For the California Bar Exam, Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), and other state bars
Passer’s Playbook — tools and techniques for effective bar prep
Maximize your score by learning how to learn (not just what to study) with blueprints, study schedules, and strategies to prepare efficiently and effectively
How would it feel to never have to see another hypo again?
“I’ve been basking in the glory of finally passing the bar! . . . The more I simply did what you recommend in the playbook, my confidence steadily grew.”
“I just took the Feb CA bar and you and all of your products were a tremendous help to me, ESPECIALLY the Passer’s Playbook, your study schedules, and other methods.”
“I . . . implemented it into my study routine. Basically, all of it. . . . I raised my [Arkansas UBE] score 20+ points using your study guidance, reminders, and schedules.”
Avoid putting your life, relationships, and professional career in limbo for 6 more months
(and dropping more $$$ on the next round of bar prep)
New York Bar Passer
Get clear on how to spend your limited prep time for bar prep
(instead of doing random things without direction)
California Bar Passer
“Move the needle” and stop spinning your wheels on the most important exam of your life
Learn what Barbri and Themis won’t teach you
(before it’s too late)
If you’re like many bar takers, you see your neat package of shiny new course materials and shrug:
“How hard could it be? Everything I need to know is in that pile of giant books.”
But does it make sense to you that…
- You go through hours of lectures, diligent note taking, and “studying” only to be exhausted and forget 99% of it anyway?
- “Big box” bar prep courses tell you WHAT to study, but they don’t teach you HOW to prepare for the bar exam?
- Someone balancing a job or family has the exact same cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all study schedule as someone whose full-time job is to study for the bar?
Not to me.
You’re the dean of your own studies, not anyone else. Not Barbri, not your professors, not even me.
You don’t have to follow “The Plan.” No matter what you use, bar prep at its core is still a self-learning endeavor. Courses and supplements are merely there to support your learning. Like a buffet, or your social media feed, what’s laid out for you are just suggestions.
On my first attempt at the bar exam, I did the things that you’re probably doing…
- Meticulously watching exhausting 4-hour-long videos (pausing them to fill in the blanks), and reading outlines religiously (sending myself thoughts and prayers)
- Fixating on checking off all the assignment boxes and filling in the completion % meter
- Grasping at any sense of security knowing that they had it all planned out for me. “Just follow The Plan, and you’ll pass!”—The National Association of Barbri (probably)
EXHAUSTION.
The truth is, these things usually don’t move the needle. You’ve probably thought about doing some of them…maybe redid them multiple times!
It wasn’t FUN or MOTIVATING because I wasn’t seeing any PROGRESS. Enjoying the process is key! The more you enjoy this process, the more energy you will have to absorb the material and sharpen that intuition. Your brain will reject what you don’t like.
I was being a tryhard but not an overachiever. I was going through the motions without doing the mental work.
Ultimately, it was a failure of myself because of arrogance, underestimation of the bar exam, and mindless tactical hell. It was caused by a failure to focus on the right things that moved the needle.
More importantly, I was allowing someone else to dictate my pace, my studies, and ultimately my fate. It was college and law school all over again, just going with the flow.
Well, could you blame me—or yourself? It’s extremely daunting and overwhelming to even think about juggling over a dozen subjects. It’s soothing to do what feels productive (like reading outlines and trying to memorize rules). You feel like you’re still in control. It becomes hard to see that a course is simply a reference tool, not a duty you must fulfill.
What I realized since was that it was up to me to prevent forest fires. No one can teach you. You can only learn.
That’s why someone who collects all the “best” tools, pays for a huge course, and studies for 12 hours a day can still end up spinning their wheels getting nowhere — while someone who knows how to study can pass without the exhaustion or frustration (seemingly effortlessly).
That’s why you don’t NEED a huge course that just eats up your precious time and energy. It provides structure (especially for first-timers and bar takers who have a lot of lead time) but can be inefficient.
You don’t NEED to spend 1,000s of dollars on tutors. They’re great — if you can find the right one for you and afford them. (To be fair, a good tutor can be very helpful.)
