Bar Exam Essay Writing Tip

When you think you’ve come upon the “answer” that the test writers are fishing for on a given legal issue, ask yourself whether you’d entirely give up on that issue if you were getting paid to argue the other side.

If you would not entirely give up on the issue, argue the point you’d argue for your client. Not a great argument, but still a plausible one? Let the graders know that as well. These essay questions are often written not to extract an answer as if it were an AP Calculus exam, but instead to determine whether the candidate is able to appreciate the uncertainty. “On the other hand” (the concept more than those words) will take you far on bar exam essays. Sometimes there is no uncertainty. But more often than not, the questions are written to trap people into the instinctive drive to give the answer they think is the correct, and only, one.