Essays | Make This Your Last Time

May 24, 2024May 24, 2024 - 1 Comment

Non-Accredited Law Grad Passes CA Bar Exam on His 1st Try

Brian almost flunked out of a non-accredited law school but passed the hardest bar exam in the country on his first try. Wow!

💬 “I passed the February 2024 California Bar exam on my first try. I went to a non-ABA but Ca accredited law school online. I do not know my class position but I did get a 3.3 GPA and I did take the FYLSE and did well on that test.”

He also took his sweet time getting out of school.

💬 “I took a year off in the middle of law school and so instead of 4 years I took 5 and torts, contracts and property were a long time ago.”

It is cool that he was able to snipe the exam in one shot. But I’m not surprised. Why?

The bar exam is the great equalizer.

Bar prep is a learnable skill even if you’re short on academic talent (no offense, Brian), especially if you’re a reader of mine. You don’t need to be a legal rockstar. You don’t need to be a genius or a “good writer.”

Jeez, where were these reassurances when I was studying for the bar? My pain is your gain.

Here are three takeaways (and a satisfying epilogue) from Brian’s success story…

December 22, 2023December 22, 2023 - 1 Comment

Taking Ownership of Your Bar Prep to Pass the Bar Exam

Jared passed the 2023 July California Bar Exam on his first try, despite being in a panic in the last month of bar prep, while juggling family duties and working full-time.

💬 “I was in a ‘I have to pass!!!’ panic the last six weeks prior to the exam. For context, I spent four years doing law school at night, I have a family, and I work full-time.”

💬 “I had a mini-panic a month before the exam, because I just didn’t think the material or schedule was working for me.”

I like this story because it once again emphasizes the lesson of pivoting from “trust the process” to “trust yourself.”

💬 “My strategy was idiosyncratic and focused on what I needed to do to pass.”

December 16, 2023December 16, 2023 - 1 Comment

Dominating the Essays: Organize Issues and Prioritize Rules to Know on the Bar Exam

Ever wonder how you’re supposed to juggle everything in your head? How do you prioritize the rules to know for the bar exam?

How are you supposed to learn all this when time is tight? How do you tackle the massive body of rules to know?

How do you know you’ve completed the essay in full? Did you even talk about the correct issues? Are the graders going to give you the points? Are they even going to read your prose?!

You’d love to start practicing essays but feel like you just haven’t learned enough law yet. It’s overwhelming to even begin.

At least the answer is right there in MBE questions… If you’re a bar taker struggling with coming up with what to write, essays are the bane of your existence. Your rambling paragraphs start to blur.

Let’s breathe. We can simplify the essays and make them less scary…

Key takeaways:

Issues: Learn not just the rules but also how to present and organize the issues (with examples below)
Rules: Highest-priority issues and rules are those that have appeared in the past (there are two other priorities)
There are efficient and effective ways to hit both of the above at once

June 30, 2023October 21, 2023 - No Comments

Richard’s Minimalist Bar Prep Without Overwhelm

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Like I keep saying, bar prep is personal.

Richard passed the 2023 February California Bar Exam on his first try. Anyone can learn from this case study since he also passed the UBE.

Corina’s story about passing the bar exam was about MAXIMIZING her coverage. I couldn’t even sleep trying to scrape all the meat off the bone of her story.

Today, I’ll show you a MINIMALIST approach to getting it done.

You’ll also get the benefit of hindsight from someone who used a traditional bar course for his first exam (UBE) and also on his second exam (CA) and passed both times.

How you use any resource for your benefit is key.

November 10, 2022December 7, 2024 - 4 Comments

This Formula Shows the Importance of Each 5-Point Increment on the California Bar Exam

To pass the California Bar Exam, you need an overall scaled score of 1390.

That could look like a scaled score of 1390 for the written portion and 1390 for the MBE. These are generally referred to as “passing scores” since they put you on track to pass.

But how do the raw scores on your essays and PT convert to scaled scores? What do you need for a “passing score” for an essay or PT?

In answering those questions, it turns out there’s quite a sensitive correlation between the written raw scores and the written scaled score.

That is to say, EACH 5-point uptick gets you MUCH closer to passing the California Bar Exam. In fact, if your written score is in the low/mid 1300s, you’re MUCH closer to passing than you might think.

Here’s how…