Exercise actually helps you study...

For quite a while now, I've been a proponent of the newer educational theories linking physical activity and exercise to improved mental performance. Here's a link to one of my videos on the subject.




Last week the following article quoted Dr John Ratey, who wrote the book "Spark" that I reference in my work. I think the article is worth a read...


“Exercise doesn’t make you smarter…it just makes you normal.” This great quote from John Medina in Brain Rules illustrates the essential role that physical activity plays in maintaining a sharp mind. The brain is best at solving problems related to surviving in an unstable environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. This is what the brain did for virtually all of human history until we engineered the need for physical activity out of everyday life.


Rush to the Head
Exercise literally increases the blood volume in a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus, a vital part of the hippocampus. Exercise also stimulates BDNF, a protein which exerts a fertilizer-like growth effect on certain neurons. This protein keeps existing neurons young and healthy, rendering them much more willing to connect with one another. It also encourages neurogenesis, the formation of new cells in the brain. The cells most sensitive to this are in the hippocampus, inside the very regions deeply involved to human cognition and memory.
It’s what happens after exercise that optimizes the brain. Exercise increases levels of IGF-1 (a growth hormone), and in the hippocampus IGF-1 increases neuroplasticity (the way we learn associations with things), and neurogenesis. It’s another way exercise helps our neurons bind.
“The way exercise changes our brains is more effective than wine, medicines, and doughnuts,” says John Ratey, author of Spark. But too often, this is what we use to attempt to manage stress.


Find Stress Relief
Stress, lack of exercise, and junk food harms your brain. Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. The hormones released in response to stress are meant for immediate danger response, not chronic stress. Chronic stress makes adrenaline scar blood vessels while cortisol damages the cells of the hippocampus. Since exercise influences metabolism, it serves as a powerful way to influence synaptic function, and thus the way we think and feel.
As hard as it might be right now, instead of wine, medicine and doughnuts, what might be best to deal with stress is to get moving. Even if it’s just taking a short walk. The more you move, the better you’ll feel. Your movement choices don’t have to be exercise or nothing. A little exercise with a lot of movement in general can help you cope with stress – a great coping strategy to have at this time of year.
No matter how sharp or smart you are, your brain gets better with physical activity. It has a 100% effectiveness rate and the side effects are a healthier body as well!"


Great advice and I encourage you to try it for yourself. It will make a difference!

Exam Perceptions can be Deceiving...

The Nov 2011 MPRE results came out yesterday and as usual, most people passed and by wide margins. Our students all currently report  passing, which is good news!
What strikes me about the results, however, is a fairly common refrain that I hear after EVERY standardized exam (MBE, MPRE) but fortunately not from every student. It basically goes like this:
"The test was really hard. I never saw questions that tough. I'm sure I failed."
This is always troubling but with the MPRE it's almost laughable. You see, a person taking the exam has very poor perspective on the process. In the "heat" of the moment, every question seems inscruitable and every answer choice filled with nuance and danger. Fortunately, to mis-paraphrase Freud, "sometimes a bar exam question is just a bar exam question..."  In other words, perceptions of a test-taker can be deceiving and the feedback after the exam that claims a "doom and gloom" result is often misplaced. 
In the case of the MPRE, this is almost always true. The test is actually pretty easy and unless you talk yourself out of correct answers and over-think the exam or treat it as a test of your personal morality, you should pass.
One of our MPRE students was certain he had failed the Nov test and equally certain that the length and complexity of the questions was extreme. He was quite specific about how few questions took less than a page of the answer book so we went to the source - the NCBE, (who write and score the exam) to ask if something had changed. Of course, their response was "No. It's the same test for many years now." And the student's test results?
You guessed it. He passed. :-)
So if you're in a post-mortem session about a test, try to keep some perspective and if you have none, move on. You can't change the test after the fact and it does little good to brood over the test itself. 
We keep a pretty close eye on the tests and what the examiners are doing. It's one reason our results continue to outperform the averages in every jurisdiction where we prepare students for the exams. Your perceptions as a test taker are like those warnings on side view car mirrors: "objects may be closer than they appear" to which I would add, "and easier."

California Bar Results...Explained

Once again, the CA Bar Exam results are out and once again, the overall pass rates are awful. The overall pass rate was 54.8%, by far the lowest in the nation.


