Passing the NY UBE with a 316 on Her First Try Working Full Time

Sushmita passed the February 2025 New York Bar Exam on her first attempt:

as a UK-trained attorney
right after taking another exam
while working full time
starting with ZERO prior knowledge of American law
with a score of 316 (!)

💬 “I did not study any US law during my LLM save for a short intro module for international students, i.e., I did not require an LLM to be eligible to take the bar exam.”

💬 “I am delighted to share that I’ve passed the UBE in NY with a score of 316.”

That’s just unnecessarily impressive.

On top of that, she went into prep already knowing she didn’t want to use a big box bar review program.

💬 “I have no wish to purchase bar prep from the big players like Barbri, Themis, JD Advising, Kaplan etc.”

💬 “Given my trauma in dealing with these terrible companies, I was looking for assistance similar to what I found for the [Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)], from people who genuinely want to help students. I found your website again when looking through my old bookmarks from 2022, and I am glad I did.”

How did she so confidently decide not to use a big course?

More importantly, how did she destroy this exam without one on her first try?

Table of Contents

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Resources Sushmita used to pass the New York UBE
Preparing to prepare
Engaging with the materials
Balancing prep with other obligations
Avoiding bloat and overwhelm like a passer
Full story

“I was hoping to replicate my approach to the SQE (for which I chose not to use a big box provider like Barbri and mostly prepared solo by purchasing material).”

Resources Sushmita used to pass the New York UBE

Magicsheets and Approsheets

💬 “I was pleasantly surprised at just how much information you’ve managed to put into these short outlines. So easy to understand and follow too – I don’t feel myself zoning out the way I did with Themis.”

Passer’s Playbook

💬 “Kept coming back to it throughout my journey and even whilst waiting for the results. It was really nice to have this guide that seemed to answer a lot of questions that popped up in my mind and also to add a bit of structure to my prep (I’ll call it a tutor in my pocket haha).”

Bar Prep Hero for drilling actual and simulated MBE questions

Goat Bar Prep

💬 “For deep dives into the MBE subjects (as I was a first time taker with almost no formal education in US law.”

MTYLT coaching emails

💬 “Your regular emails featuring other passers’ stories always inspired me.”

Preparing to prepare

Imagine passing an exam and preparing for the next one yet being patient enough to start over from step one.

Sushmita didn’t forget to start preparing for the NY exam from a clean slate.

💬 “Found out I passed [the SQE] on Wednesday, and am using this weekend to take stock of what I need to do for the NY Bar. Plan to do it this coming February. I’ve spent the last couple hours working through your Playbook. It is just a little thing, but I really enjoy your attention to detail in including a cover page for those who want to print it.”

Knowing the rules of the game is key to winning any game. From there, you can strategize and plan your resources.

This is one of the first things I recommend doing in the Systematic Study Blueprint in Passer’s Playbook.

Part of that knowing is an awareness of your learning style. Sushmita was confident about not wanting to go through a big bar review course because she knew what worked for her.

Do you?

💬 “I have started researching on appropriate courses for me, as I am not someone who benefits from lectures, and all I really need are a reliable set of notes on US law that I can read and learn.”

💬 “Themis’ outlines by themselves were making me want to shoot myself to be frank.”

Engaging with the materials

How did Sushmita become fluent in the subject matter despite having a full-time job and not taking a prep course?

Here’s how it began for her:

💬 “I started typing out the Magicsheets in late November 2024, and took my time. I went through the material slowly, allowing myself to engage with and understand what I was typing – this acted as my first review.”

A first review is of course needed to gain background context for the tested subject matter.

The mistake is staying stuck in this review stage. Knowing the information is just the beginning.

💬 “I completed a first pass of everything in late December, and this whole month has been a blur of studying in every free minute when I am not working. I am finishing with Real Property tomorrow, and with that all MBE-only subjects, and I’ve done about 1900 questions on BarPrepHero. Not too shabby for working full time, hehe.”

Sushmita was an exam-taking machine with the way she solved problems. Over and over. Again. Until the subject matter became hers.

💬 “Once I’ve done that, will spend 5-6 days studying the MEE only subjects first, by practising essays from one subject each day. Then I’ll move on to the MBE/MEE essay subjects in the same way. Of course, all these days will also have an hour or two for an MBE set so I don’t lose practice.”

