Make This Your Last Time | Bar Exam Preparation

November 29, 2025November 28, 2025 - 5 Comments

Two Biggest Fears of a Bar Exam Taker

“I need to know all the law first!”

What were those three years of law school for? Never mind.

There’s this strange concern in the atmosphere floating around.

A concern that if you don’t know it all, then you won’t be prepared to solve the problems… The thought that all you need to do well on the bar exam is to “have the information”…

So you sit there, fold your arms, and wait for osmosis. Maybe your soulmate will suddenly come knocking on your door, too.

And then when you finally flip open that essay after weeks of “studying”…

You stare at the blank page.

In front of you, a blank canvas ready to be filled but only reflecting an uncomfortable stillness.

The cursor blinks at you, urging you to fill the awkward silence.

Cold sweat squeezes out of pores you didn’t even realize you had on your body. 😓

“…”

You decide to hit the books and videos again. Maybe you just need to study a little more…

You’re mostly grasping the material, but then when you take a practice exam it’s like everything you know is out the window.

WTF? Why didn’t it work?

November 28, 2025November 28, 2025 - No Comments

Passing the Bar Exam with a Brain Aneurysm (No Excuses)

It was like a curse. Monica had the deck stacked against her through ever since law school.

💬 “My law school was filled with health whirlwinds that no one could have prepared me for. My health was failing while in law school (like near death).”

💬 “I had registered to sit for the July 2022 bar exam, and to my surprise there were latent health conditions waiting to be revealed. Given the health surprises, I withdrew from the exam believing that I was going to prepare for February 2023. Unfortunately, I was bedridden with Covid and withdrew.”

💬 “I registered to take the February 2024 bar exam, and you guessed it. My Christmas present prior to February 2024 bar exam was a diagnosis of a brain aneurysm.”

💬 “After the February 2024 bar exam withdrawal, I thought okay now I should focus on July 2024, and I was having brain symptoms and physical symptoms that no doctor could explain, and yet again I withdrew.”

💬 “I studied and prepared for February 2025 UBE, and missed the threshold by 17 points. I thought I gave all I had on my first attempt, what else is there to give.”

Monica dealt with:

Almost dying through law school
Withdrawing because of health surprises
Withdrawing again because of COVID
Withdrawing again because of a brain aneurysm
Withdrawing again because of bodily symptoms
Finally taking the bar exam and failing when she gave it her all for her first attempt
Enduring the brain aneurysm while taking the bar the second time

Then she passed the July 2025 Texas Bar Exam on her second attempt with a 27-point improvement.

💬 “My husband was informed by the radiologist after an angiogram that he could not find the aneurysm that had been present from 2023-2025. That news (miracle) was provided a week before the bar results were released. On October 6^th, I opened an email to read ‘Congratulations you have passed the Texas UBE.”

Anything you want to be thankful for yet?

November 22, 2025November 24, 2025 - 25 Comments

You Need a Personalized Study Plan: How to Make Your Own Bar Prep Study Schedule

Haters will say it’s impossible:

I’m not saying the haters are right.

I’m just saying…maybe…it’s not about mindlessly stacking assignments and being too busy completing them to absorb what you’re doing.

Maybe…you don’t actually have to do everything they tell you. Why are you acting like you read every case back in Contracts class?

The only thing I remember from law school is my negotiations professor saying this in class randomly:

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

Is bar preparation worth doing? Then it’s worth doing right. Doing it intentionally. Being an overachiever without being a tryhard.

After all, you’re the dean of your own studies. And we know that enjoying the process creates sustainable momentum (not just fixating on the goal of passing the bar).

Just as what’s enjoyable is personal, bar prep is also personal. Your study plan and schedule—and even the materials you use to support your prep—are personal.

There are many reasons your schedule will look different from everyone else’s:

You might be working while studying for the bar exam and have 3 hours scattered throughout a workday.
Maybe you live in your parents’ basement and have every day free. Your mom shakes her head as she sees you shitposting on Reddit instead of studying.
Or maybe you only have certain hours of your day free while the kids are at school.

Meanwhile, your bar review course hands you a cookie-cutter schedule that packs in an overwhelming number of tasks that turn into “self-study” sessions where you have no direction on what to do (so now you’re getting lovebombed and ghosted by two people).

Does it make sense that you get the exact same study schedule for every scenario above? Not to me.

Is there a smarter, more effective plan that would serve your needs more and improve your odds of passing?

Yes, one that’s customized to you. It should work for you and serve your needs, not the other way around.

While I encourage a bespoke study plan, I suggest adhering to a few ideas when starting to plan your bar prep. For example:

November 21, 2025November 21, 2025 - 1 Comment

Almost Failing Law School to Passing the CA Bar Exam in One Shot

You don’t need to be a legal rockstar to pass the bar exam. Like me, Christian wasn’t the best student in law school.

💬 “I graduated from law school with a 3.08 GPA. My 1L year was extremely challenging for me, turning me from a student accustomed to receiving A’s in high school and undergrad to suddenly receiving my first D+ in Property Law. So needless to say, I was terrified at the idea of taking the California Bar Exam, notoriously known as the most difficult in the country.”

But we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know the ending already.

Christian passed the July 2025 California Bar Exam on her first try. I’m not even surprised anymore. This is normal around here.

💬 “I’m so excited to share what helped me pass the CA Bar Exam on my first try. Reading these stories was so motivating for me, and I was so excited for the day I could write my own!”

November 15, 2025November 15, 2025 - 37 Comments

Should You “Trust the Process”? You’re the Dean of Your Own Bar Exam Studies

Here’s something that people who pass the bar exam never say:

“All I had to do was listen to all the bar course lectures and take a lot of notes. Just complete the course and you’ll pass!”

Sometimes we think “doing whatever it takes” to pass the bar exam means exhausting yourself and throwing 1000 hours and even more dollars into a black hole. (But it doesn’t have to be expensive.)

Or following some unsustainable cookie-cutter schedule that doesn’t care if you have other responsibilities like work or family. Good luck if you fall behind by one day.

Or letting a perfectly fine morning slip through by religiously sitting through 4 hours of droning lectures. Worse, pausing lectures to fill in all the notes.

Then not even remembering 99% of it.

Rewinding the video for the 5th time because you can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire

I remember those days. All of those things above are things I stopped doing on my second attempt at preparing for the bar exam.