While we at Celebration Bar Review had much higher overall pass rates (close to 70%) that's still a significant number of failures and it's caused me to spend some time trying to analyze the bigger picture of what's going on with the California exam, and more specifically the scoring.


Here's my theory:
The most important score in California has apparently become the MBE number. If it is not a passing equivalent (approx 128 raw or 1440 scaled) it doesn't appear that the written part of the exam is being graded in such a way as to be truly "compensatory." In other words, in some jurisdictions (such as Georgia) if the applicant's MBE score is not high enough, the essays are not graded at all and a failing result is applied. In California, the same result is achieved but without quite as much candor. If the MBE score is not at a passing level, I think the essays and performance tests are only read in a perfunctory manner and assigned a relatively narrow range of scores. This quick scoring level (50-65) is simply not enough to overcome the lower MBE score and so the result is a nearly "automatic" failure.


What I'm seeing from those of our students who failed is that when their MBE score is below passing the written Raw scores are nearly uniform at 570-580 total. I don't think this is a coincidence, particularly since the quality of the practice essays of these students varied by far more than the 10 points shown in the official score results.


If my theory is incorrect, we should see a lot of results from applicants with a "passing" MBE score but a failing written score and an overall fail. In my experience, that is not happening now. If you had such a score, I'd love to see your score sheet. 


Otherwise, I think what we're really seeing is a de-facto non-grading of the written part of the exam based on the applicant's MBE score. In a perverse way, it makes sense for the examiners to do this since it minimizes grader resources on those exams that statistically have a much lower or nearly impossible chance of becoming an overall passing test. This would allow graders to spend more time on written work that could in fact tip the compensatory balance in favor of passing or failing. 


Still, I think it would be far more forthcoming to simply acknowledge this process or to require a minimum MBE threshold before the essays are read and graded. Until that time, I plan to focus  on the MBE score first for our California students and the written work secondarily. 

Why the big bar reviews fail...

I've just finished reading Walter Isaacson's wonderful biography of Steve Jobs. Near the end of his life, Jobs makes a statement about why the large tech companies have gone into decline:
"The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they're the ones who can move the needle on revenues...So the salespeople end up running the company."


I think the same analysis holds true in the bar review. The early pioneers in the bar review field were innovators at one time, but as they gained near monopoly strength, they stopped innovating. Indeed, they stopped teaching and began to simply put their energy, their resources and their focus on selling rather than on helping students learn how to pass the bar.


Compounding the problem is that the large bar reviews rely on law schools who simply don't hire professors who can teach. In a NY Times article this week, the point was made that law schools don't teach lawyering. One reason, according to the article: "there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching. ... it won't win them any professional goodies, like tenure, a higher salary, prestige, or competing offers from better schools."  In other words, the schools don't teach, the big bar reviews hire the professors who don't teach and the student is woefully prepared for the bar and for a life of practice should they ever get past the exam.


Into this mess comes the law student with a six figure debt and no clue about how to get through the exam and to find a job. That's why I take our task at Celebration Bar Review so seriously. Instead of focusing on marketing, we focus on teaching. Over the last 20 years, education has made huge strides and we have attempted to implement them to our students' advantage through the use of technology, stress management, multiple intelligences, directed personal feedback and more.


The big bar reviews, and their companions, the big law schools, still live in the world of the Harvard Law School of the 70's - the 1870's - and Christopher Langdell's case method. It is just now being understood by the consumers of legal education that they are being cheated by their school - and their big bar review - when those institutions and corporations fail to adapt and integrate substance with effective teaching pedagogy. A system of education based on the assembly line "stand and deliver" model of Dean Langdell is doomed in our fast and competitive world. But don't tell that to the big bar reviews. They've invested millions in classroom settings, canned lectures and ponderous books that haven't changed more than an iota since they were created. And why should they? As long as the "salesmen" run the process, it's all good - at least for the companies.


But it doesn't have to be that way. Change can happen. #OccupyWallSt can become #OccupyBigBarReview.  It can be done. At Celebration, we continue to have pass rates that far exceed the state averages, and often with a student base of repeat takers and foreign attorneys who are often the least likely to succeed. How do we do it? By continuing to innovate, research and employ the best technology and teaching methods with a passion for our students and not just our bottom line. 


