Bar Exam Mindset:
How to Not Go Crazy Studying
for the Bar

Interview with Jennifer Duclair

By Natalie White
Updated: February 15, 2020

Studying for the bar exam can be stressful. There is no denying that. But with the right mindset, you can learn how to understand yourself and stay calm during the exam.

Crushendo interviewed Jennifer Duclair, a professional bar exam success mindset mentor. She provides incredible insights on how you can stay calm during the bar exam.

Having a strong testing mindsight is more than just pessimism or optimism. It is deeper than that. For example, if you have worked hard through law school, made it to the top of your class, and spent tons of time studying for the bar, you might feel like passing the bar is a measure of your success, and a measure of yourself. Then, when you are taking the bar, you have underlying stress and distractions. You are psyching yourself out.

To overcome this, you need to expose and correct those hidden fears and misunderstandings you have about yourself. That is what a bar mentor helps you do. Jennifer Duclair is so passionate about being a bar mentor because she loves helping others discover these fears. As a bar mentor, she helps people understand themselves, because it is “hard to see the label from inside the jar.”

Why use a bar mentor?

First, it will save you time. It is easy to feel like the only way to success is to work yourself to the bone, study all night, and take practice test after practice test. But in reality, taking a moment to meditate, talk to others, and visit with a mentor can get you to a more focused place, so that you can do more in your time. Second, a bar mentor will help you in other areas of your life. It will help you reduce negative self-talk and become more self-aware.

Learn more about bar mentoring by visiting Jennifer Duclair’s website: https://www.jenniferduclair.com/

About the author

Natalie White is a Research Fellow at the Global Politics Lab at BYU studying populism and Brexit. She has been on the Dean’s List, and she was a Law and Corpus Linguistics intern at BYU Law School, where she was recently admitted. If you’re ever in town, you might catch her driving her moped scooter around.

Related articles