Strategies | Page 9 of 16 | Make This Your Last Time

August 21, 2021December 24, 2023 - 24 Comments

What’s the Best Way to Study for the Bar Exam WITH a Bar Prep Course?

You know me. I’m a proponent of DIY studying without a bar prep course.

Not just me. Many retakers who pass come back to tell me that they wish they’d abandoned the bloated courses in the first place. I hear this every year. Many repeaters and even first-timers tell me their bar review course wasn’t working for them, so they turned to alternative approaches.

But that’s not the point of this article.

The point is, how do we use our course effectively and properly?

While going solo can be effective not just in terms of cost but by virtue of its emphasis on learning, it’s not for everyone. Sometimes we want everything laid out and be told what to do.

You understandably feel lost with seemingly no other option other than a bar review course when you first start out. Even repeaters wonder, “What’s the best bar review course?” It’s such an important exam that you want to do it right.

Most people start with a traditional commercial bar prep course like Barbri, Themis, Kaplan (if you’re a masochist like me), or BarMax — or even a smaller independent course like that offered by JD Advising, Studicata, SmartBarPrep, or many others.

In other words, there are many ways to study for the bar exam. They can all work. Instead of debating for days which program is the “best” and ending up undecided, worry about being a good student.

Bar prep, at its core, is self-study. Courses and materials are merely there to support YOUR studies.

That said, let’s talk about how to pick a bar prep course and how to use it to move the needles that will help you learn.

February 4, 2021May 8, 2025 - 2 Comments

How Stan Finally Passed the Bar Exam Using Proven Bar Preparation Strategies (Anyone Can Do This!)

I recently had a back-and-forth with Stan, yet another reader who passed the (online/remote) 2020 October California Bar Exam on his 5th try.

When I asked to showcase his incredible personal journey, Stan offered to rewrite his emails into a more comprehensive story with approaches he discovered, his realizations, and specific study tips to help others join him beyond the bar.

Some of my favorite impressions among many:

✅ Respecting the exam is important but so is enjoying the process

✅ Practice as if it were the real thing. Do the real thing as if it were practice—with confidence

✅ Bar prep doesn’t have to be expensive

✅ Use the right approach to focus on what’s important

✅ The mental aspect (discipline, grit, fear, and doubt) can be what hinders you more than anything

Enough about my impressions. It’s time for yours. Here’s Stan’s story on what he did to finally pass the bar exam.

No substantive edits made except adding relevant links and [comments in brackets] and writing out some abbreviations.

One for Five: How I Finally Passed the Bar Exam

After I told Brian about my journey to passing the Oct 2020 California bar exam, he was gracious enough to offer me a chance to share my story on his blog. I discovered Brian’s website by searching stories on how people passed the exam. I’d bet that’s pretty common.

Before we get into my story, please know my only intent is to show you if I can pass, you absolutely can too. I’m not special, nor am I looking for credit or praise of any kind. I’m just an ordinary guy from LA who took the bar exam five times, dealing with life along the way.

Everyone’s journey to passing the bar is unique. What worked for me might not necessarily work for you. But I would bet a quality everyone needs is discipline. My story is a cautionary tale of why discipline should always be where bar prep starts and ends.

The October 2020 California bar exam was my fifth attempt, but I was finally ready to pass. Let me tell you why you should never think you’re not smart enough or good enough to pass, or that it must not be meant for you.

October 9, 2020May 27, 2024 - 6 Comments

The Bar Exam Is Difficult, but the Approach Is Simple

“How can I pass this bar exam? omg”

There are a million approaches for the bar exam. Indeed, you should find a way that works for YOU. As I always say, you’re the dean of your own studies.

All you have to do is understand the material and know how to use it, right?

If it were only that easy.

The bar exam covers a ton of concepts, including exceptions, jurisdictional differences, over a dozen subjects. There’s a LOT to know at once. Questions are difficult to answer unless you understand the key concepts.

The bar exam is not EASY.

But preparing for it is SIMPLE. Bar prep doesn’t have to be complicated.

There are really only three things you need for successful bar preparation:

Source materials (outlines, questions to practice with, sample answers)
How-to knowledge (which I cover)
Action from YOU to do the things that matter (practice and feedback)

Let’s go through each one.

September 26, 2020February 9, 2025 - 6 Comments

8 Steps to Getting Better at the Bar Exam

Listen, the bar exam is not going to be easy no matter how you slice it.

Not to mention all the preparation that goes into it, day in and day out. Not everyone is going to make it out either.

It’s brutal out there. You can’t rely on your fancy degree and emergency photo of your loved ones.

The good thing is that you have the power to differentiate yourself with your skills. You learn not just what to study—but how to study for the bar exam.

Of course, there are many ways to go about it. You have the innate talent. I only try to empower you to head in the right direction so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

This is a primer on how to use your innate talent to prepare for and get good at the bar exam.

July 2, 2020January 11, 2022 - 7 Comments

How should you really practice for the bar exam? “I keep practicing, but I’m not improving”

So you want to pass the bar. You’re super serious about it.

You pore over your outlines, trying to make sure you have a grasp of all the rules. There are still other subjects to review. You don’t think practice will be productive unless you “get” the theory.

It’s all so overwhelming.

But you did it. You can focus on practice now that you’ve had a good solid review of the core subjects first. You’ve been doing a few MBE questions and looked at a few essays already, but now it’s time to buckle down and get to writing those essays (you’ll get to the PTs… later).

After all, they said to “practice practice practice.”

But something’s wrong…

No matter how many times you do it, every essay is a mystery.

The blank-page syndrome is giving you irregular heartbeats and making you break out into a cold sweat.

You keep picking the incorrect answer choice on your MBE questions.

The prospect of grading your work makes you want to lie down on your bed instead.

Here’s why you’re stuck and what to do to get unstuck:

Observe the “10-40-40-10 rule” of bar preparation.