Make This Your Last Time | Bar Exam Preparation

May 27, 2023May 30, 2023 - 2 Comments

Bar Prep Wisdom from Succulents

I went to a succulents gardening workshop the other day 🌱

(This is relevant to you, promise.)

I figured succulents wouldn’t wither under my care like the flowers I tried arranging before. There’s a limit to how much talent one person can have, I guess.

There’s no limit to how much I think about bar prep because that’s what I started thinking about when I was listening to the instructor 🤦🏻‍♂️

4 relevant lessons and also photos of my bald-looking succulent bowl:

(First lesson: “You have to kill a lot of plants to be an expert.” 🤯)

May 26, 2023May 26, 2023 - 2 Comments

Repeater Passes CA Bar Exam After She Ditched Barbri and Stopped “Trusting the Process”

“S” (who wanted her name private) passed the 2023 February California Bar Exam.

What else is new? No, I’m not tired of seeing my readers pass tough exams yet.

This featured passer:

Passed an exam with a 32.5% pass rate
(Makes for a good headline but do pass rates really matter? See point 5 below)
Not a fan of her big bar prep company
Studied while working
Was an MTYLT reader (of course)

(Like this other 2023 Feb passer)

I love her story because it has several parallels to my own experience as a second-time passer. Both of us made the same classic mistakes that first-timers make.

May 19, 2023May 19, 2023 - 1 Comment

How a mother of two passed the California Bar Exam while working in biglaw (32.5% pass rate)

Hannah passed the 2023 February CA Bar Exam, one of the HARDEST exams with a 32.5% pass rate (even lower than the 2022 Feb exam).

She did it efficiently and effectively:

on her first try
with 7-8 weeks of studying
while attending to two toddlers and a biglaw job!

I’m excited to share Hannah’s story and 4 BIG nuggets of wisdom I distilled from her story.

(Babe, wake up! Another banger of a passer story just dropped.)

May 16, 2023May 18, 2023 - 13 Comments

You’re the Dean of Your Own Bar Exam Studies

Here’s something that people who pass the bar never say:

“All I had to do was listen to all those bar course lectures. They were so helpful!”

Can you imagine?

Sometimes we think “doing whatever it takes” to pass the bar exam means exhausting yourself and throwing 1000 hours and even more dollars into a black hole. (But it doesn’t have to be expensive.)

Or following some unsustainable cookie-cutter schedule (that doesn’t care if you have other responsibilities like work or family). Good luck if you fall behind by one day.

Or letting a perfectly fine morning slip through by religiously sitting through 4 hours of droning lectures. Worse, pausing lectures to fill in all the notes. Then not even remembering 99% of it.

tfw you think the lectures are making sense

I remember those days. All of these are things I didn’t do my second time. Here’s what I would do instead:

May 13, 2023May 13, 2023 - 2 Comments

Bar Prep Is Overwhelming: Making Independent Choices for Yourself

You have questions about the bar exam. How to study. When to study. Whether you’re on the right track. Picking the right bar prep supplements.

"Yes, it is very overwhelming and the amount of resources out there to help are also overwhelming lol"

I guess I have some answers.

But do you want the “best” answers, or is certainty what you’re really looking for? Someone to just TELL you what the hell to do?

That’s where the danger lies in the landscape of bar prep. Everyone who passed is suddenly a “tutor” who can teach you their secrets. You shop around and yet end up where you started.

There are no secrets, and there are a million ways to pass. You have it in you already. It’s always been up to you.

Sounds scary but also freeing, right?