Scoring a 307 on the New York Bar Exam After 1 Week of Prep (Another Double Passer Alert with Doreen Benyamin)

BRIAN: Because you’re saying so many good things. You said good things over the phone. You’re saying good things right now. So…

[INTERMISSION] Do I have a special treat for you today. I interviewed a special guest, Doreen Benyamin. We previously did a workshop where she was the one asking me questions, but this time I’m asking her how she passed both the California Bar Exam and the New York Uniform Bar Exam.

We’ll walk through how she passed the New York Bar after just one week. One week of focus preparation.

So what makes this interesting is not so much the timeline because we really don’t recommend studying for just one week, but rather how she tailored her study plan for herself. As always, you should adjust any strategy, including the one you’re going to listen to, to your own situation. 

So, here are three strategic moves that she made to get a score of 307 on the New York. 

First, she says, “Done is better than perfect.” She stopped chasing the perfect rule statements. Many strong students lose points because they hesitate when they’re unsure. They don’t know what to write. She stopped doing that even when she doubted the rule. She wrote something that made sense and moved on. 

And second, she began applying rules through practice questions much earlier instead of waiting to memorize everything. She didn’t wait to feel ready. She learned through application itself. 

And third, this is my favorite part. She prioritized high return areas instead of treating every subject, every portion of the exam equally. This is essentially a modified version of the Tripod Approach for the UBE. She focused on where the points were most concentrated and accessible, low-hanging fruits instead of trying to perfect everything. 

So as you listen, try to pay attention to those themes and see whether you can apply them through your own preparation.

BRIAN: Doreen, it’s amazing to connect with you again. We spoke a few years ago when you were studying for the California bar, and we did a workshop. You passed the New York bar too, so you’re a double passer. Amazingly, you passed New York with a score of 307, and the MBE scaled score of 144, and you did this with one week of preparation. I’m super curious how you did it. I’m grateful you chose to come on to talk about it so everyone can learn what you did and what they can take away. Can you give a brief background of what happened during that time?

DOREEN: Sure. Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. Thank you Brian for having me. I’m nervous to share my story because for many of us, going through the process of studying for and taking the bar can be really difficult. Like many people listening, I’m a first-generation American professional. Having to figure out law school, the LSAT, a lot of it was really difficult and things I had to figure out on my own. So I’m excited to share what I’ve learned so other people don’t have to go through the same thing. I’m really grateful for you, Brian. I’m doing this because I want other people not to make the mistakes I made, and you’ve been very generous and helpful. Your resources helped me pass, especially with the one week for New York, which I’ll get into. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help people not make the same mistakes I did.

BRIAN: It’s my pleasure. I’m thrilled to chat. Thanks again for taking the time. I know you’re busy now because you’re barred in two places. I’m interested in the overall strategies you used for California and New York and the top takeaways. Let’s go chronologically. You passed New York in July 2025, and then some time ago, you passed the California bar. Let’s start with that and then tell us about the lessons you learned and how that applied to California and New York. 

DOREEN: Do you have a preference on where we start? 

BRIAN: Let’s start with the California bar.

DOREEN: Okay. I had to repeat the California bar because I failed. And as I’m sure many people know, it’s a very humbling experience to fail. A lot of people go through that experience, unfortunately. I think 60% pass California, meaning 40% don’t. After going through law school and all the hard work and not passing, it just takes a toll. For me, in a lot of areas in my life, I try not to associate my identity too much with certain accomplishments or failures. Just because you do well in something or don’t do well in something doesn’t make you who you are. A lot of times, it’s really hard to separate identity from whether or not you pass or fail the California bar or any bar. I just want to share that with anybody who’s listening who has failed or is afraid of what might come if you’re waiting for your score, if you’re studying, any of that. It could be a really hard experience, but it’s a learnable test. If you use any kind of failure as data and figure out how did I approach it and how can I approach it differently, it can make a real difference.

So with the California Bar, I could say one of the most important lessons that I learned when I failed is, I realized that I had enough knowledge. And I could see that based off my MBE score especially. I think I had enough knowledge to pass. 

What kept me from passing was overthinking the process for the essays. There was an essay that had multiple subjects. It was a crossover with three different subjects. Instead of writing something, I froze and thought I could compensate by writing more on other essays. That’s really just not how it works. It’s more important that you write something even if it’s imperfect. Even if the law is not necessarily 100%. It’s better to get something down and write it out and get some points. If you could try to think of it almost like a game and you need to get a certain number of points, I think it becomes a little easier.

There’s the quote, “Done is better than perfect.” I feel like Cheryl Sandberg talks about it a lot. I’m not sure if it’s her quote, but done is better than perfect. It’s way more important to get the essays done. I feel like for a lot of lawyers or lawyers-to-be, you’re just overthinking. You want it to be perfect, and that’s not really— Your job on the bar is not to have a perfect product. It’s to get it done and get as close to accuracy as you can in terms of all the law and everything. You’ll see even model answers that are not perfect, like they do not have all the law exactly right. Right Brian? You’ve seen that.

BRIAN: I’ve seen that. The fact is, there are two different selected answers that the California bar puts out, and they have different answers. They don’t always have the same issues spotted. They don’t always use the same facts or even rules or conclusions. So, yeah, you don’t have to be perfect to get a passing score.

DOREEN: Yeah. And I think it’s important. Even if you’re not 100% sure, even if you’re doubting yourself in any way, just write something down and write confidently. They don’t have to know you’re not confident. Just get it done. It’ll be that much more likely that you’ll pass. It’ll be that much more likely that you won’t have to do this again. So I would say that that was one of the biggest lessons I learned from the California bar specifically.

