“What Should You Be Doing in April for Bar Prep?”

Daniel Garrett
Mar 25
3 min read

Updated: Mar 28

What Should You Be Doing in April for Bar Prep?

If you are starting bar prep in April, you are already ahead of most people.

But here is the problem. Most students waste April because they do not have an actual plan.

They:

do random MBE questions without understanding the law
passively read outlines
or jump into full timed practice way too early

You end up spinning your wheels for months without building real skills or learning the substantive law.

What April Is Actually For

April is about building two foundations.

1) writing and 2) substantive understanding

Not speed. Not volume. Not testing yourself blindly. You are learning how the exam works and how the law is tested.

Step 1: Learn Your Specific Essay Structure

Take the time now to decide exactly how you want to structure your essays.

Do you bold and capitalize your issue headings?
Do you break down each rule element and analyze it separately?
What is your formatting and organization?

This should be locked in before June.

If you wait, you will waste valuable time figuring out structure instead of improving your answers.

Step 2: Work on Analysis

Most students struggle with analysis. They know the rule, but they do not know how to apply it. April is where you fix that.

Focus on actually applying the law to the facts:

explain why a fact matters
connect each fact to a specific rule element
walk through the reasoning step by step

Do not just restate facts. Do not just state the rule. Instead, methodically use one fact at a time to create an analysis sentence. Do this untimed (more below) so you have the opportunity to think critically and form sound arguments.

Step 3: Start Writing Essays Early (Untimed and Open Book!)

Most students avoid essays early because they feel uncomfortable. That is a mistake.

In April:

write one essay per day
do it open book
focus on issue spotting and rule statements

You are not trying to be fast yet. You are trying to understand how essays are structured and how answers are built.

Step 4: Do Not Memorize, Learn

Do not rush into memorization before you understand the concepts. If you do not understand how something works in practice, memorizing it will not help.

For example:

Do you actually understand how issue preclusion and claim preclusion function in real situations? If not, that is what you should be working on now.

When you understand the concept:

issue spotting becomes easier
analysis becomes clearer
memorization becomes faster

Understanding comes first.

Step 5: Build the Right Habits Now

Everything you do in April carries into May and June. If you:

rush
guess
skip rule review

You will reinforce bad habits that are very hard to fix later.

Biggest Mistake in April

Trying to simulate exam conditions too early. There should be nothing timed or closed book attempted before May. No 100 MBE sets to see where you are, and definitely no memorizing. Think about how difficult memorizing is during bar prep. You study something all day then cannot remember it the next day. You are not going to memorize something in April and recall it in late July.

Final Takeaway

April is where you build your base. If you do this right, your June and July become much easier and you will have the luxury of spending more time on niche areas that can drastically improve your score rather than drowning in the basics. If you do this wrong, you will spend the summer trying to fix problems you created early.

If You Are Waiting on Results

This is the most overlooked window in bar prep. Right now, you are in between cycles. You might have passed. You might be retaking. Most people respond to that uncertainty by doing nothing. That is a mistake. You do not need to fully commit yet, but you should be doing enough to stay sharp and build a foundation in case you need it.

Here is the right approach:

Keep your study light but consistent
Focus on structure and understanding, not memorization
Write a few essays each week to stay familiar with issue spotting
Identify weak areas from your last attempt

If you passed, then you get to stop! No harm done. If you did not pass, at least now you are not starting from zero. You already have some momentum. That is the difference between spending May catching up and spending May improving. Most students lose this entire month because they are waiting for results before doing anything. That delay carries into the rest of their prep.