply not sleep enough in the week leading up to the bar leading to poor mental function on test day? Some jurisdictions provide details of a student’s performance on the bar exam for those who failed. Take time to request this information if it’s not automatically sent to you and review it thoroughly. Whatever went wrong, you’ll need to identify it in order to prevent it on your next attempt.

3. Use Better Strategies

Given the sheer volume of the material tested by the bar exam, you need to be strategic and efficient with your study. When you start studying for the bar exam again, you have some valuable information: the strategy you used last time does not work for you. So, it’s time to find a new strategy. Rewatching all your bar review lectures and hoping for the best will not get you the results you want. Instead, you need good materials and a solid understanding of that material. You need to memorize the law, and be able to apply the law to fact patterns. Here are 5 things to do differently to pass the bar exam the next time around.

4. Consider Investing in a Different Approach

If you’re having a hard time figuring out a better strategy for your next bar exam attempt, it may be time to invest in a different approach. Many students benefit from hiring a bar exam tutor or our other tailored bar prep programs. Yes, it can be expensive. But, the right help can put you on the path to passing the bar exam and having the legal career of your dreams.

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