The Ontario Bar Exam Practice team would like to wish a HUGE congratulations to all those who wrote the Ontario bar exam this past winter!! We understand that results are now available. For those of you who passed, congrats on this amazing milestone! We wish you all the best as you wrap up your articles and prepare to get called to the bar. Wondering what the “call to the bar” ceremony is like? Fortunately, the Law Society of Ontario has a TON of helpful information on its website dedicated to this issue. We’d encourage you to review it here. Also, we’d encourage you to attend in-person if you ..read more

You’ve probably heard it time and time again: law school doesn’t teach you how to be a lawyer. That’s true! But, in all fairness to your law school professors, law school isn’t supposed to teach you how to practice law. Instead, it’s supposed to teach you how to think like a lawyer. And, while it’s definitely not perfect, it does do a pretty good job at this. The task of teaching you the day-to-day intricacies of being a lawyer, on the other hand, rests with your law firm. It’s therefore important to think critically about where you want to practice law. The point of this blog post, then, is t ..read more

With the Fall sitting for the barrister exam now only 6 weeks away, it’s time for those of you who plan to write the exam to start studying. Or, at the very least, it’s time to come up with a game-plan for studying. “But how do I come up with a game-plan for studying?”, you might be asking. Fret not. In this post, we’re going to address this topic. Our best advice is to treat studying for the bar exam as if it were a full time job. Yes, we know that studying is not a real job. In fact, most of you already have a real job (i.e., your articling position). But, nonetheless, it helps to treat your ..read more

The Solicitor Exam: The Basics The term “solicitor” refers to lawyers who specialize in non-courtroom related legal work. As a result, the solicitor portion of the bar exam focuses on non-litigation related topics—namely, business law, estate planning, and real estate law (in addition to professional responsibility, which is also featured on the barrister portion of the exam). The Exam Itself The solicitor exam is formatted exactly the same way the barrister exam is. As a result, and as we’ve noted previously, it consists of 160 multiple choice questions. Like the barrister exam, rather than h ..read more

No matter when you’re studying for the Ontario bar exam — summer, spring, or fall — chances are, you’re going to find it difficult to stay motivated. Summer sucks because, well, it’s summer. Fall sucks because you’re going to be balancing studying with articling (work + bar exam prep = misery). And spring sucks because after a long Ontario winter, there’s literally thousands of other things you’d probably rather be doing. Nevertheless, the reality is that you ARE going to need to write the bar exam at some point. So, in this post, let’s talk about some strategies you can draw on the keep yours ..read more

Most of our posts focus on bar exam prep (we are in the business of practice tests, after all). But in this post we want to address a different, albeit related, topic: What to expect during your articling year. As anxious as you might be for the bar exam, you’re probably equally as anxious about your articling term. So it makes sense to address the topic and provide some advice that will (hopefully) calm your nerves. Let’s begin with the basics. None of this is intended to make you feel uneasy—it’s just a simple reality that you need to come to terms with. Casting aside things like the current ..read more

A few weeks ago, licensing candidates received an email from the Law Society containing some important information: Whether they PASSED or FAILED the barrister and solicitor portions of the bar exam. (Side note: why does the Law Society use red font, even if you passed?!) For those of you who passed both portions of the exam, CONGRATS!!! Contrary to common belief, Ontario’s bar exam is no joke. And so if you passed both parts—particularly on your first go around—you should be proud of your accomplishment. If, on the other hand, you were unable to pass one or both portions of the bar exam, don ..read more

It’s impossible to say for sure. Anecdotally, though, a lot of licensing candidates have reported that they found the Ontario bar exam to be more challenging than they initially anticipated (simply lookup “Ontario bar exam” on Reddit and you’ll find all kinds of reports of this nature). This contrasts with candidates who wrote the exam many years ago, who often reported that they found the exam to be quite easy. Assuming, then, that the Ontario bar exam has become more challenging, what can you do to prepare yourself? We’ve covered this question extensively in some of our other blog posts (see ..read more

Writing the barrister or solicitor exams this month? Interested in some FREE study advice? Read on… First thing’s first, you do NOT need to memorize all of the bar exam material. There’s simply too much stuff and not enough time. So for all of you worrying that you’re not remembering all of the material you’re reviewing…stop! Anyone who says that they’ve memorized everything is only fooling themselves. Ok, glad we got that out of the way. If you can’t memorize everything, though, what can you do to prepare? Well for starters, you SHOULD review all the materials. Do this at least once. Give you ..read more

Once again, we just wanted to take a minute to say CONGRATULATIONS to all those that wrote the bar exam this November! Preparing for the Ontario bar exam is a major draw on one’s time and energy and so, regardless of whether you think you passed or failed, you should feel proud about the dedication you exhibited. ALSO, although this is easier said than done, try not to think about how you think you did over these next few weeks. What’s done is done—dwelling on something that happened in the past isn’t going to make you feel better. Instead, we recommend that you do your best to enjoy what’s le ..read more