Depending on the state, some takers have to face performance exams. These exams were introduced because of concerns that lawyers were too book-wormish, and were poor at actually applying the law in real-life situations. The Performance Exam's goal is to simulate a case and a legal challenge for the budding would-be attorney.

With a Performance Exam, you typically get 3 types of materials: the main question, a collection of court cases and statutes, and a collection of clippings, interviews, and articles.

The idea is to read the question and to see what kind of issue the client is raising in this part of the exam; to read the laws/statutes and know what the controlling legal framework is; and then to read the facts, apply the laws and come out with a conclusion.

Does this structure sound familiar? It should -- because it is pretty much the same structure that I recommended for the essays. If anything, your task here is a bit easier, because you can't feel guilty for not memorizing enough law to get you through the exam. With the Performance Exam, the law is all there in front of you.

As I said before, the Performance Exam is not terribly difficult. It's just a matter of organizing your essay correctly, and for guidance on that just reread the previous section on essay writing. In preparing for the California Bar Exam, I just took one full length Performance Exam -- for the California exam, that's two tests that last 6 hours total -- and that was pretty much the end of my preparation. Doing the Performance Exam helped me know what to expect, and gave me a lot of psychological comfort, as well as helped me with my timing and so on. That should be enough preparation for you as well. It may be helpful, however to keep the following points in mind:

Read the question carefully. One of the easiest way not to do well on this part of the exam and lose some free points is to answer a question that they never asked, or not to answer a question that they did ask. Of your three hours, take a full hour to prepare and outline your answer. Of that hour, spend a good 10 minutes reading the question and making sure you got everything that they wanted.

Watch your timing. Spend perhaps one hour in preparing your essay, and two hours writing. It may seem strange to prepare for a full hour, but once you have your outline down pat -- including notes on EVERYTHING that you need for a complete answer -- you're golden. If you focus too much, too early on words and sentence structure, you may in your haste miss some important parts or forget part of the question. Plan carefully, then execute when you're ready.

Take good, readable notes on the statutes and case law. The case law and statutes that you are given can run quite a few pages. It will be a huge waste of time if you are caught fumbling through pages, searching for that legal rule that you saw "somewhere." Write solid notes on a blank piece of paper, highlighting major rules, and also page number references so you can go back and grab quotes or further details as necessary.