BRIAN: You said a lot of wisdom. Lots of nuggets of wisdom. And I can relate to a lot of those as a repeater myself. Done is better than perfect. That is very true. I think that applies in general during preparation, during the exam itself, maybe especially during the exam itself, in life in general. For example, my first time preparing for the California bar, I was so into all the videos. I was taking meticulous notes, and I would spend six hours, seven hours, just transcribing videos basically. And then I would be so exhausted, no time to practice. I would just feel like I was productive because I was going through the lectures and the videos and writing notes and all that. But the point of preparation is to prepare yourself. That’s the point. The point is not to transcribe videos. That’s completely different, meaningless, and very passive. It feels like a lot of effort, but it’s actually low effort because you’re not thinking about where you’re heading. You’re just kind of taking what’s given to you and not doing anything with it. You’re just kind of writing notes. Are you actually learning from that? If you are, that’s great. But if you’re not probably, then it’s a waste of time. So I think what you said about done is better than perfect also includes things like maybe not having the perfect notes. You can always look it up later. Maybe you can start solving some questions and so on. We can get into that later too, but a lot of what you said resonates a lot with me as well. And it is a pattern that I see year after year after year. I’ve been seeing this for like 12-13 years. People will not realize until it’s too late. But hopefully this video will make people think a little bit more about it. Thanks for sharing those things.

DOREEN: I would also say, Brian, if I can jump in really quick. One other thing that helped me from your website specifically, and there were a few things, but one of them specifically that comes to mind as you’re speaking is you shared on your website about how you mentioned how you had basically memorized all the rules there were to memorize, like you really put in a lot of effort towards the memorization part. That was for your first attempt, and then you learned for your second attempt to focus way more on the application. What I got from what you wrote is that part of the reason that you didn’t pass was because you had focused so much on memorization that you didn’t necessarily know how to apply it in different scenarios. And it’s way more important. Obviously, you need to know the law in order to apply it, but it’s way more important to focus on learning how to apply it and where it applies. And there are certain patterns that come up on the bar. Especially for the MBE section, it’s standardized. So there are certain patterns and ways that they’re going to apply it and certain situations that they’re going to apply it to that come up over and over. Even though each test is different, certain things repeat. And so, instead of memorizing the rule and not knowing how to apply it, I think it’s much more important to focus on doing the questions, and you learn it. 

We can talk about this more as we go, but for me, one of the biggest hurdles on the bar was memorization. It’s never really been a strong suit. I’ve never been strong in memorization. It’s always been hard for me to memorize large quantities of information. And so I think one thing on the bar that I learned about myself and taking the exam was instead of focusing on memorizing, I focused on doing questions. Like I learned the basics that I needed to do. I reviewed the basics that I needed to know. And then from there, even if I had like 40% of the knowledge that I thought I needed, I just did questions, a lot of them open book on both MBE and essay. And doing it really taught me so much because it becomes memorable, right? Like when you’re doing a question, there’s a scenario. It’s almost like a story. It becomes a little interesting, like, oh, what happened to this person? Why did they end up in this situation? What should they do now? And it becomes a little bit more memorable. 

Also, with the essays, there’s different situations, and you can remember that situation and how it applied. The next time you see a question, it might not be the exact same scenario, but one piece of it might show up again, and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve seen this before.” And you can answer that based off of what you remember from the prior questions.

BRIAN: I have no corrections to any of that. There’s such a big difference between knowing something and knowing how to use that something. Like in fifth grade, we had vocabulary tests. You know the definition, but do you know how to use it in real life? There’s a difference between knowing the definition and knowing how to use that word in a sentence.

I think everything you said—it’s almost backwards what people do. People try to memorize and then try to use that. But then, if you know how to use that, then you understand the concept and can remember it. The point isn’t to memorize but to be able to recall and to be able to use it. Just because you memorize— Memorization as you said is important, but that’s just the baseline minimum requirement. So yes, you do need to memorize, but then memorization is almost like a byproduct of what you do with that information. So that information turns into insight as to how you can use it rather than, oh I have all this information. Like you knew all the information. You did pretty well on the MBE, but then you couldn’t bring it up on the essays necessarily, right? And that’s what happened to me too. Like the story you mentioned, it’s like, I could write that perfect, beautiful rule statements, but did I know how to identify the issues? Not that well. Did I know how to actually use the rules and come to a conclusion, use the facts, come up with similar issue patterns in response to fact patterns? No, the only thing I knew was just some words on a paper and just know how to recite it but didn’t know how to use what I wrote down. So I think our stories resonate pretty well.

DOREEN: And I think using things like, if you’re doing an essay, you can use— I don’t know how to pronounce it. Is it Approsheets?

BRIAN: Yeah, exactly.

DOREEN: Okay, so Magicsheets and Approsheets, you can use it when you’re doing an open-book essay. You can use it and go through it. It literally walks you step by step on how to do a question. And even if you get it wrong, you’ll actually learn more if you get it wrong once you look at sample essays. So, as long as you don’t let it impact your confidence, I really feel like so much of it is also psychological. You just have to make sure that you’re doing it and not feeling bad about not knowing because that’s the point. Like, if you knew all of it, what’s the point to studying?

BRIAN: Are you reading my newsletter still? I feel like I say that all the time. 

DOREEN: Well honestly, I really genuinely did learn a lot from your website. But yeah, I think this is something that I’ve thought of because I’ve also done a lot of pre-law consulting helping people with the LSAT, and there’s a lot of similarities in standardized test prep, I think, that carry over from LSAT or any other standardized test to the bar. And I think that helped me also. But I just realized this test is so psychological.

BRIAN: Do you want to tell us more about your LSAT journey?

