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:

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The 3 Things You Need When Starting Bar Prep (Live Stream Replay)

“What should I know when I’m starting bar prep?”

I did a live stream with Jennifer Duclair to talk about how to take the guesswork out of bar preparation and get a better sense of direction as you start studying for your next bar exam.

It was fun! Japes and nuggets of insights were dropped, and I’m pleased with how this turned out. (Maybe I’ll do another one next year…)

Here’s me throwing Kaplan under the bus:

What to do with your schedule when starting bar prep

Here’s the recording (go to 8:12 where I talk about the study schedule shown above), along with timestamps so you can jump to the parts you’re most interested in:

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What If You Failed the Bar Exam? Should You Retake a Bar Review Course?

So you find yourself in an unbelievable situation: You failed the bar exam.

Procedure in case you failed the bar exam

Reality is undeniable. You dust off your tears. It’s time to take action.

You wonder: What’s the next step?

Should you retake your bar prep course? What’s the alternative? 

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dreams of becoming an attorney

I want to talk about dreams.

The world is changing and so must we. We can’t stay the same and can’t pretend everything else will stay the same.

Changing means not staying complacent.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” —Charles Darwin paraphrased

Do our dreams have to change? Your dream of becoming an attorney doesn’t have to change… BUT how you get there might have to.

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Underutilized Strategies for Fixing a Poor MBE Score

Someone wrote in to ask about improving his low MBE score:

“Hope all is well with you. It has been awhile since we last spoke. Unfortunately,  I was not able to pass the bar. It was quite a horrible moment.

If possible, I wanted to get your thoughts on how to effectively study for the MBE? I scored between 55%-60% [on practice sets]. However,  I did very poorly on the day of the exam. The questions were much harder than expected. I’ve come to realize the multiple choice is a weak spot for me more than the essays right now. Just needed a bit of your guidance on how to study for them. In addition, how should really repeaters now study for the bar?”

Here’s my pointed answer:

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