Certainty in Essay Questions - Analysis Determined by Facts

“After years of law school experiences and a Juris Doctor and/or an LLM degree, is there something about writing for essay questions that I haven't heard of? ”

"Issue spotting, using facts fully, connecting facts to law to reach a conclusion, IRAC, arguing from both sides, outlining your essay questions before starting writing, and assigning time to spend on each issue before starting writing... I've been doing these in my law school exams. What difference does it make to know another system, an additional way of writing essays?”

It is important to point out that the System of writing for Bar Exams here is not "another system" in the sense that it builds on our legal writing skills developed in writing essay questions for law school exams and our knowledge of the substantive laws. It means a law school graduate already has the necessary "sword" against the Bar Exam beast and the necessary "stamina" needed to wield it.

To some people, however, these two necessary factors (sword representing legal writing skills and stamina representing knowledge of substantive laws), important and necessary as they are, do not automatically become sufficient to pass the Bar Exam on their own.

This could be simply because they type slower than others; therefore, they have fewer words to express the same essential meaning or hit the checking points where grades are awarded in half or even 1/3 of words than a typical sample answer published by the State Bar of California. This means it is not negotiable that they must make sure every single word they put down on the answer sheet counts and is rewarded as a grade. They don't have the resources and luxury to write in the risky "freestyle" mode (making writing form decisions on the spot at will) or the incorrect "story-telling" mode (here is the fact of what happened; here is the law; therefore, I reach a conclusion; it is often disguised in a sloppy form of IRAC and it makes little difference to the grader when quality analysis is missing).

It could be because they lack the necessary stamina to wield the sword—there is a lack of substantive law knowledge in the particular law being tested. This is actually a quicker fix than changing one's essay writing style because it can be fixed by knowing the particular piece of law. Writing paraphrased laws is part of the System, too, and more on that later.

The System helps to lift them above the passing line or even a high passing line when it guides them in the "specifics" in each process of essay writing on the Bar Exam: this means they are guided in knowing what facts to annotate in the first read when there is no time to re-read everything later while not annotating everything because this becomes a distract and a formality; what facts must be analyzed and what are informational; what facts trigger what issues and what issues are major and minor; how much time roughly spend on each issue using the pertinent facts given; what are the different forms of IRAC and when to use them to optimize rewarding grades under time restriction; what depth of analysis means sufficient analysis has already been done that sufficient grades have already been harvest for an issue, a question, or an essay because it is crucial for passing the overall Bar Exam that they move timely to the next issue, question, or essay that they hit the most numbers of checking points for grades...

The "extra" the System offers is a combination of the specifics that give an examinee a degree of Certainty in essay writing sufficient for passing the Bar—a sword with a sharper blade specifically tailored for "piercing the Bar Exam veil," which is a different beast than the law school exams—a customized sword that a law school graduate has the stamina to wield and learn its ways.

The degree of certainty also comes from knowing what to expect, how to react, and what to do before actually sitting for the bar exam. This is muscle memory, the result of repeatedly applying the System to real past Bar Exam questions. A consistent "competitive advantage" is gained in the process of hard training because you have a degree of certainty of what to do, and thus less spontaneous and risky decisions are made in the actual exam on the spot. This also results in efficiency. You realize it when writing in the "flow state" of muscle memory. Finally, Consistent and efficient high-quality performance brings consistent grades.

The System is backward compatible with law school exams. This sword can also be used in "piercing the law school exam veils" because it allows one to write concise but effective legal analyses using the facts fully in IRAC and its customized forms. I wish I had known it before my 1L journey.