I love nontraditional success stories, especially when they’re from younger or older folks.
Richard passed the 2025 July Minnesota UBE at age 64.
💬 “I passed in Minnesota. I had 7 previous attempts in Arizona and Texas, this was my first attempt in Minnesota.”
💬 “My written score went up 13 points and my MBE up 6 points, and now they call me esquire at 64 years young.”
I love nontraditional success stories because they pull the rug of expectations from under you.
Someone could look at success stories from foreign attorneys (from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Turkey, the UK, etc.), people who are 60+ years old, people who worked full-time (including a busy biglaw partner), people who went to unaccredited or no-longer-existing law schools, someone with a 9% chance of passing, someone who was in prison for 32 years, people who studied for a few weeks (or even just 1 week), people who closed 150- and 180-point gaps on the California Bar Exam while literally dying from health issues…
(You can find these actual stories on my blog.)
And they might still say, “But I’m a left-handed Capricorn with a water allergy! Aha, gotcha! I knew everything happened for a reason! You can’t just cherry pick 50 case studies!!!”
Do you want reasons it won’t work out, or reasons it could work out?
💬 “If you think you have done enough, do more. Do not chase wrong answers, or just complete assignments. Study with a purpose and question why you got something right or wrong.”
Resources Richard used to pass the Minnesota UBE
💬 “I put the sheets everywhere. I carried them around and constantly looked at them. I had my family quiz me constantly. Your sheets work, and I can say that was the biggest thing I did to prepare.”
Barbri
Barmax
Let’s gather around and listen to wisdom from our elders today.
Richard’s story highlights some pillars of MTYLT that I talk about all the time (which some of us need reminding yet again):
- Doing fewer things with more intention
- Not trying to force programs to work
- Playing offense instead of defense
1) Stop chasing volume and illusory progress metrics
Taking that completion bar from 45% to 46% is not the goal of preparation.
They’re seeing an arbitrary metric as a proxy for personal progress.
Is there some correlation? Maybe, until the progress meter becomes a scapegoat for avoiding what they already know they should be doing.
You don’t need permission from some random metric to start moving the needle.
People don’t pass just because they completed some % of their course, “did” 4,500 MBE questions, or studied 8.8 hours a day.
💬 “I purchased Barbri for the exam because that is what everyone said to do, big mistake! So after doing the program and listening to the Rah Rah crap they sell, I failed the July 2017, and Feb 2018 exams with my score declining on the second attempt.”
People still pass with 40% completed (or no course at all), under 1,000 MBE questions, etc.
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Stop punching your pillow, and calm down.
💬 “I did about 500 questions and 25 essays this time but I did them with a purpose.”
Get the reps in, and make them good reps.
Learning doesn’t come from the act of checking off boxes. Checking off a box means you finished the assignment. Someone who focuses on boxes or asks how many essays they need to do pass is trying to get away with doing the bare minimum. You can turn the pages of a book and say you read them, but did you comprehend the contents?
Consider instead:
- What do you get out of doing the task?
- Was the task in the first place appropriate and useful for where you are?
- Did you review and study your work, or did you move on after you “completed” the task?
- Why do you assume the program knows what you need when it gives the same program to everyone?
2) Persistence is not enough if you don’t change how you study
It’s important to stay persistent and iterate on your approach.
But nothing will change if you keep doing the same things that keep you stuck. Especially if you’re a repeater.
Hard work is table stakes. Simply trying harder or trying another course doesn’t help unless you
fundamentally change how you prepare.
💬 “After moving back to Texas, I decided I would get back in the saddle and try again. I decided to purchase Barmax. Well, I did worse with this program.”
Richard was willing to do the work. More important, he was willing to put his pride away on his 8th attempt.
It was time to win, not to be right.
💬 “I started following you after my 4th attempt, but I did not really listen to what I needed to. After seven tries, I was ready to throw caution to the wind and do what it takes to pass.”
💬 “My new plan was to start putting my pride away and start playing the game the way I needed to beat them at their game. I started practicing how I was going to take the test when I did the MBE, MEE or MPT questions.”
3) Accrue knowledge + use the knowledge
Don’t ask me if all you need to do to pass is memorize Magicsheets.
What worked for Richard was memorizing issues and rules, putting them to use right away, and understanding why answers were right or wrong.
In other words, constant testing, iteration, and error correction, like machine learning. Wrong answers go down. Correct answers go up.
This is how you “learn the law,” not by memorizing some words on a page.
💬 “The things that helped me the most were memorizing the rules with daily review of the Magicsheets. Also, not just trying to get through questions and check boxes for progress but understanding why I got something correct or not. Mnemonics are huge too.”
💬 “I took half the day just going over the Magicsheets and Approsheets using memorization. One subject at a time for an hour and then 25 questions in 45 minutes on that subject.”
💬 “My tutor was amazing at coaching the MPT. I can say organization, and putting the cases in the right place mattered most.”
4) Practice ➔ get things wrong ➔ create direction
Richard was also willing to get things wrong.
💬 “My written exams I focused on spotting issues, stating a conclusion statement, then stating the rules as close to verbatim as I could. If I did not remember a rule I made one sound good. I picked out the facts and just stated simply why the rule applied or did not.”
It’s OK to make mistakes because, every time that happens, you find another hole where points are leaking from.
You’re finding your own direction and creating assignments tailored to you instead of doing a bunch of preset tasks you don’t know are helping you get through the fog.
5) Play to your strengths too
By getting things wrong, you figure out your weakest areas to patch up.
Weak areas are lowest-hanging fruits you can fix, but you get most of your score from what you’re good at.
💬 “I got better at the things I did well instead of worrying about what I didn’t know.”
💬 “Make your strengths the reason you pass, master your strong subjects and do not dwell on your subjects that you are not doing well.”
Hopefully, you become good at everything by the end.
💬 “So, after 7 attempts with the lead in of ‘Unfortunately, you did not achieve a passing score,’ I got a ‘congratulations, you have passed the bar exam!’”