DOREEN: I can share about that. So for the LSAT, I started with a diagnostic of a 148, and then I took the test four times before I got my ultimate score of a 174, which I ended up being able to go to Columbia Law School, which was amazing, especially coming from the background that I did.

But I think that also added— Going back to this whole thing of having to retake this test after all of that can be really hard in so many different ways. I just like to be transparent about things like that because I don’t want people to feel alone.

And I think, Brian, you, for example, sharing that you didn’t pass the first time you took it— I think you went to Berkeley, right?

BRIAN: Not that great. It was UC Hastings.

DOREEN: Okay. But still. And just seeing how meticulous you are with how you approach even just Magicsheets—it’s so much information condensed on one page. And I think to be able to do that, your brain has to think in a certain way.

[“Hard time articulating it.” We can cut this part. 25:30-]

BRIAN: So even with being detail-oriented, it’s still not enough. I guess it’s like a different subskill. Just like knowing the words, knowing how to say the rule. There’s a different aspect to it that you want to emphasize.

BRIAN: Yeah. So your LSAT score went up quite a bit. Do you think there’s a parallel between the LSAT and bar prep or the bar exam? I guess in how you prepared for the LSAT versus the bar exam?

DOREEN: I think the biggest thing was just modifying my approach instead of just hitting the hammer on the nail the same way every single time.

When I do help people with anything pre-law, especially with the LSAT, I just explain to them that every time you get something wrong, in many ways it’s a blessing because now you learn what you need to fix. It’s the same thing with the bar. Every time you get something wrong, that’s exactly what you need. There’s really no point to studying if you’re getting everything right. I feel like the biggest thing from LSAT to bar is having the mindset that you could learn it and it’s just a matter of how you’re approaching it. It’s hard, but it’s doable.

And I think just knowing that— And also realizing you don’t want to use every resource that’s out there, you want to find what works for you and stick to it. Don’t keep going from one book to another to another. You can test certain things out. Let’s say if you’re doing something open book, you can see what works for you and gets you to write the best version of an answer. And once you see that something resonated with you, stick to it and forget about other things, unless you want to use them as a reference but not as your primary resource.

BRIAN: Makes sense.

I’m still thinking about your point that getting things wrong is good because that’s something I emphasize a lot. I even have a graphic representing that. It kind of reminds me of our first workshop that we did that you invited me to. One of the things I said was, “Passers fail less over time.” Everyone fails to some extent. So you don’t have to be perfect, first of all. It’s just that the passers, they fail less over time. So I feel like maybe that’s what you did with the LSAT and what you did between California and New York.

And speaking of which, we can get into that unless you had something else to say.

DOREEN: I’m happy to talk about that.

So one thing I did for both California and New York was, I used the Tripod Approach, which I learned about from your website. There were a few things. There was the Tripod Approach, and also there was another woman named Doreen that talked about passing the bar, and I literally just, because we had the same name, I was like, okay, yes. I don’t know if manifesting is the right word, but this is like—

BRIAN: Soul sisters. 

DOREEN: There you go, yeah. So I printed out those two articles. I think I printed out other ones too, but those two, I printed out and I would reread them a lot.

And with Doreen, I don’t remember exactly everything she said, but I think just reading it and seeing how one person made it work. There’s so many stories like that, but just finding one person whose story resonates with you, I think, can make a difference.

And then with the Tripod Approach, I think it just logically made so much sense to focus on the things where you’re getting the biggest return. And it also helped me prioritize because there’s so much you could focus on on the bar. But realizing you just don’t have the time to perfect everything. And even if you did, right, like in your situation where you knew every rule, it’s not enough.

So I think realizing that the bar is not perfect. There’s no perfect standardized test. If it was actually reflecting your ability to practice law in a perfect way or reflect your ability of knowing the information in a perfect way, it might look different. But what you’re doing is taking a test that has certain information on it and is organized a certain way, and people made it. And even though it’s standardized, it’s not going to be perfect.

And if you just figure out, okay, so I have to approach this test to get the maximum number of points for the way that it was created and in a way that works with my style, with my study approach. Everyone has different things that work for them.

So, the Tripod Approach is almost helping think in that way of like, okay, if I want to get as many points as possible, what’s the most efficient way to do it? Even though that slightly differs for each person, I think, for California, you mentioned the PT, PR, and MBE, right? And it made so much sense to me. I was like, okay, if I learn all of the MBE subjects really well, first of all, it’s easier to learn because I can do practice questions and they’re one multiple-choice question at a time. So it becomes very much bite-sized, and it teaches me a concept, at least one concept every— It’s supposed to test only one concept. So you’re learning a concept with every question that you get right if you spend enough time with each question.

And then PR, that’s really important anyway. You’re going to have to do the MPRE. You need to know PR. It’s going to show up. You might as well just have one essay in the bag. Get it done. 

And then the PT for me was a gold mine in terms of gamifying and getting points because going back to memorization not being a strong suit for me, I was like, okay, I know how to write. I’m a good writer. And I don’t need to memorize anything really to do well on this.

So speaking about resources like BarMD, Maureen Daniel, she’s incredible. She has a lot of free resources online. I’ve used her paid resources as well. Her approach was so clear. So I knew that if I did it enough times and I used her approach, I could just not have to worry so much about PT if I did enough examples. That ended up carrying over for the New York bar. But for the California bar in terms of the Tripod Approach, I followed it with the PT, PR, and MBE. 

I took it one step further in terms of— There’s an outline that the NCBE puts out that shows you what percentage of each subtopic is on the bar on the MBE section. I don’t know how many people actually use it, but that was my bible if I had a bible. I printed it out, and I would always refer to it, and it guided me in terms of how I would approach each subject.