Treat the bar review courses as luxury options with bells and whistles, not the default or the only option (even if they tried to convince you otherwise since your first day of law school). You wouldn’t look at first-class flights by default, right?
Courses and tutors CAN and DO work. Supplements DO help. (I’ll show you which ones to use out of the smorgasbord of options depending on your budget, and how to get discounts to offset the cost of Passer’s Playbook.)
But you don’t get an “A” for how hard you work or how much time or money you spend. You earn it for mastery.
You don’t get in shape by hiring a personal trainer or just completing the movements. You push your body consistently and make that mind-muscle connection by actively engaging the target muscle.
Again: No one can teach you. It’s up to you to learn. In the end, you’re the one who has to do it. All the tools out there can work for you as long as you realize that, no matter what you use, bar prep at its core is a self-learning endeavor.
But, as the exam gets harder and more expensive over time, you can’t afford to fall into the same mistakes I did on my first attempt.
It boils down to THREE things for proper bar exam preparation and to succeed on the bar exam:
1
Good source materials: outlines (like Magicsheets), past exam questions, sample answers
2
Will to act. Do you have the ability to self-motivate?
3
Knowing HOW to study (not just WHAT to study)
So it’s time to stop “studying” what to learn.
Let me show you how to learn.
Introducing…
Passer’s Playbook
Passer’s Playbook is a set of step-by-step blueprints, study schedules, cheat sheets, recordings, checklists, and strategies designed to help you learn HOW to learn, improve your scores, and post an award speech (humble)brag about passing the bar exam.
They’re packaged as guides of varying lengths (a few pages to a comprehensive 380 pages), editable documents, audio and video.
What’s included with Passer’s Playbook?
Moving the needle begins today. Kickstart your bar prep with keys to success. Just internalizing ONE insight here can make a difference to your approach to bar exam preparation.
What you’ll discover:
You are the dean of your own studies. There’s no need to follow someone else’s general one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter schedule. Get CLEAR on what to do every day by crafting your own flexible curriculum, tailored to fit you like a handmade glove according to your needs, no matter when the exam is.
What you’ll discover:
Learn how to learn. If you have a question about bar prep, chances are, it’s in this 380-page comprehensive guide called the “Big Playbook.” I regret my naming sense.
What you’ll discover (among other things):
Feel like watching or listening instead of reading? I’ve included video and audio recordings of conversations with a bar exam expert and real bar takers. Timestamps, handout, and notes included.
What you’ll discover:
The multiple-choice portion of the bar exam takes up to 50% of your score. Try these extra tools to sharpen your focus on the subjects and topics you want to tackle.
What you’ll discover:
Many bar takers neglect the performance test…until it’s too late and they regret it when they get their score reports. The PT/MPT is a hidden source of big points which doesn’t require memorization like the essays and the MBE. Figure out how to solve PTs once, and you’ll be ready for it even as you focus most of your time studying for essays and the MBE.
What you’ll discover:
Even with the best resource in the world, sometimes you just want to be able to get feedback on a targeted question. I’m not in the business of leaving you to pass the bar exam alone or making you pay a subscription fee.
Passer’s Playbook (like all my products) comes with:
You’ll also get signed up for weekly support emails to keep you on track until the bar exam:
Ready to get started?
Choose your difficulty
There is a difference between knowing the law and knowing how to USE the law.
A simple example: If you can’t see the issue in an essay, all those rules you memorized are WORTHLESS because you’ll have nowhere to fit it in.
Just based on whether you have this one example insight, we can see that one of two realities is about to unfold before you:
Face 6 more months of studying and the torture of waiting for bar results
Earn the right to make annoying humblebrag announcements about passing the bar exam people have no choice but to congratulate you for
Both paths are going to be difficult.
So choose the difficulty you prefer. It only takes a moment of strength for the lifetime privilege of calling yourself an attorney.
But honestly, you don’t care about any of that at this moment. You don’t care about celebrations.
You just want to move on and remember what happiness was like. That’s what usually happens to passers who leave me a note and simply move on to become successful attorneys. No frills. Life simply goes on without the bar exam in the way anymore.
