By Rebecca Flanagan*
Law schools have embraced closed-book exams as one response to falling bar passage rates. But due to lack of student expertise in learning and study skills, students focus on memorization as the key to success on closed-book exams. A focus on memorization channels students’ attention away from building higher-order thinking skills, which are skills that must be built over time because they are essential to success on the bar exam and in practice. By choosing limited open-book exams, law professors and law schools minimize the student focus on memorization, and recenter student learning and study on techniques that produce durable learning and proficiency in higher-order thinking skills necessary for success on the bar exam.