So, for example, for me, and I think for a lot of people, Torts was easier to get a good score on, like it’s easier to get a higher percentage. But even within Torts, every minute I would spend on Torts, I feel like I would learn a lot more than, let’s say, for Property, where it’s a lot more memorization-focused, which was harder for me. Not that I wouldn’t spend time on Property but I learned to prioritize the ones that were easier for me. And within Torts, 50% of the questions come specifically from negligence. So when I started studying I focused first on just doing negligence questions making sure I did them really well and then moving on to the next thing. So then not only do I have the confidence of like, okay, I already conquered 50% of one of the subjects pretty well but also like now I’m much more likely to get more points and much more likely to pass. And so I did that approach.

I mean there’s certain subjects where each subtopic is equally spread out. I think Property was one of them actually. Yeah, I can’t remember. But for Con Law, I think constitutional protections is like 50% of Con Law. So it was very different. I didn’t really see a lot of bar prep programs breaking it down like that. And it didn’t make sense to me to do it any other way. So I would just focus on prioritizing what I needed to know the most in each MBE topic. And also within each MBE topic, realizing some are more memorization-focused, they’re harder for me. They’re harder for me and so I still spent time on it, but I prioritized the ones where I would get the most amount of points in the least amount of time before I moved on to the more difficult ones.

BRIAN: So would you say you prioritized your strengths? So you said you were not the best at memorization. So you focused a lot on the PT, which didn’t require memorization, and then within the MBE topics, I think you said you liked Torts, so you spent a lot more time there, and by doing that you got more out of that for the same unit of time than Real Property. you can kind of maximize certain areas, a singular area that takes up a disproportionate amount of the subject. 

DOREEN: I did. And also everything that I’m saying, there was no perfect formula. You kind of have to really adjust it for yourself because Evidence, for example, I never took it in law school. So that was really from scratch. So I put more time into Evidence because I knew I didn’t know anything from law school. I had to learn that. But yeah, when I was doing it, I focused on hearsay to make sure that I really knew it, because there really is a finite— It feels infinite, but there is a finite amount of information, or at least I’d say probably 80% of the questions are certain hearsay exceptions or things like that that you need to know more than others. So it’s not a perfect formula of how you approach things, but it does matter to prioritize and be thoughtful about how you approach things instead of thinking everything is equal, because I think that’s how a lot of bar prep companies approach it. And it’s such a shame because you just need to collect points, and you need to figure out what the best way for you is to collect those points. It’s not going to be the same as everyone else.

BRIAN: Yeah. And I think just kind of the overall theme here is that you trusted yourself to know what you needed. And I want to say most people, maybe almost everyone, they know what to do, but they don’t trust themselves enough to do it. They know they should practice more. Maybe they know they should prioritize certain subjects more. But the bar prep industrial complex is so fear driven and overwhelming and high stakes, and it’s understandable. It’s a difficult test. 

But it touches back on what you said earlier. It’s solvable. It’s a solvable question or a solvable problem. When someone designs a video game, they’re not trying to make you fail. You do, but ultimately you can beat the game. And I think the bar exam is kind of the same. So you gotta know the rules, and then you’ve got to know how to play the game. But then you don’t need to be discouraged because you know the game is beatable. Especially as they listen to your strategies or what I’m talking about now, they might start to get ideas about, “Oh, maybe I don’t have to transcribe videos for six hours a day. Maybe I could try solving questions.” Even though it’s scary at first, the more you do it, the more interesting it becomes. Like you said, there’s stories. There are mini stories in the MBE questions. And the more confident you become. I’m not saying you need to be confident to pass the bar. It’s actually the least confident people who end up passing the bar anyway. But the more you do this, the more better you get at it. And maybe that’s the point. The point is to be competent rather than confident. Because if you’re confident, then you don’t know what you don’t know oftentimes. That was certainly the case my first time. I was like, “Oh, I got this in the bag. I know all the rules.” But then when I took the exam, even coming out of the exam, I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m done with this exam.” But then four months later, I got a very humbling result.

38:38-40 but the things you say remind us that it is doable. I think that’s what you said. This is a doable task. It is a big task, but it’s doable, and if you can trust yourself to know what you need, where you’re strong at, where you’re weak at, and then adjust to that situation, your own situation. Everyone’s situation is going to be different. I want to really emphasize that it should fit your hand like a tailored glove. Your hand shouldn’t fit in someone else’s schedule or someone else’s glove because you tailored it to such an extent that your schedule is not going to make sense to someone else. And someone else’s schedule. It’s not going to make sense to you. And that’s how it should be, I think. 

And Barbri, Themis, whatever, Kaplan, ugh, they— I don’t care if they watch this. They have the exact same schedule for everyone, whether you’re a 20-something basement dweller or a 40-something single mom or a family man 50 years old, 60 years old, maybe you’re retired or you have a full-time job, you’re working 80 hours a week. Everyone gets the same schedule, and that doesn’t make any sense to me. 

So hearing success stories like yours which often emphasize the need to tailor your regimen to your situation really drives that home even more. Every time I talk to people like you, it’s the same story. I mean, not to say you’re not unique.

DOREEN: No, it’s true. I see a lot of my story in yours. There’s always a lot of overlap. 

BRIAN: Yeah. And everyone is unique, which is why you need to tailor it to your situation. If you’re strong at one area, then maybe—in your case, you spend more time to get more out of it. But maybe in some cases, for me, I spent less time on things that I was confident about so that I could address the things I was less capable at. So you just see what works for you. Just play with it. It’s not that serious. I mean, it’s kind of serious, but it’s not. You can play it. You can enjoy the process. You can have fun with it. Like the first time I prepared for the bar exam, I was a little nerd, writing notes and all that. The second time I was relaxed. I was like, okay, what do I need, and then I just went after that. just to emphasize, your story is really emblematic of what I would consider that other people do as well.