Something that the others should think about...

NJ Results have been released...kind of

Go figure. The NJ results were released this morning without comment or explanation from the Examiners. At least they are out and good luck to everyone who took the exam!
...and NOW it just gets weirder...
Apparently about 400 applicants have been told that their results are not yet available and no further explanation has been given by the Examiners. This is consistent with our previous information that approximately 400 exams were missing, so it is entirely possible that there was in fact a problem and it has not yet been resolved. Go figure...

NJ Bar Results

Here's what we know as of now... 
Normally, NJ exam results come out at about the same time as NY results. Those came out a couple of weeks ago. July results typically arrive for NJ applicants by Nov 10 at the latest and we're obviously beyond that point now.
We have made contacts with the Examiners and with some of our other sources to try and find out what's happened. As is often the case, when (and if) there is a problem, the Examiners go into a "lockdown" mode until a resolution has been decided upon. As a result, there is no "official" information to report.
As you probably have heard, there are unconfirmed rumors that essays may have been lost. We think that's probably the case since absent a problem the results would typically be released. We know that there was not a problem with the MBE and so that leaves only the NJ essays as the source of any difficulty.
We should point out that this is not an unprecedented situation. It has happened in other jurisdictions and other test administrations and if true, the NJ Examiners have several options. They can simply erase that question (or perhaps questions) for everyone, or they can impute the equivalent of a passing score on that question(s) for those applicants whose answers were lost. It has NOT been our experience that the entire test would be invalidated or that applicants would be required to retake the exam, however, that decision is state-specific and will be made by the appropriate bar authorities when and if it is necessary.
When will results come out? The NJ Examiners have continued to say it will be the end of this week and we hope that's correct, however, we would not be surprised to see results held until as late as the middle of December.
We'll let you know when we find out anything further.

Studying for the bar exam on an iPad

One of the things I hear a lot lately are happy, surprised students who are discovering how much they really, REALLY like studying on their iPad with Celebration Bar Review's iBar program. So, when I saw this article last week about why people are excited about learning content on an iPad I wanted to share it with our readers.


I absolutely agree with the author about the novelty, portability and ease of use with tablets but I would add this about the use of an iPad for the bar - it just makes it all manageable.


Anyone who's received the stacks of bar review books and (in the old days, tapes or CDs) knows how overwhelming the process could be. I'm sure that many people took one look at the box and mentally gave up on their studies. The same for those in classroom courses - too much information, too fast and too many distractions. Not a good way to study productively.


Instead, today with our iBar program, everything you need to study for the test is in the palm of your hand. There's even a study guide book built in to the device!


We were the first bar review to put our course online, the first to use iPods, the first to offer tablet apps and of course, the first to put our entire course catalog on the iPad. We're proud of those firsts because they each represent a focus on the student and the learning rather than the marketing and the hype. If you're looking for a course that knows how to integrate technology and teaching, take a look at our offerings. Like our current students, we think you'll be impressed!

20 Hours a Week

We're now less than 4 months from the Feb 2012 exam and this is a time when I encourage students to actively begin their studies. My suggestion is that a Feb student starting now spend between 10-20 hours per week in study at this point.

Why an upper limit of 20 hours? Shouldn't you spend more, cram more, memorize more, stress more? Isn't that what the bar exam is all about?

Not really. It makes for good drama and a few "sympathy rounds" from friends and family but it's really not necessary to spend more than 20 hours a week studying.

And why that top limit? Well, in my experience, most people can manage up to 20 hours of study time ON TOP OF work, family, church, social commitments and such. Go much beyond that number and you're into full time study mode (which is fine for those just graduating from school but unnecessary and unlikely for everyone else). Above 20 hours a week and you'll burn out or something else will have to go (not a good option for children, spouses and employers!). 

The good news is that 15-20 hours right now is plenty of study time if you know WHAT and HOW to study. As one of my current students who has passed three other bars wrote to me today:

"I have heard numerous people say the couldn't do law school because

they couldn't "memorize all the cases."   When I said that you could sail
through lawschool at the top of your class without knowing the name of more
than a few cases -- Palsgraf, Miranda -- and that you never had to cite them
by name in a test, they probably thought I had smoked my lunch.  It is all
about thinking like a lawyer, I tell them, and it is that style of thinking
that makes people hate lawyers."