💬 “BarPrepHero’s completion meter foresees doing 4600 questions, but I am trying to aim for 3,000-3500, because it needs to be quality over quantity. If I still have time, I may do the rest. I am prioritising their real past paper questions over simulated ones, so I’m leaving 810 mixed simulated questions for last.”

Sushmita had the handicap of working full-time with no U.S. legal background, but she was still a foreign-trained attorney. Attorneys tend to be a natural at tasks like performance tests (but not necessarily essays).

💬 “I am not recommending this approach, but I did not practise a single MPT. I think I read through the Playbook’s MPT advice and skimmed through 4-5 questions and model point sheets the night before the exam. . . . Plus, I’d say real world work experience helped plenty – I may not have found MPTs so easy if I had done the bar or SQE fresh out of law school. During the actual exam, MPT was the section I enjoyed the most and I finished both tasks well in time. I see I got a 160 in writing, and I have a feeling the MPTs were a huge contributor to that.”

But you’ll probably want to ensure that you nail down the PT.

Scrape together whatever advantages YOU have.

Balancing prep with other obligations

She also had the discipline to stay on track while staying flexible around her unpredictable work schedule and setting intentional goals.

💬 “I have not bound myself to a daily schedule (after trying to make one), because the nature of disputes work is that some days just get unexpectedly crazy and then I didn’t want the anxiety weighing me down. I’ve given myself some deadlines, like when to finish each subject no matter what, and that’s worked quite decently.”

💬 “I tend to get anxious with a rigid timetable and feel overwhelmed if I deviate even slightly – so I felt better with a loose structure of what I wanted to accomplish each week, and having the freedom to rethink that as time went by.”

This is great. You’re not bound to your initial plans because humans are terrible predictors of the future. I encourage you to stay flexible and adapt to what happens during your prep (something comes up, you find weak subjects, etc.).

If you’re working and studying at the same time, the reality is that you have to deal with time and energy constraints. You can try to focus on efficient activities all you want, but you’re still percolating your study time whenever you can, even during work.

💬 “I was studying both before and after work, and sometimes during the work day if I had free time. Weekends were of course the most productive, I’d spend pretty much the entire weekend studying and I went out very little.”

Avoiding bloat and overwhelm like a passer

People are always asking why they’re overwhelmed. Sushmita simply sidestepped the things that added to the overwhelm.

Sushmita was willing to MOVE. She didn’t get stuck on “reviewing” the whole time. This gave her the mental space to properly engage with the materials.

This was true even (especially) with subjects that were completely new to her.

💬 “I started working through essays backward from J24, doing 10 essays in each subject. I did not write out full essays, I used Approsheets and Magicsheets to outline the legal principles (your essay cooking method). I then did 10 essays each in MBE subjects, same approach. Once I had 10 essays for each subject, I went back to do more essays in MEE subjects I personally struggled with.”

💬 “I have not done more than a proper first pass (basically ‘teaching myself’ and writing out the outline one time) for the MEE subjects, so I wanted to sit with each subject for a day and basically do ‘essay cooking’ using the Approsheets by doing 10-12 questions on that subject. . . . After this, I was planning to follow the same strategy for the MBE/MEE subjects (and keep doing sets of MBE questions every day).”

Yes, 10-12 essay questions on a subject she hasn’t seen. Doesn’t that seem like a lot…?

There’s something different about passers. They’re not looking to get away with the bare minimum. They lean into the uncertainty and the struggle, pressing even more on the places that hurt because the pain is giving them a sign.

Maybe the question isn’t how she did it DESPITE having a full-time job and not taking a prep course…

Maybe she was able to go straight to learning BECAUSE she avoided some bloated ass program that was going to take its sweet time holding her hand through a battery of generic “studying” activities that use up her limited time.

And of course, the rewards were well deserved!

💬 “I was regretting that I informed people that the exam went well :P However, as you can see from the result – that anxiety was misplaced! 160 – writing; 156.4 – MBE. 319!!!!! YAY!!!! Still can’t believe it!”

Full story

Text version - prep period

May 23, 2024

Dear Brian

Thanks for this welcome note.

I am an England and Wales-educated lawyer, but I did my LLM in International and Comparative Law at ____, graduating in 2022. I did not do any US law modules in my LLM except Legal Profession and Legal Research and Writing, as my common law degree allows me to sit the NY bar without a US LLM. I am now based in Dubai, as a disputes trainee solicitor.