DOREEN: Also, Brian, based on what you just said, I also just want to say, I don’t want people to get caught up in making the perfect custom-tailored schedule. Do you know what I’m saying? Because I know if I watch it, then I’d be like, “Oh, is my schedule good enough?” And knowing myself, and I’m sure that there are other people— I imagine there would be other people who could relate. So it’s not— And I don’t think that’s what you meant, but I just don’t want anyone to hear that and think that they need to have— It’s not about having a perfect schedule. It’s going back to the whole “done is better than perfect.” And the way that you know that your schedule works for you is you see your score improving. Let’s say you’re doing questions on AdaptiBar. If you see your percentage going up, that means it’s working. It doesn’t have to be this— And the only reason, also going back to the whole confidence thing, I didn’t have that kind of confidence to trust myself the first time. Right? I had— It just, the other way didn’t work for me. I failed doing it the way that people were doing it. Same as you, right? And that’s when I was like, okay, if that doesn’t work, what else can I try? And that’s something that I’ve had to do, whether it was for the LSAT or law school or the bar. I’ve always just had to figure out because I feel like I learn very differently than most people. I think I can learn relatively quickly, but I need to figure out how to learn. And then once I get it the way that works for me, then I feel like I can learn pretty quickly. But, yeah, some people just learn differently, and you have to figure out what it is that works for you. 

And if there was one thing that I think would have been the most helpful for me to get from this conversation is, I think doing questions earlier on. Having a baseline knowledge that’s like even 20 to 40% of the information you need to know. That might be a little low, but even when you’re at that point, just start to do questions, and you’ll learn it as you go if you do open book. That’s what worked for me at least. It might not work for everyone, but for me, I found that to be really really helpful and useful because I would spend time with each question to make sure I really understood it. And once I understood it, then I’d do another question and another question. And I would also focus on doing question sets that were in subtopics so that I would get really good at certain subtopics. And I feel like for me, pattern recognition helped a lot. Once I would do a few questions in a subtopic, you kind of see how they’re approaching Torts, right? Because you’re not actually learning this for life. You’re learning this for an exam, and you’re trying to get points for an exam. It’s not about who knows Torts the best. It’s not about who can understand everything. It’s how is Torts being tested on this exam? How are they approaching it? What kinds of questions are they asking? What are they focusing on? What kind of hypotheticals are they asking? If you get exposed to enough questions, even if you don’t know the full 400 pages plus of material that there is to know, if you know how it applies in that situation, that gives you a huge leg up, and you can collect those points and move on with your life hopefully.

BRIAN: Yeah, exactly. It’s like a limited universe. So there’s no way that they can go beyond that scope, right? So the more you do the— If you do enough questions, you’ll see the patterns come up over and over again, and that’s what you’re actually solving. You’re not being tested on whether you can say the perfect rule or anything or know all the rules but whether you can solve those recurring questions. And again, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get 100% to pass the bar. So if you know enough of those patterns, enough of those issues, enough of those rules, I think you have a good shot at passing the bar. And you said the way you know whether it’s working for you is whether the score’s going up, right? Did you see that pattern within that one week of study, or … more about how you did all this?

DOREEN: The one week? Yeah. Okay. So one thing about the one week, because I don’t want anyone to feel— First of all, I would never recommend it to anyone. I would have wanted to do it that way. It wasn’t ideal. So for context, I was working full time at the time. And one of our co-workers had left, and I had taken on his whole workload basically, more or less. And that was like a few weeks before the bar. And I had gotten so caught up in work that I just didn’t get to prioritize studying for the bar the way that I wanted. And so my job wasn’t relying on me passing the New York bar. All I needed was what I already had, which was the California bar. And the New York bar was just, I just want to do this, have it, get it out of the way, have it done. And so if more was at stake, I don’t know that I would have taken this chance in the same way. So I just want to say that I don’t want to scare anyone or give anyone false hope.

The one week that I had, I was under so much stress and pressure from work that I, honestly, the whole week I didn’t even get to use every—as much of that one week to study. I used most of it. The majority of it was studying, but I also was so stressed that part of it was just making sure that I’m not too exhausted to take the exam. I didn’t want to exhaust myself.

But what I did was a modified approach of the Tripod Approach. I really went in on that because I already had the foundation of learning everything that I had learned for the California Bar. And so my MBE scores, it was mostly about reviewing and making sure that I did enough questions in each one to refresh my memory and make sure that I had a pretty solid MBE score. And then the next thing I prioritized were the PTs. Making sure that I knew how to do a New York PT because they’re slightly different from California and there’s more than one. So that really for me I think was the Tripod. The essays, I did more reading than I did practicing, which I don’t recommend, but I just didn’t have a lot of time, so it was hard to fit that in. And generally, I think essays for me were a lot harder because it just felt like so much more expansive, so much more information that you could possibly know rather than MBE questions where it’s like you have four options. You have a 25% chance.

And I know people have really strong opinions about ChatGPT, like using it for studying for the bar. The way that I approached ChatGPT, I realized that the way that I study is very different. And I felt that so much in that one week that I was studying for the New York bar, where I would hit a wall and I was so annoyed and upset with myself honestly because I was just like, “I have one week. What am I doing if I’m not studying every hour that I have, like how am I going to have any shot at this?” I also had to fly to New York, so it was just such a compressed timeline. It was so— But I think the fact that I thought it was possible helped a lot. I just didn’t give up. I’ve always had that mentality of “it’s possible; just try.” I wouldn’t stop before I put in at least a shot.