He's right. You don't need to memorize for the bar exam either and that's why a "smart" course won't push you to memorize and recite and spend more than 20 hours per week trying to cram it in when it's not necessary. Just something to think about today...

Are law schools and bar exams necessary? Really?

A recent op-ed in the NY Times makes the "case" for de-regulating the legal profession and doing away with both law schools and the bar exam. Obviously, as a bar review provider, I have a bias in preserving my business, but I also happen to believe in the importance of professional testing. 

The article's author, Clifford Winston, a Sr Fellow at the Brookings Institute is a fan of deregulation of all types but here he makes a series of bizarre assumptions about what lawyers do and why the free market would improve access to legal services. If lawyering was simply a matter of filling out templates in routine matters, he might be right, but that's a very small part of the profession. In fact, the need to analyze and rigorously advocate for a client (in court, in writing and in negotiation)  should not be something only the wealthy have access to while the rest of the population can just make do with non-lawyers. 

Winston's proposal that we simply allow anyone to practice law including corporations (since the Supreme Court thinks they're just dandy - WalMart Legal Services anyone?) is fanciful free-market foolishness. It appears that the only people who would actually have access to trained lawyers under his proposal would be the very wealthy. Too bad for all those alleged criminals and poor people who currently rely on legal aid and public defenders.

Really? Seriously? I'm wondering who Mr Winston would use for HIS legal work?

I suppose that deregulation thing worked so well in the financial industry and the airlines and the telephone business that we ought to just try it once more and see if we can get it right this time. Or, we can continue to improve legal education and the testing methods and standards that currently exist to work towards a better level of legal service for everyone. 

A big week for bar results...

Typically, the last week in Oct and first week in November are a time for lots of jurisdictions to post the July bar exam results. We expect Georgia Bar Exam Results on Oct 28 and are watching for Texas Bar Exam Results on Nov 4. 
New York and New Jersey don't have announced Bar Exam Score release dates yet but we expect both jurisdictions to report by Nov 4. We'll let you know on our website when those results come out and best wishes to everyone waiting for their scores!

A Wonderful Note...

I received this email today from one of our students and wanted to share it...
"You have put together a very special way of explaining to anyone who should cross your path and join you in this walk with materials that are out of the box....but have every component necessary for success. I am blessed to have found you on the day I did, swallowing a little of my pride, because my dream is to become the attorney necessary to help the babies and children with disabilities be represented."


That's pretty cool on a lot of levels but what I really like about it is the focus on the "WHY." Taking the bar exam is not a lot of fun (really?) and it requires hours away from family, friends, work and other activities of intrinsic value. There has to be a reason to put yourself through this. I've learned time and again that those who have a WHY do better on the test than those who simply DO. If you're studying for the exam, ask yourself what the WHY is and keep your focus there. It will help pull you through the hard times of the study...
 

What do you expect from your bar review?

I'm constantly talking with people who have taken the bar with another course and failed, and I often wonder why they settled for an inferior course at a higher price? Why were their expectations so low? In this video, I try to provide some answers to that question... and a solution. I hope you'll watch!

eBook Downloads

Go Green and Save $$ on Bar Review Books.


If you're looking for the lowest price on Celebration Bar Review course books, here it is: eBook Downloads from our order page!
Each title is available separately in an .epub format that can be used with Apple iTunes or iBooks or any epub reader. Order the titles you need at the lowest prices anywhere. Only from Celebration Bar Review.

When someone you know fails the bar exam...

One of the most common Google searches we receive is: 

"advice to give to someone who failed a test"

It's always tough to know how to console someone who has failed a high-stakes test like the bar exam. Fortunately for us, most of our students pass, but there are always those who do not receive the required score and so it's necessary to talk about what it means and what to do next. 

We've put some of our best suggestions and advice for those who have failed their bar exams on our website. Here's the link. 

If someone you know failed their bar exam, take a look at the suggestions on this page and then suggest that the bar taker look at it as well. Over the years, we've found that these 10 steps are important to move forward and ultimately pass the test. 


