Early Bar Preparation Program

The Whittier Law School Academic Success Program includes an Early Bar Preparation Program. The program is designed to give you a head start on your preparation for the bar examination.

The program consists of a series of workshops, which provide a review of some of the substantive law while giving you an opportunity to practice both essay and multiple-choice questions. The program has been expanded from previous years to cover almost every topic that appears on a typical bar examination, and now will include a simulated Bar Examination.

The program will use materials drawn from the California Bar Examination and the National Conference of Bar Examiners, but the approaches and skills you learn in the program can be used on any bar examination. During the course of the program, you will write practice essay examinations, review and write performance exams and review a number of multistate multiple-choice questions. The program is not designed as a substitute for a full-service bar review course, but it should give you a healthy head start on your preparations.

The Whittier Law School Early Bar Preparation Program consists entirely of live lectures, given over 14 weekends, not including the Simulated Bar Exam. Every topic covered on the California Bar Exam is covered in some form, and practice tests are administered. All the essay topics are addressed.

Since the California Bar Exam tests in three different ways (the MultiState, six essay questions, and two three-hour Performance Exams), we cover each way of testing. Thus, for each of the essay topics, the faculty discuss the topic, and often go over a sample essay question, and students are required to write answers to essay questions. In addition, we devote a particular segment to the art of recognizing and answering crossover questions. We also discuss how to address the multistate questions generally, and then we have separate sessions to address how to prepare for, and answer, multistate questions in those topics. Finally, we have outside commercial entities present free, two-day sessions on the Performance Exam.

The final aspect of the Whittier Law School EBPP is the Simulated Bar Exam. We use real bar exam questions, in exactly the order and at exactly the time and in exactly the manner that students would otherwise be taking the bar exam. It goes for three days in a row. The format mirrors the California Bar Exam: Day 1—three morning essay questions, and an afternoon performance exam; Day 2—the MBE; Day 3—three morning essay questions, and an afternoon performance exam. Students start at 9 a.m., under the watchful eye of proctors, get out for a 1½ hour lunch at noon, restart at 1:30, and get out at 4:30. We offer the Simulated Bar Exam twice during Spring Break—once on Saturday-Monday, for evening students who then only need to take one day off from work; and Tuesday-Thursday, for day students or students whose religious observances would make the Saturday-Monday administration inconvenient.

If you have any questions about any aspect of the Academic Success Program, please feel free to call or stop by, or e-mail me at mmainero@law.whittier.edu. I would be delighted to assist you in any way I can.

Professor Mario Mainero
Director, Academic Success Program