And then what I did was, okay, so let’s say I hit a wall while I was studying that week and I would get really upset with myself. I would talk to ChatGPT and say, “Based off of science and what you know, these are my goals. This is what’s happening. I’m not able to study or get as much done right now as I want. What do I do? Research based, what do you think I should do?”

And it would tell me instead of fighting against myself and pushing through when my brain is like, “Okay, you need a break,” it would say— Maybe for some people this is common sense by the way, but this helped me. So I’m just sharing it in case it helps other people. It would say things like, “Oh yeah, just go take a 10-minute walk, and then come back and see if you could focus again.” So instead of telling myself, “You need to study nonstop for X number of hours,” I would just set a goal. I would say, “I want to study from X to X amount of time.” But if I found myself not being productive, I wouldn’t just keep pushing. I would do whatever it is that I needed to do, whether it was eat something, go for a walk, come back, and then try again.

So yeah, I don’t know how helpful that is for people, but I think for me that was really important. Instead of being so hard on myself and having shame and being upset, realizing that if there’s a wall or a block, listen to it. Don’t work against it and think you have to do how so many people are like, “Okay, I studied from whatever in the morning until this time at night and I didn’t take any breaks. I didn’t go to any events. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do that.” And that just didn’t work for me. Like that’s not how my brain works. My brain goes really really deep for a certain period of time, and I learn a lot in that period of time, and then if I hit a wall and I keep pushing past it, it’s not going to help me. So I have to listen to it and take that break and then come back.

BRIAN: I’m really glad that you brought that up. So knowing yourself and knowing your study style is also part of adjusting to your situation. 

DOREEN: Yeah.

BRIAN: And we’ve been talking so much about the substantive study strategies, but the mental game is a big part of prep as well. So ChatGPT, I haven’t really recommended that to anyone to use as mental support. You can use it for explanations and examples and rule statements and stuff like that. But I think you hit a good point about keeping your mental game on track as well. You had a week to do it, so of course you’re going to be stressed. You might even have had to study while on the plane, too, right? So you have to figure out a way to keep yourself sane. My emails are kind of part of that. I try to keep it light and entertaining. So whatever gets you calm and maybe optimistic and not so stressed, that’s kind of what you use ChatGPT for.

DOREEN: Yeah. And also sometimes if I was trying to memorize something, I would ask ChatGPT. I would put in a prompt, especially if it was really hard for me to remember. I would say like, can you make up a mnemonic that’s related to dating or some interesting topic that makes it more exciting? Studying for the bar doesn’t have to be dreadful. You can make it fun. And I think if it’s a little bit more spicy, I don’t know what other word to use, it’s a little easier to remember. It really is. It just sticks better. So I would have it relate it to different scenarios that were more fun or exciting or memorable for things that I just couldn’t remember and I knew that I needed to know.

BRIAN: I’m going to take that as a suggestion to be more provocative in my emails even more. Just kidding. Maybe.

DOREEN: Maybe different things work for different people, but for me, that helped me remember a little bit more.

BRIAN: No, I really appreciate you sharing these personal things. I guess they’re personal. Everyone is different. So all these case studies that I share, they have different strategies, and I never say this is the way to do it. It’s like, here’s 50 different ways to do it, and yours could be the 51st way. You may not even resonate with any of these, but hopefully they’ll give you some ideas to start with. The Tripod Approach is probably something that could be useful. I think it’s helped a lot of people. And I was especially interested in your Modified Tripod because the UBE is a little bit different from California. So I always thought maybe you could focus on Secure Transactions because that’s a difficult subject. But then you actually made it even narrower. It’s like a bipod, I guess, like the MPT and the MBE. And the essays kind of left it to maybe a lower priority section because the MPT has 20% of your grade. The MBE is 50%. And some of the MBE subjects will show up in the essay. So it covers more than 70%. So once you have those two areas down, you’re pretty much halfway there, even more, assuming you nail those down.

So with the essays, did you ever forget the rule, and did you have to make them up? Or what did you do if you couldn’t remember what to write? If you got stuck with an issue or a rule or something.

DOREEN: That was a huge thing that I took away from the California bar that helped me in New York where I just wrote. I wasn’t 100% sure. I was doubting. I didn’t know if I knew the rule right, but I just wrote something. And I think part of the reason why it did work though is because I really put so much into the MBE that it padded my essays. So even if they weren’t perfect, and also I wrote confidently. I didn’t hedge. I didn’t say, you know, I just really think that makes a difference. I think it’s important. And this is not perfect advice. I think it’s obviously way better if you know it cold and you can say it. But it was just not an ideal scenario in terms of how much time I had and what I could do. And I just had to make the best of it. But I think I knew the MBE material pretty well. And so that helped a lot. Having a higher MBE score gave me the confidence that, essays are important, but if I’m doing pretty well on the PT and if I’m doing pretty well on the MBE, I just need to get the essays done and use what I do know and write confidently and go from there.

BRIAN: Did you take the same approach to the California exam with the New York MEE? I guess you just write whatever—not whatever but—you write in a confident way and try to complete it in time. Did you take that approach in both exams?

DOREEN: For the essays you mean?

BRIAN: For the essays, yeah.

DOREEN: I did it a lot more. I went a lot more all in on that approach for New York. For California, I did do it. And I think cy pres was on my exam and I didn’t know it was called cy pres, but I just thought logically, what do you do in the scenario where the original intention doesn’t exist anymore? So you just think about— I just thought about what logically, because the law is meant to be logical. So if you think logically what would someone come up with in this scenario, it can at least give you a baseline or at the very least you’re not leaving it empty. So I think I did it for the California bar, but for the New York bar I was just very very— I wrote very confidently and didn’t hedge at all.