We've also made a short video that you or your bar-taker will find useful. It's on YouTube and here's the link. The title is "Why Do Some People Fail the Exam?"

Books for the Bar Review

We know that in tough economic times, many bar takers will have to make some hard choices about how to study for their exam. That's why Celebration Bar Review offers lots of different course options and formats at a variety of prices. Here's a link to our Fees Page. 


In addition, we've just added a new option for those who only want or can afford the written course materials: eBooks available by title directly from our order page. 
With this option, you can order individual titles from our course catalog at the lowest prices available and have immediate access via online eBook format. This is the format used by the iPad, iPhone and iTouch devices from Apple.


If you're looking for Kindle-compatible files or our traditional printed books you can still purchase our books directly from Amazon or from Lulu. In other words, there are lots of choices. We hope you'll find just the right one to help you pass your bar exam!

If you're waiting for exam results...

We know that this can be an anxious time for those waiting for their July bar exam results. A while back, I recorded this video that students have told me was quite helpful while they waited and I wanted to share it with you. Here's the link.  Watch it and let me know what you think, and of course, best wishes on your results! We'll let you know how our students do as results come in for the jurisdictions we teach...

A wonderful note we received today...

Here's an email that we received today:

"I wish to write a quick thank you for your help passing the bar exam.  I didn't take your course because you do not teach my jurisdiction (DE), but in looking for pointers on the exam I found your YouTube videos and watched just about all of them.  I was impressed with your advice and tried to incorporate it into my study as much as I could.  I'm certain it made a significant difference, especially the parts entitled "Shifts in the Bar Exam."  


I've been licensed in PA since 2009 but want to practice closer to home in DE (the commute to Philadelphia each day is getting old).  Standing in my way was the DE Bar Exam, which I'm sure you know is very challenging.  I know this from experience, having failed it rather miserably the first time around.  After this failure, I set out to do things differently (i.e., better) this year.  With your help, I adopted a different attitude and a new perspective towards the bar.  I started studying earlier and was honest with myself about my strengths and weaknesses and what I needed to do to get better.  When the exam came, I left each of the three days with my head up, knowing that I was well prepared and had given my best effort.  I found out this morning that I passed.  

Although I'm not a customer of yours, I hope you can take away some satisfaction that you've made a positive difference in my life, helping me achieve a very important goal.  For that I sincerely thank you, and hope that others (especially your paying customers!) also find your advice and perspective as helpful as I have.  Thanks again." F.D.

Pretty cool :-)

If you missed the live video feed...

We've got an archive copy online that you can watch at your convenience. I hope you'll take a look and let us know what you think. It was a lot of fun to do and we hope to do more in the near future.
Here's the link:
http://livestre.am/149hu

Live Video Discussion on Wed Oct 5

On Wed, Oct 5 at 8pm Eastern, I'm going to be doing a free live video chat on our Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/CelebrationBarReview) and I hope you'll join me! 
For an hour, I'll be taking questions about the bar exam, study strategy and anything else that bar takers want to know about the process (for obvious reasons I won't be answering specific substantive law questions) but everything else is fair game.


We have limited bandwidth for this video, so it's necessary to RSVP. Just go to our Facebook page and click on the Events Tab on the left side and click "will attend." You don't need to be a Facebook member to participate. 


Prior to the event, please feel free to post any questions you'd like me to address. You can put them here, or on the Facebook page or email me at jackson@celebrationbarreview.com or Twitter them to @CelebrationBar.


During the event, you can also post any new or follow up questions and comments and I'll respond as time permits. 
It should be a fun experience and a useful hour!

Should you use a former bar grader as a tutor?

I had an interesting phone call yesterday from a former student who told me that there was a former bar exam grader now working in his law office. Apparently she's also moonlighting as a bar exam tutor. Now, I have no idea who she is or what her credentials are. For all I know, she's great and will be a big help to people, but I do have some thoughts in general on the value of former bar graders as bar exam tutors...
First, I don't think there's any correlation between being a former bar grader and a current -- and effective -- bar teacher. They are 2 entirely different skill sets. Most bar graders are relatively recent members of the bar who are either in need of some extra part time money or "encouraged" by their firms to do the work as pro bono service to the bar. Either way, these are not experienced law professors, nor even particularly good law students or lawyers. They are employees and/or volunteers (depending on the state jurisdiction) who are given relatively little discretion and have fairly specific tasks to do. How that translates to teaching others how to pass the bar - the whole bar - not just the one essay or performance test that the grader worked on - is a mystery to me.


