California Bar Exam Essay Books

My last post talked about where to find real MBE questions, and specifically about the books you can buy to study for the MBE. In this post, I want to talk about the two books I have experience with using to prepare for the bar. The first book I will talk about is Jeff Adachi’s book called  Bar Breaker. The second book I want to talk about is Essay Exam Writing for the California Bar Exam. These are two very different books on the same topic, and I think both have a lot to offer.

1. Bar Breaker by Jeff Adachi

Bar Breaker was highly recommended to me by a law school professor. In his book, Jeff Adachi provides a lot of insights into attacking each essay (he talks about visualizing the fact pattern), then takes some time to break down the subject into how you can think about it for the purpose of crafting an essay. Then, for some essays, especially at the beginning, he will walk you through the whole process from start to finish. It all culminates with a “model” answer written by Jeff Adachi and a self-scoring assessment sheet.

I think this book has a really great introduction for someone who has never taken the bar exam and has no idea how it is graded. This will provide a lot of insights into the grading process that I don’t think you will find in another book, or from your commercial prep course for that matter. Because Jeff Adachi provides model answers that are not straight off of the Cal Bar website, I think this gives the reader perhaps a clearer picture of what is expected in a well-written answer. Unlike some of the model answers selected by the examiners (these should be given weight, too, keep in mind), Jeff Adachi’s model answers are much shorter and to the point. He is a big proponent of keeping things brief, and I think there is a lot to be said of this writing style.

I like this book because I like how much Jeff Adachi has done to explain the actual process behind writing an essay. Where I think this book falls short is that it doesn’t provide as much in the way of actual substantive rules (it keeps referring you to another book in the Bar Breaker series) and the book needs to be edited for typos– there are lot. In terms of actual helpfulness though, I think this book is worthwhile. But, I think this book should be supplemented with another source for examples of essays written in a different style in order to stay aware of all the styles that are appropriate for the bar exam.

I also like this book because Jeff Adachi just seems like such a badass. And you can’t argue with that.

2.Essay Exam Writing for the California Bar Exam by Mary Basick

This book is so different from Jeff Adachi’s book, and I think could work as a good foil to Bar Breaker if used together. The introduction is short and to the point. Then, the book moves onto short attack outlines, longer outlines, subject testing charts, and sample essays for every subject. I really appreciate that unlike Jeff Adachi’s book, you get substantive review. I think the short attack memorization outlines are very helpful in organizing the information in a way that is capable of being memorized. However, I do feel that the outlines leave out some important substantive rules and keep others too abbreviated. If a more obscure issue gets tested on the bar, these outlines are still going to leave you scratching your head to some extent. While Barbri and Kaplan overload you with information, I think this book might have edited a little too much.

Where I think the book really falls short is in its lack of recent subject matter. Many of the sample essays are from the 90s. While this is helpful in that essays from the 90s are no longer on the Cal Bar website, it also feels slightly outdated. I also don’t like that there are only model answers for one to two essays per subject and then charted answers for the rest. I just don’t think this is necessarily as helpful as it could be. I do like that the charts bold the rule statements and fact analysis the author believes would be necessary to include in a passing score. That way, you don’t feel like you wouldn’t receive a passing score just because you happened to miss out on the obscure judicial notice issue, for example.

I used this book predominantly for the substantive content and less for the charts and practice essays. Of the two, for the purpose of studying for the essays, I think Jeff Adachi’s book has the slight edge. But, if you can afford it, I would definitely recommend purchasing both, especially if you are looking for short memorization attack outlines specifically for the essays.

Hope this helps!

Calbarista

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