DOREEN: Maybe for California it was like 60-70% and for New York it was like 90 to 100.

BRIAN: Gotcha. And especially with the compressed timeline you had for New York, you didn’t really have that much time to memorize rule statements. So you had to use that approach to fill in the gaps and use policy reasons rather than perfectly memorized rule statements, and that was enough for you.

DOREEN: But there was also overlap between New York and California for the essays. There was enough overlap where that helped me.

BRIAN: Okay. So it’s like your prior attempts really built a foundation for you to do this one-week marathon prep and then get it done.

DOREEN: Yes.

BRIAN: Which is why you wouldn’t recommend someone just start with one week of prep.

DOREEN: Never. I really wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve seen other people write about it though. So maybe that gave me the confidence that it’s possible. But obviously not recommended. I think someone wrote about studying for the New York bar, or I don’t know if it was even New York. It might have been California, which is even crazier. I think like 50 to 60 hours and they passed. And I’m like, oh my god. 

BRIAN: They were a first timer?

DOREEN: I think so, yeah.

BRIAN: Oh wow. Interesting.

DOREEN: I think so. But see, the thing is, you shouldn’t aim for that or want to do that. But if you don’t have any other option, then believing that you can and being strategic about how you approach it increases your odds by a lot.

BRIAN: I agree. You’ll run into constraints. You’ll be put into situations where you have to do it a certain way. In your case, it was one week. Maybe for other people it’s three weeks or something happens. But I think constraints force you to get creative and prioritize what’s important. And once you’re under that pressure, you tend to come up with solutions. So in this case, it worked. It worked out for you, but maybe we shouldn’t say it only takes one week to pass the bar exam.

DOREEN: Yeah. No. And I would also just say for me, I do better under pressure. I have more clarity under pressure. So that also helped me.

BRIAN: Yeah. That’s another thing that may be different between people.

DOREEN: Yeah.

BRIAN: Another aspect to adjusting to the situation.

Speaking of these two exams, did you notice any significant differences between the exams themselves and the way you approached those two preparation processes?

DOREEN: I don’t know why this stands out to me so much, but one of the biggest differences that I noticed was just how it’s administered.

So California, at this point, people know that it can be a bit disorganized to say the least in terms of the approach. So you show up at the test center, and you might not take it for—if they say 8:00 or 9:00 or whatever it is—you might not take it for another hour. You’re not even in the room at the time that they say you could start the exam. You’re still waiting. I feel like that’s normalized. It’s so weird. I don’t know how that’s possible for an exam this important. And this is not to say anything negative, but that is what it looks like. You don’t start at the time that they say you’re going to start. But you should obviously still show up early and everything. But just know that.

Versus in New York, if they say you start at 8:00, the clock is there, and at 8:00, they’re starting. And if they say you end at 5:00 PM, when it’s 5:00 PM, that’s it. You’re done. There’s no five-oh— It’s so punctual and organized and standardized. There was no this way that way. It was exact. And it makes so much sense when you think about it that that’s how it should look. But after doing California. it was just such a stark difference between the two of them.

And also in New York they let people bring snacks in. Which I think is just, I don’t know, for me I can find that kind of stuff sometimes very distracting. Imagine someone’s sitting next to you eating grapes in the middle of the exam. I don’t know. I didn’t like that.

BRIAN: They might have answers written in the grape.

DOREEN: It was just weird to me that people can eat in the middle of the— I get it, but it was weird. I would get distracted if I was eating in the middle. I just want to have all my attention on doing the exam.

BRIAN: Yeah. And I wouldn’t want my food to be, are they smelling my food and getting distracted. 

DOREEN: They have constraints on it. I don’t remember all the constraints. They do have constraints on it, but it was just so odd to me. Because California I think you could bring water maybe and if you have medication that you have to take, maybe. But it’s so strict.

BRIAN: Yeah. I mean, that’s part of knowing the rules of the game, what you’re allowed to bring, what you can do. And also just being prepared for all possibilities. Anything can happen. Anything can throw you off. So I think the exam is not just those two days, but that whole week. Something could happen the day before, something after. Your laptop might not upload your answers or something. So the day you get to your hotel or whatever, I think that’s actually when the exam starts. Being in that state of mind where you’re not too, too anxious. It’s kind of hard not to be. And then up until you finish uploading answers, that’s the entire exam. It’s not just those six hours, twelve hours, but keeping yourself in a state where you’re composed, where little random things are not going to throw you off and you know where to get lunch and things like that.

So did you run into anyone eating while you were taking the New York bar?

DOREEN: Yeah, the person next to me was eating. But I’m probably more sensitive to these things than most people. I just noticed it a lot more. That’s why it came up. That’s why I even shared it at all.

BRIAN: I think I would get really annoyed if someone next to me was chewing or shaking their leg or breathing funny or whatever. So yeah, I guess preparation is being 120% prepared so you can fall to the level of— You’re not going to magically get better because under pressure—adrenaline and pressure help to some extent; it kind of brings out the best in you—but also there’s so many things that could happen. You might see an issue that you’ve never studied before. Maybe you were trying to listen to predictions and then the non-predicted stuff came up. Anything can happen. So I think it’s just being as prepared as you can to the extent your constraints allow you to. 

In your case, it was one week. But if you have 10 weeks, then I think that’s more time to consider all the things that could happen. Maybe having one week was actually a blessing because you only had to be stressed for one week instead of 10, 12+ weeks.

DOREEN: I think I was stressed leading up to it, knowing that I wasn’t studying when I should be, but it was too much with work. I couldn’t do it. But yeah, still, it was one week of the actual studying part. So maybe that was, I guess, I don’t know.

BRIAN: But you also like being under pressure.