To put it another way: I have taken Pilates classes for many years. I'm a decent student and enjoy the activity. I've worked with some really good, certified Pilates trainers. Does that qualify me to teach others how to do these workouts? I certainly hope not! And I know it doesn't qualify me to do strength training or weightlifting or Yoga. They are all different skills. I don't have the certification, the training, or the background to help others and so I don't advertise myself as a "former Pilates student" available for private workout sessions. Get it?


The second point I'd make to those who are considering using a former bar grader to teach them how to pass the bar is to look at what materials they are using. If the tutor doesn't have their own materials but simply uses another course's books and lectures, you're missing out on a lot. Anyone who's serious about this work simply has to have their own course syllabus, books and lectures. Anything less is either a shortcut (at the student's expense) or a violation of someone else's copyrights. You wouldn't be very comfortable attending a law school class where the professor had no materials or syllabus of their own but simply copied verbatim from another teacher, would you? In fact, you'd probably say this class was taught by a TA and not the Professor.  Why is this any different?


And finally, here's the real kicker about using former bar graders to help you pass the bar: the assumption you're making is that they have some hidden "insight" into what is passing and what is not. That simply isn't so. Bar exam graders don't give pass or fail grades. They read a specific set of materials and apply the same set of rules that any credible bar review course explains to its students. We do it on day one at Celebration Bar Review. It's not a big deal and definitely not a "secret." Graders are no more than hired "readers" with no discretion and no hidden tricks or insights that you couldn't obtain from a legitimate course to begin with. So what ARE you purchasing when you hire a former bar grader to tutor you? 


Actually, I'm afraid it's not very much...

Welcome to MYCelebration!

In 1995, my wife, Sara and I decided to take the plunge with a new business venture: a home study bar review course based on the then-popular SMH Bar Review course with which I had been affiliated for the last 3 years.  Following my graduation from Georgetown University Law Center and a successful passage of the bar exam using their materials, I had become a regional director and teacher for the live courses we then taught at SMH. With the founder's retirement, we acquired the core materials and decided to convert the course to audio cassette tapes, photocopied books and a lot of prayer that it would all work out.


And boy did it! 


Seventeen years later, we are the leader in personal homestudy bar review courses for the California, New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey and Multistate Bar Exams. We've prepared thousands of students during those years and innovated almost every major advancement in the bar review field: the FIRST bar review online, the FIRST to use iPods, the FIRST to use iPads, the FIRST to provide multiple levels of mentoring, the FIRST to offer free course videos via YouTube, the FIRST to provide full course apps for Apple, Nook, Android, the FIRST to integrate meditation, photo reading and much, much more.


One thing, however, has remained constant through all the technology and educational advancements and improvements: our commitment to students as individuals and to their success as people first and lawyers second. Oh, we've taken some heat for that. You can Google us and find some pretty awful, even downright nasty things that have been written (most of it anonymously), but you'll also find hundreds and hundreds of testimonials from people around the world who've benefited from our Christian approach to this high-stress, high-stakes exam. In fact, most of our business today comes via word-of-mouth as people tell others about their positive experiences with Celebration Bar Review. 
We don't know of any other course with greater customer loyalty than ours. In fact 100% of our 2011 students said they would recommend our course to others!


And that's why we called this blog "MYCelebration!" because ultimately, everyone who takes our course is hoping and planning to have MYCelebration when their results are released. If you're reading this blog, we assume that's your goal as well, so in this blog, we'll post our reactions to the current questions and concerns we hear on a regular basis about how to pass the bar exam. You'll find much of this same material on our YouTube page where we have posted over 75 free videos on a wide range of bar exam preparation subjects. We'd like to hear from you. What do you want to know about the bar? What rumors have you heard? What concerns you about the test? Let us know and we'll give you our thoughts through this forum. We hope you'll bookmark this site and check back often or subscribe so you'll know when new posts are made.