Case Studies Archives | Make This Your Last Time

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 - No Comments

How Adam Added 140 Points on the CA Bar Exam (But What Cost Him the Pass?)

Adam took the February 2026 California Bar Exam for the second time.

Starting with an overall score of 1201, Adam closed a 140-point gap between July 2025 and February 2026. That’s a remarkable jump by any measure.

He did this as a foreign-trained lawyer with zero prior knowledge of U.S. law, no commercial bar prep course, and roughly two months of prep.

If you did the math, you’ll have noticed that he didn’t pass this time… His February total score of 1341 was 50 points away from the pass score of 1390.

💬 “Regret to tell you, I failed again. I scored 1341.0200. . . . No matter what, thank you for all your help.”

This is the 75^th installment of Fire-up Friday, but it’s the very first one where I’m featuring a non-passing attempt.

Why?

Defeat is fodder for your next victory. We ought to document both what worked and what didn’t work.

Adam’s story isn’t over yet. This is just part 1. He’s coming back for the rest of his points in July.

In the meantime, we get to find out what worked for his second attempt, and what he could do differently for his third.

There are insights we can glean from Adam’s mistakes and improvements. He has graciously allowed me to share his painful story. And he must have done SOMETHING right to go from 1201 to almost passing.

Passing is easily achievable for Adam from here on. (Hint: A 50-point gap in California is smaller than you think.)

May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 - No Comments

Passing the NY Bar After 4 Failures and a Forced Year Off

“T” passed the New York Bar Exam on her 5th try. Her journey had ups and downs (mostly downs):

Her 4th attempt scored lower than her 3rd. She came 5 points short of passing, then went backward.
The NY BOLE benched her from the next exam and made her wait a full year for her next attempt.
She watched her dad get really sick during her year off.

But that year became the thing that made her 5th and last time work.

💬 “I can’t believe I’m writing this email. I just found out I passed the NY bar exam! Honestly feels like a dream. My parents cried :)”

It wasn’t because she found a new course or schedule or other tactical minutiae. Those are just products. Which tool you use doesn’t matter if the user can’t wield it effectively.

If all you do is consume the product (which traditional commercial prep courses are designed for), that’s like eating a bunch of protein because you heard it’s good. And then you end up in an even bigger caloric surplus because you overate and didn’t work out to give the protein something to do.

She passed because she changed her approach. She started digesting what she consumed.

What changes when you stop being a tryhard and start being an overachiever?

How do you start thinking when you stop the barebones “I just need a few more points” mentality?

What happens when you show up again and again?

T was a different person altogether by the time she walked into the exam room for the 5th time.

The scariest thing about humans as predator is that they keep following and hunting their prey until it gives up from exhaustion.

February 13, 2026April 25, 2026 - 1 Comment

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

About two weeks from the bar exam, most students:

Get overwhelmed, freeze, and suddenly not know what to do
Panic, overthink everything, and see scores dip
Feel like they’re behind and completely cooked on the exam

I want to share a story about Doreen Benyamin.

Maybe you recognize her. She hosted a live workshop before, where she interviewed me so she could take all my tips for the California Bar Exam for herself.

She passed California.

And then she passed the New York Bar Exam with a score of 307 after studying for just one week (on her first attempt).

She was yet another double passer (like James).

So I had to interview her back. This was a long time coming. There was an incredible amount of insight from our conversation that took me days to process.

But maybe you won’t panic or get overwhelmed after hearing the strategies that allowed her to get it done in one week.

February 6, 2026February 7, 2026 - No Comments

How a Foreign Attorney Passed New York (First Try) When MORE Practice Was Making Her Feel Worse

Louise did everything bar takers are told to do.

She started with a commercial bar prep program. She tried over a thousand MBE questions. She tracked her mistakes.

On paper, she was doing enough. But she still felt stuck.

💬 “I’m an LLM student, and I’ve already completed over a thousand questions on AdaptiBar, but I keep stagnating around 54%. I scored 62% on a past NCBE exam, but despite that, I feel like I’m going backward.”

💬 “The more questions I do, the more lost I feel. I always take the time to review my mistakes and write down what went wrong, yet each new batch of questions seems to introduce rules I’ve never seen, and I struggle to identify them in the fact patterns.”

This sounds incredibly frustrating especially when you’re a foreign-trained attorney trying to make sense of American law.

💬 “I was starting from zero doctrinal familiarity. I’m a French-trained attorney and genuinely did not know American law at the outset, so everything had to be built from the ground up.”

But Louise went from zero knowledge to passing the July 2025 New York UBE on her first attempt.

💬 “I just wanted to let you know that I received a passing score on every UBE section.”

January 30, 2026February 6, 2026 - 1 Comment

How Michelle Passed the California Bar Exam from Scratch (Years After Graduating)

Michelle wrote me randomly after passing the California Bar Exam months ago.

💬 “I woke up feeling grateful for the circumstances of my life yesterday and realized that so many of those things came to pass because I passed the CBX in Feb 2025. It was my first time in CA. I went to law school in AL and graduated in 2018. The material wasn’t fresh or familiar.”

That’s why it’s best to pass the bar exam and escape limbo as soon as you can. Opportunities and doors fling open once you have your license in hand.

Michelle passed California on her first try despite being YEARS removed from law school (outside California) and from the last bar exam she attempted.

💬 “I sat for NC July 2019, failed. We moved to CA in 2021 and I decided to sit for CA in February 2025, first attempt and passed.”

💬 “I did not go to law school in CA. It had been years since I graduated law school. It had been years since I needed to do deep study. The CA bar exam tragically low pass rate intimidated me.”

It’s possible to prepare for the bar exam from scratch. Even without a bar review course. Even with family. Even with an illness.

💬 “I had a family and young children, a chronic illness, and a mother that was going through chemotherapy.”

💬 “I used Barbri previously. I was a Barbri rep, and my course was free, but I knew that Barbri’s schedule was too overwhelming for me. I did not feel in control of my bar prep that time.”

💬 “I knew that I would need to do something different considering that I failed it in NC.”