DOREEN: I do. I do better actually with constrained time periods of studying. 

But Brian, before we wrap up or end anything, I want to make sure that I share with people that everything that I’ve shared today, it’s not about there being one right way to do this. And I don’t think that’s at all what you think either. I think we’re very much aligned on there is no one way to do this. And some of the things that I shared might have been very specific or unique to my situation, especially the one week thing. But what I hope that people can take away from this, one is just that don’t let it be a reflection of your identity, whether you pass or not. Obviously, if you pass, that’s a great feeling. But either way, it really shouldn’t— It’s not— You are not— Whether or not you pass, that’s not who you are. So don’t let it define you in any way.

I just know for repeaters. I went through it. I know what it’s like. It’s really hard. And even right now, when you hear Brian talk, he remembers that moment so clearly. It almost feels like it was really recent. But how long ago was it for you now?

BRIAN: It was 2013 that I failed.

DOREEN: So yeah. So like last century or something.

BRIAN: 13 years ago.

DOREEN: Yeah. So I think that’s one thing that’s really important is mentioning that don’t let it become part of your identity whether you pass or fail. And then the other thing is the idea is not to listen to this conversation and be like, “Oh, okay, I need to do everything she said exactly this this this.” I don’t think that’s what people take away. But what I would say is, I really believe in experimenting, testing things out, see what works for you. I read a lot of articles on your website, but some of them don’t work for— It’s just not my learning style, right? But I focused on the ones that did work for me. Or the fact that the girl’s name was Doreen just stood out to me and resonated, and I took it and ran with it. It doesn’t have to be totally logical. If it works, it works. Don’t overthink it.

But the Tripod Approach just sounded so logical. Why wouldn’t you do that? Especially because for me, I’m like, what do I— This is so much information. I’m not really strong in memorization. I never really had to memorize in school so much. A lot of what I did was writing or multiple-choice tests or things like that. And if I did have to memorize, it wasn’t like— The bar is almost like 400 pages worth of material for the essay section. It’s crazy. 

So yeah, experiment, see what works, and then run with it. If it works for you, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to tell people how you’re doing or what you’re doing. If it works, do it. And people will give you advice, and some people will sound so confident when they give you that advice. But they don’t really know that much. Like no one. You can call yourself an expert on these things, but it’s something we all—you experienced it. You learned what you did. You learned what works for you. We all have a lens that’s impacted by what works for us at the end of the day.

BRIAN: I wish I could give you a standing ovation, but I’m not wearing pants right now. So yeah, I couldn’t have said it better. If anyone takes away one thing from this, it would be to, and people say this, and it is kind of common advice now, but figuring out what works for you. And I have a whole article on what that even means because people parrot that phrase all the time.

DOREEN: Yeah.

BRIAN: But yeah, like you said, experimenting, trying different things. Because eliminating— If it doesn’t work, that’s actually a good thing. You’re eliminating what doesn’t work and that’s one way to progress. You don’t have to have all the answers up front. I mean, there are certain frameworks and certain suggestions and things like that that we talked about, like the Tripod Approach and some of the other things that I talk about, things that you’ve recommended, resources, things like that. But not everything is going to be perfectly— That’s the whole problem with Barbri and Themis and Kaplan, right? It’s so templated, so cookie cutter, but it’s not going to work for every demographic. And it’s going to work for some people, which is why they’re still in business. But at the end of the day, bar prep is self-study. So you just got to find what works for you. And of course, we’re happy to give you recommendations, give you ideas to start with, but eventually, you’re going to get to a point where you’re not doing exactly the things that we talk about. You’re going to develop your own style, and you’re going to have your own success story. All of my case studies are different in some way. So there’s a million different ways to pass, and yours is going to be one of those too. It’s not easy, but like you said, it’s doable.

And hopefully we’ve given you some basic instructions on how to get started. It’s like reading an instruction manual to a new device you got. Most people skip it and then try to see if it works, but reading how the game works and how the device works is important as well. So we’ve given you some frameworks and then also the overarching message of running with it—taking it and then doing what works. If it doesn’t work, leave it. If it works, run with it.

So hopefully I’ve captured what you wanted to say. Any other last parting mindset, advice, jokes?

DOREEN: Jokes. I think I would welcome if anyone has questions, you’re welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn or something like that if you have specific questions about your path. I think that’s one thing in my path that I’ve learned is I just feel like I’ve made mistakes along the way, and that helps me help other people not make those mistakes. So I’m happy to be a resource in that sense.

And in terms of anything else, I’m just trying to see if there’s anything else that we didn’t cover. I feel like we covered everything.

BRIAN: Did you want to talk about your events or podcasts?

DOREEN: Sure. So I’m actually, this is more focused on people who are still in law school, which majority of people probably are not, but I’m doing a series with the Daily Journal, which I’m really excited about, where we’re speaking at different law schools about what we wish we knew before we graduated or what law school doesn’t teach you. So that’s something I’m really excited about. I’m also working on a podcast to interview people about their career path and have a little bit more insight into what you can do. So there’s a lot of different things that are law adjacent that I’m working on. So if anyone wants to follow along, probably LinkedIn is the best way to follow along. And yeah, I’m happy to be a resource.

BRIAN: I really appreciate you coming on and talking. I know you’re very busy now that you’re back to work. But always happy to chat with you. It’s always a pleasure. And hopefully people have taken away some ideas here. So thanks a lot.

DOREEN: Thank you Brian. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to have been invited to be on and share my story after I’ve read so many of other people’s stories and case studies and advice on your website. To now be a part of it is really cool.

BRIAN: Yeah. And I hope people pass because of our conversation, and then they can continue to pay it forward as well and continue helping the next generation of bar takers.