Make This Your Last Time | Bar Exam Preparation

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 - No Comments

How Adam Added 140 Points on the CA Bar Exam (But What Cost Him the Pass?)

Adam took the February 2026 California Bar Exam for the second time.

Starting with an overall score of 1201, Adam closed a 140-point gap between July 2025 and February 2026. That’s a remarkable jump by any measure.

He did this as a foreign-trained lawyer with zero prior knowledge of U.S. law, no commercial bar prep course, and roughly two months of prep.

If you did the math, you’ll have noticed that he didn’t pass this time… His February total score of 1341 was 50 points away from the pass score of 1390.

💬 “Regret to tell you, I failed again. I scored 1341.0200. . . . No matter what, thank you for all your help.”

This is the 75^th installment of Fire-up Friday, but it’s the very first one where I’m featuring a non-passing attempt.

Why?

Defeat is fodder for your next victory. We ought to document both what worked and what didn’t work.

Adam’s story isn’t over yet. This is just part 1. He’s coming back for the rest of his points in July.

In the meantime, we get to find out what worked for his second attempt, and what he could do differently for this third.

There are insights we can glean from Adam’s mistakes and improvements. He has graciously allowed me to share his painful story. And he must have done SOMETHING right to go from 1201 to almost passing.

(Hint: Passing is easily achievable for Adam from here on. A 50-point gap in California is smaller than you think.)

May 10, 2026May 10, 2026 - 41 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 a job or a 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.

May 9, 2026May 9, 2026 - 16 Comments

Bar Prep Is Overwhelming: How to Make Independent Choices for Yourself

You have questions about the bar exam. How to study. When to study. Whether you’re on the right track. Picking the right bar prep supplements out of all the resources out there.

"Yes, it is very overwhelming and the amount of resources out there to help are also overwhelming lol"

Here’s how questions go on social media:

“What’s the best program/tutor/outline?”

It makes me wonder: Do you just want to be told with certainty, or do you actually want the objective best?

If you crowdsource the answer, by definition, you won’t know which one is “best” because you’ll get different answers based on everyone’s own experience.

In fact, the more options you have, the more hesitant you get. There are pros and cons to every option.

How would you even trust what’s best until you try it yourself?

There are no secrets, and there are a million ways to pass. It’s always been up to you.

Sounds scary but also freeing, right? You have it in you already.

Sure, sometimes you want to vent and get some support from others. See what other people are doing.

But bar prep is personal. I want to encourage you to listen to yourself a little more instead of blindly being influenced by what someone else says you “need” to do (not just with bar prep but with everything else in life).

That’s where the danger lies. Everyone has an opinion (and sometimes a tutoring service). Is that comment even a real opinion or just an ad? Are you reading something thrown up by AI and not respectful of your attention?

You shop around the astroturf and end up where you started.

May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 - No Comments

Passing the NY Bar After 4 Failures and a Forced Year Off

“T” passed the New York Bar Exam on her 5th try. Her journey had ups and downs (mostly downs):

Her 4th attempt scored lower than her 3rd. She came 5 points short of passing, then went backward.
The NY BOLE benched her from the next exam and made her wait a full year for her next attempt.
She watched her dad get really sick during her year off.

But that year became the thing that made her 5th and last time work.

💬 “I can’t believe I’m writing this email. I just found out I passed the NY bar exam! Honestly feels like a dream. My parents cried :)”

It wasn’t because she found a new course or schedule or other tactical minutiae. Those are just products. Which tool you use doesn’t matter if the user can’t wield it effectively.

If all you do is consume the product (which traditional commercial prep courses are designed for), that’s like eating a bunch of protein because you heard it’s good. And then you end up in an even bigger caloric surplus because you overate and didn’t work out to give the protein something to do.

She passed because she changed her approach. She started digesting what she consumed.

What changes when you stop being a tryhard and start being an overachiever?

How do you start thinking when you stop the barebones “I just need a few more points” mentality?

What happens when you show up again and again?

T was a different person altogether by the time she walked into the exam room for the 5th time.

The scariest thing about humans as predator is that they keep following and hunting their prey until it gives up from exhaustion.

May 3, 2026May 12, 2026 - 11 Comments

Why You Feel Exhausted Studying for the Bar Exam

Let me guess. Is this your idea of bar prep?

Listen to lectures while sitting still like a statue
Pause to take notes and fill in the blanks (doubling the time it takes to finish the lectures)
Re-read giant outlines you highlighted last week (osmosis didn’t work) before falling asleep with the lights on

It’s like you’re experiencing the most annoying part about traveling—sitting for hours next to someone who takes up the armrest even though they got the window seat.

And repeating this every day. Is this what Limbo is like?

You’re drained and demoralized because you’re trying to “study” but aren’t feeling a sense of progress as words and days pass by you.

But why are you trying to do this the hard way?