Fundamental | Page 2 of 4 | Make This Your Last Time

May 17, 2024May 20, 2024 - 2 Comments

Passing the California Bar Exam with a “STEM Brain” on Her Second Try

“R” passed the 2024 February California Bar Exam on her second try. She had some obstacles on her first attempt…

💬 “J23 bar exam, I wasn’t able to study because of personal reasons.”

💬 “That was something I felt in J23, I was not physically prepared to take the bar exam.”

💬 “I have an engineering background, so law school was a whole different beast for me! I was very near the bottom of my class in law school. My STEM brain found it hard to grasp the way of thinking like a lawyer!”

R had a similar background as mine. Coming from a STEM background, law school was a struggle for me as well.

But once it clicks, it clicks. And it only needs to click once before you can go out there and start your career.

In my case, failing the exam was a huge shock that finally unlocked the part of my brain to figure out this bar thing. That must have been some trauma to keep me on this crusade 10 years later.

Here’s what R (and I) did on our second attempts so you don’t have to traumatize yourself…

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

May 6, 2023May 6, 2023 - 3 Comments

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:

August 11, 2022January 5, 2025 - 6 Comments

Ultimate Guide to Preparing for the California “Baby Bar” Exam (FYLSX)

Worried about passing the California Baby Bar Exam and moving on with your law school career? Feeling overwhelmed by all the information needed to pass this test?

Also known as the First-Year Law Students’ Exam (FYLSX or FYLSE) to stuffy law students, the baby bar can feel like a roadblock on your way to graduating from law school. You might even be wondering, “Why am I facing this much resistance this early into my law career?!”

Worry no more. Breathe a sigh of relief. There’s a way out to put this behind you.

The baby bar (and indeed the full bar exam) is also about knowing the exam, not just the covered material.

You can strategize for the exam once you discover how the baby bar works and how to effectively prepare for multiple-choice questions.

May 16, 2022February 9, 2024 - 1 Comment

How do Magicsheets and Approsheets fit into your other bar exam study materials?

There are a LOT of study supplements, resources, and outlines for bar prep. As time passes, more and more get added to your potential repertoire.

Sometimes, the sheer overwhelm causes bar takers to load up on all sorts of materials, attend every workshop, DM everyone offering something — spreading themselves so thin that they end up not using any of it!

The materials collect digital dust, and bar takers end up restarting at square one, exhausted. But “the great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” (Herbert Spencer)

I, too, offer study materials for the California Bar Exam and the Uniform Bar Exam. Here’s my answer to questions about them, including HOW to use them. This will be useful whether or not you use my material.