I have had your website bookmarked on my browser since 2022, because I had initially registered to sit the NY bar exam in Feb 2023. However, I also work full time as a disputes trainee solicitor, and we were caught up in preparation for a trial that lasted days. When I found out I could defer the bar exam without repayment of the application fee for 3 years, I chose that option. In the meantime, I have taken the Solicitors Qualifying Examination in the UK, and I am waiting on my results for SQE 2, which will be out in August 2024.

If I pass, I hope to take the bar exam in February 2025. I have started researching on appropriate courses for me, as I am not someone who benefits from lectures, and all I really need are a reliable set of notes on US law that I can read and learn. I purchased access to BarPrepHero in 2022, and that gives me access to MBE questions as well as the old MEEs and MPTs.

For the SQE, I opted for a lesser known, newer subscription based provider, that only charged you 15 GBP a month for access to notes, practice questions and flashcards, also run by a very kind person who seemed to just want to help people, and replied to every email personally. While friends told me Barbri was also the best for the SQE, I simply could not afford their astronomical fees and stuck with this other provider. I don’t regret that, and I don’t think Barbri’s method would have helped me prepare for the SQE.

Similarly, I have no wish to purchase bar prep from the big players like Barbri, Themis, JD Advising, Kaplan etc. I have particular animosity towards Kaplan. As you may be aware, Kaplan is the company chosen by the English Solicitors Regulation Authority to administer the SQE on its behalf – they don’t get to offer courses, but they have control of the entire exam. Their fees have increased every year, they have made inexcusable errors with marking, and they don’t let candidates access old exam questions – so every time you walk in it’s still a mystery (given the SQE exam is barely 3 years old). The sample questions on their website do not match the difficulty level of the actual exam.

Anyway, given my trauma in dealing with these terrible companies, I was looking for assistance similar to what I found for the SQE, from people who genuinely want to help students. I found your website again when looking through my old bookmarks from 2022, and I am glad I did. Once I know more on whether I have passed (and once my finances recover from this SQE drama), I am keen to purchase your resources. I am also an avid reader of the bar exam subreddit, and I see how they are full of praise for your Magicsheets and Approsheets.

I write to ask for some advice. Given my background, would you consider the Magicsheets, Approsheets and my pre-existing BarPrepHero subscription adequate to prepare for the NY bar? I also have access to 2022 Themis outlines from a friend, but they’re just not that snappy, and I have no interest in information overload.

Many thanks for reading this far.

Kind regards
Sushmita

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Nov 3, 2024

Themis’ outlines by themselves were making me want to shoot myself to be frank, so I used a free trial period from Quimbee to do a quick skim of everything. I have ended up purchasing your bundle as well as the one from Goat Bar Prep, and hopefully both bundles along with lots of practice on Bar Prep Hero should get me through. Your outlines make a lot of sense and are way easier to read than Themis (both full length and final review), so that’s going to be my base material.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress with prep and I’ll let you know how well Bar Prep Hero turns out (as you had requested earlier).

Thanks for all your help.

—

Nov 6, 2024

Quick update: I have just finished writing out your family law and part of business associations Magicsheets and they really are magical! I knew from reading reviews that they were comprehensive, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how much information you’ve managed to put into these short outlines. So easy to understand and follow too – I don’t feel myself zoning out the way I did with Themis.

Thanks for sharing your amazing work with all of us :)

—

Jan 26, 2025

Happy New Year! (kinda :P)

Just checking in about a month out from the exam.

I started studying in November but at an easier pace, just getting familiar with the material. I completed a first pass of everything in late December, and this whole month has been a blur of studying in every free minute when I am not working. I am finishing with Real Property tomorrow, and with that all MBE-only subjects, and I’ve done about 1900 questions on BarPrepHero. Not too shabby for working full time, hehe.

I’ll be giving myself a break once done with Real Property, and will spend one day this week reviewing old MPTs (as a break from “memorising”). The SQE 2 has a similar style of assessment to the MPTs in part so I am less worried, and because there’s 90 minutes for each which is quite reassuring. The SQE2 legal research portion gives you an hour to work through the infodump of 8 sources of varying lengths and prepare the report.

Once I’ve done that, will spend 5-6 days studying the MEE only subjects first, by practising essays from one subject each day. Then I’ll move on to the MBE/MEE essay subjects in the same way. Of course, all these days will also have an hour or two for an MBE set so I don’t lose practice.

