The Complete Bar Writer
First edition, 2020
Includes free online support in Core Knowledge for Lawyers (coreknowledgeforlawyers.com).
The Complete Bar Writer teaches readers how to prepare for the Multistate Performance Test and the Multistate Essay Exam (and similar bar performance tests and essay exams). Readers learn how to transfer the legal writing knowledge that they learned in law school to the bar exam, and how to build upon that foundation with skills specific to bar exam success. The book also fills gaps in readers’ knowledge by teaching legal writing, analysis, and reading—and how to do all of those things under pressure. These skills are useful lawyering skills that readers can use after test day.
As readers prepare for the bar exam, they will learn how to approach any MPT problem, no matter what kind of document they’re assigned to write; how to evaluate their own practice exams and carry that knowledge forward to do better on their next ones; how to prepare for test day; and how to prepare for things that might go wrong. The Complete Bar Writer meets readers where they are with their legal writing knowledge and ensures they have the skills they need on bar exam day.
Praise
The Complete Bar Writer is the resource bar takers need to score high on the written portion of the bar exam, especially the MPT. In an easy-to-read follow-up to their successful The Complete Legal Writer, the authors creatively tie the legal research and writing skills students develop in their 1L year to success on the essay and MPT portions of the bar exam. Test takers and academic support professionals will particularly appreciate the step by step process that the book offers for successfully completing the MPT, as well as the annotated samples of the commonly tested MPT tasks. Guidance on reverse outlining, self-assessment, and test-taking strategies is icing on the cake. With The Complete Bar Writer you can write your way to a passing score on the bar exam.
-O.J. Salinas, Director, Academic Excellence Program and Clinical Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
The Complete Bar Writer is essential not just for effective bar prep but also legal practice. It is replete with strategies to analyze and write the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) efficiently and effectively by helping bar takers understand, dissect, and tackle the MPT under time pressure. But it doesn’t stop there. Like its older sister, the Complete Legal Writer, this text helps its readers develop skills and habits necessary for effective law practice. Recognizing that the bar exam is the beginning not the end of the road, The Complete Bar Writer draws on the genre discovery approach to help bar takers prepare to write any task they might receive as part of the MPT as well as in their subsequent practice. Additionally, by emphasizing legal writing techniques and principles, this new text empowers bar takers to develop habits of practice, self-assessment, and refining their legal writing abilities to both pass the bar and be highly effective attorneys.
-Kaci Bishop, Clinical Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law