All you want in life right now is the relief—the security of knowing you’ll be able to find better jobs, pay off those loans, and live a free life without the bar blocking your way.
So how do you start recovering the brilliant confidence you used to have?
The resource I wish I had on my first attempt at the bar exam
“Any fool can learn from experience. I prefer to learn from other people’s experiences.”
Passer’s Playbook is a toolkit of “how to” strategies and insights that will help cut down on fumbling. The mistakes have been made for you already.
Let me paint a more vivid picture for you:
Don’t let the bar exam be a learning experience
Just one insight or improvement could be the difference between putting your life in limbo for 6 more months… vs. putting
this final hurdle behind you forever and moving on with your free life.
The first scenario happens when you haven’t learned how to learn. Many students fall into the trap of “knowing the law” but not “knowing how to use the law.” They go through the motions and end up not understanding what they consume.
And if that’s you, that’s OK. In fact, that’s common and normal!
So breathe a sigh of relief. There’s no need to worry. It’s OK to feel stuck and like you’ve plateaued, as long as you eventually become better.
That’s the comforting part: You don’t even have to be “ready” right now. That’s not the point. You’re preparing to become ready.
If you’re already getting 80% of your MBE questions correctly, you’re doing something right, but what’s next for you? You either upkeep that level…or slide downhill.
Most of your progress will come at the tail end of preparation, like compound interest.
The good news is that bar exam preparation is a learnable skill specific to the bar exam.
Practicing attorneys tend to not do as well on the bar exam because it is a SEPARATE skill from practice of law. You don’t need to know the intricacies of criminal procedure and real property in most attorney roles (your friends will never stop asking you to help fight their landlords, though).
Passer’s Playbook can help you build a foundation in study skills specific to bar prep — to elevate you past the initial stagnation and give you powerful insights to climb beyond the plateau (skipping the left half of the graph above).
Use the strategies tested in the field based on my own and others’ experiences over the years to gain 20/20 FORESIGHT on:
Do you want to pass the bar exam now or 6 months later?
This is about the future…your dreams of becoming an attorney. It’s not just about passing the bar. There’s A LOT MORE at stake here.
And another 6 months of your life spent waiting for results to gestate, simmering in anxiety and uncertainty, is no joke.
The bar exam’s difficulty creeps up every year. And the more you repeat the exam, the stronger more your status quo identity as a repeater becomes. You want to avoid this as much as you can!
It puts not only yourself in limbo—but also your friends and family who may not fully understand why you’re still doing this “bar thing.”
Failing the bar exam means you’d be squandering the only things in life you can’t get back: time and relationships (and unpaid rent by your friend’s Bora Bora vacation pics living in your head).
This is an opportunity to make our friends, our parents, our family, and—most of all, your own dreams—proud.
THAT’S what’s at stake with the bar exam. It’s not just a career and a path to make a living. Professional abeyance limits your life, relationships, and dreams from reaching their full potential.
With these at stake, can you afford to take this exam another time?
The problem isn’t that you aren’t smart. The problem is that you haven’t learned how to learn. Since law school, it’s been a test of whether you know something they didn’t teach you. This is not a test of intelligence.
You have more control over this than you think. You don’t have to follow “The Plan.” You just have to learn what law school and Barbri failed to teach you.
After spending six figures on law school, 1,000s of dollars on a prep course, and another grand on application and laptop fees, anything that gives you even a 1% edge to put the bar exam behind you once and for all is worth it.
This is an investment in your career, your livelihood, and moving on with your life guilt-free.
You don’t even have to be sure if you want Passer’s Playbook right now…
Bar prep can and should be simplified.
Ready to Make This Your Last Time?
My goal is to share the kind of insights and resources I wish I had when I first took (and failed) the bar exam:
- Avoiding tunnel vision, traps, and blind spots that you may not realize at first
- Not just knowing what to study — but how to study
- Getting out of a co-dependent relationship with your bar review course
Bar prep can be daunting, but it can also be approachable. Take the back door to success with this on-demand “coach in a pocket” that will teach you the acquirable SKILL of preparing for the bar exam, the most important game of your life.