Your materials have been a great help, and I’ve given you some shout outs on Reddit as well. I have not bound myself to a daily schedule (after trying to make one), because the nature of disputes work is that some days just get unexpectedly crazy and then I didn’t want the anxiety weighing me down. I’ve given myself some deadlines, like when to finish each subject no matter what, and that’s worked quite decently.

I am hoping I get through the exam. One thing that helps is that I am already qualified and there is nothing hanging on this, I am not losing a promotion (as had been the case with the SQE), and the bar exam is miles cheaper and far more accessible to retake. That is helping my mindset if I start to panic. But ideally I pass the first time and make my loved ones proud!

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Jan 28, 2025

Thank you for writing back :) BarPrepHero’s completion meter foresees doing 4600 questions, but I am trying to aim for 3,000-3500, because it needs to be quality over quantity. If I still have time, I may do the rest. I am prioritising their real past paper questions over simulated ones, so I’m leaving 810 mixed simulated questions for last.

The reason I wanted to spend 4-5 days on MEE subjects first is because I have spent all of January learning all the MBE subjects very well and understanding exceptions and weird rules (especially for things that are new to me like Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and the UCC regime in Contracts). However, I have not done more than a proper first pass (basically “teaching myself” and writing out the outline one time) for the MEE subjects, so I wanted to sit with each subject for a day and basically do “essay cooking” using the Approsheets by doing 10-12 questions on that subject. So for example, on Friday I was thinking to do Family Law because I did not study that in law school, and just drill through lots of old questions. After this, I was planning to follow the same strategy for the MBE/MEE subjects (and keep doing sets of MBE questions every day).

I am absolutely open to any feedback on this or if you think I should consider a different strategy. I have been following your Passer’s Playbook and memorising by practising from day 1, and was thinking the same approach would help here.

I am looking forward to the day in April / May when I can do a success post as a first-time foreign passer who completely avoided Barbri / Themis etc and give a huge, huge shout out to your resources :)

Text version - passing

Hi Brian!

Hope you’ve been keeping well.

I am delighted to share that I’ve passed the UBE in NY with a score of 316.

I wanted to shoot off this quick email to you to let you know, because your advice and your amazing Magicsheets and Approsheets were a huge reason I passed!

I’d like to do a detailed write up / thank you message for you to share on your website and I’ll be doing a post on reddit as well. But I was too excited to hold off on sending this out.

THANK YOU BRIAN!

Best wishes,
Sushmita

—

My background

I have an LLB from England and Wales and an LLM in International and Comparative Law from the US. I did not study any US law during my LLM save for a short intro module for international students, i.e., I did not require an LLM to be eligible to take the bar exam.

I’ve been working in disputes (arbitration and litigation) since the beginning of my career. I qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales through the SQE route last year, and I’ve just passed the F25 UBE and I hope to also be an attorney very soon :)

My bar prep

Resources

I was hoping to replicate my approach to the SQE (for which I chose not to use a big box provider like Barbri and mostly prepared solo by purchasing material).

Here is a list of what I used to prepare for the UBE:

Magicsheets – as my base for learning the black letter law. I typed out the outlines into a document with wide margins and larger font, and printed that out to take handwritten notes on the side. I’ve included a couple of photos for reference.

Goat Bar Prep – for deep dives into the MBE subjects (as I was a first time taker with almost no formal education in US law).

Bar Prep Hero – for drilling actual and simulated MBE questions (more detail on that below), and for their database of past MPTs and MEEs with NCBE model answers.

Approsheets – for essay practice, and for last minute quick revision.

Passer’s Playbook – purchased this a few months before I started prep, kept coming back to it throughout my journey and even whilst waiting for the results. It was really nice to have this guide that seemed to answer a lot of questions that popped up in my mind and also to add a bit of structure to my prep (I’ll call it a tutor in my pocket haha).

My prep journey

I was working full time during bar prep, and was off for about a week before I travelled to NY for the exam. I started typing out the Magicsheets in late November 2024, and took my time. I went through the material slowly, allowing myself to engage with and understand what I was typing – this acted as my first review. I finished this by late December 2024, after which I took a few days off for Christmas and New Year. I would say the marathon part of prep started around 4 January 2025 for me.

I spent most of January working through Goat’s outlines, and colouring details into the margins of my printed Magicsheets. At the same time, I was doing an average of 70 MBE questions a day (some days more, some days less).

I was studying both before and after work, and sometimes during the work day if I had free time. Weekends were of course the most productive, I’d spend pretty much the entire weekend studying and I went out very little.

