Month: December 2022

Posted on - 3 Comments on How an Australian Lawyer Passed the California Bar Exam Despite the Sheer Overwhelm

How an Australian Lawyer Passed the California Bar Exam Despite the Sheer Overwhelm

Surprise, surprise… Barbri doesn’t work for everyone. As a foreign-trained Australian attorney, James needed a way to get a handle on the sheer volume of material and become skilled at USING it.

To do that, he also needed to understand the bar exam in the first place because there were differences in legal practice in Australia and in the U.S.

He then passed the 2022 July California Bar Exam and put together a thorough write-up in collaboration with me, linked below.

This is a rare opportunity to dive DEEP into the mind of a recent bar taker. He drops many gems on what worked for him, with commentary by me such as:

💬 “A distinction between those who perpetually struggle and those who are successful is that they find an approach that works for them and trust themselves more.

One of my readers put it this way: ‘Make the bar exam process work with your learning style, not the other way around.’“

But enough about me. This is about celebrating and empowering bar takers like you to overcome this hurdle. 

My breakdown and James’s full story below:

Continue reading “How an Australian Lawyer Passed the California Bar Exam Despite the Sheer Overwhelm”
Posted on - 2 Comments on Why Bar Takers Can’t Remember What They Need To

Why Bar Takers Can’t Remember What They Need To

Back when I first took the bar exam in 2013—

Wow, where did the time FLY? This is getting depressing already.

Anyway, I was able to write these beautiful rule statements. Something out of a treatise. Flowing with prose fit to be in a presidential speech. Baroque music in the background. Some renaissance shit.

What’s really depressing is that despite my perfectly memorized (and perfectly recited) rules, they were still mostly useless.

Ask the average bar taker, “Where do you want to be in February/July/exam time?” And that’s the dream they have—to have the “black letter law” memorized perfectly.

They chase after knowledge over experience and intuition. Mere exposure and familiarity over understanding.

Memorizing rules is important for sure! But memorizing the rules is merely the cost of admission. What’s the real goal here?

Not just knowing the law but knowing how to use the law.

Continue reading “Why Bar Takers Can’t Remember What They Need To”