Once I was done with MBE subjects, I chose a (I think) slightly odd way to study MEE subjects. I started working through essays backward from J24, doing 10 essays in each subject. I did not write out full essays, I used Approsheets and Magicsheets to outline the legal principles (your essay cooking method). I then did 10 essays each in MBE subjects, same approach. Once I had 10 essays for each subject, I went back to do more essays in MEE subjects I personally struggled with, like Business Associations. Throughout this time, I was still doing MBE questions every day. I’ve included a couple photos of my essay outlining as an illustration (I picked some where my handwriting was still decent hehe).

I flew into NY four days before the exam, and lost two days for travelling and jet lag. I did manage to do a couple 100 MBEs on the plane however :) (it was a 14 hour flight). 48 hours before the exam I was mainly just rereading Magicsheets and essays in my problem areas.

I’m sure you’re thinking why I haven’t mentioned MPTs. I am not recommending this approach, but I did not practise a single MPT. I think I read through the Playbook’s MPT advice and skimmed through 4-5 questions and model point sheets the night before the exam. I will explain why I did this: the SQE2 has a Legal Research task where you get a similar set of sources as the MPT and you get one hour for a research memo. I struggled with timing there, but was still able to finish those tasks, so the extra half hour for the MPT made me feel very relaxed. Plus, I’d say real world work experience helped plenty – I may not have found MPTs so easy if I had done the bar or SQE fresh out of law school. During the actual exam, MPT was the section I enjoyed the most and I finished both tasks well in time. I see I got a 160 in writing, and I have a feeling the MPTs were a huge contributor to that.

Scheduling / study timetable

While I did try to create a study schedule inspired by the many examples in the Playbook, in the end, there was much less structure in my prep. I had to be ready to change my targets for a particular week if work was suddenly busier, and sometimes I had better than expected progress if work was slow. I’ve never really operated with fixed timetables so this is standard for me – may not work for other who prefer more structure. I tend to get anxious with a rigid timetable and feel overwhelmed if I deviate even slightly – so I felt better with a loose structure of what I wanted to accomplish each week, and having the freedom to rethink that as time went by.

Exam days

Day 1 – MPT went by in a breeze (see above)! MEEs were pretty decent – I feel that I BS’d a bit through some issues (especially part of the Trusts essay – the healthcare power of attorney thing really had me confused for a while), but overall I left feeling happy. I spent the evening of day 1 reading through Goat’s tips and tricks for each MBE subject.

Day 2 – I took my time going inside the exam centre, I was outside skimming through the tips and tricks again. AM went quite decently, but I would say I was far happier after the PM half. I came out of the exam centre feeling very positive!

Post exam

I started feeling anxious the day the NCBE announced the record low MBE average, and wondering if I’d overestimated my performance. I was regretting that I informed people that the exam went well :P However, as you can see from the result – that anxiety was misplaced! 160 – writing; 156.4 – MBE. 319!!!!! YAY!!!! Still can’t believe it!

I hope you find this helpful. Please let me know what else I can share to help you / other candidates as maybe I’ve missed something. Your regular emails featuring other passers’ stories always inspired me, and I am hoping that my story helps someone too :)

Also, let me know if any of the photos did not come out clear – willing to resend.

A HUGE, HUGE THANK YOU FOR YOUR RESOURCES, YOUR HARD WORK AND YOUR SUPPORT. Will be recommending you to anyone who asks!

Kind regards
Sushmita

—

I am so happy to be of help. This is the least I can do as you’ve always been prompt in your replies whenever I had a question – it’s only fair I do the same :)

Actually, regarding my background – I had a think about it after writing you yesterday and I’m content for you to use the info I’ve provided in yesterday’s email (as it nicely wraps up our earlier discussions). I’m also happy for you to use my first name Sushmita in your post / emails.

Two more things:

1. I would be happy to contribute (if you are interested) insights for an MTYLT post on lawyers from England looking to dual qualify and vice versa. Let me know if that’s something you would like to pursue.

2. I don’t know if my journey is inspiring enough, but I was someday hoping to be one of your Fire Up Friday or similar stories… 🙈 I would always read those emails and think “when I pass, it would be cool to be featured” (I request that you keep this admission between us however, I feel like an absolute dork 😂).

Hope this helps, and please let me know if there are any accidental gaps in yesterday’s debrief. I’ll be happy to provide more detail.

Kind regards
Sushmita