Here’s another story about a foreign-trained lawyer who made it out.
Laura from Australia passed the 2023 July California Bar Exam on her first try—preparing while working full-time as a senior lawyer in a global firm. She got to a place where she was “very excited” by the end!
Here’s how she managed to get to that state of excitement during bar prep and coming out of the exam. See how you CAN do things, rather than what you CAN’T do.
Quick stats
- Attempts: California Bar Exam 1x
- Weakness: Essays
- Unique challenge: Foreign-trained attorney, balancing work and study
💬 “I started researching what exactly the whole bar exam process was about, what was tested, and how in the world do I start to prepare myself for learning 14 brand new areas of law. And then memorise them.“
Resources Laura used to pass the CA Bar Exam
▶▶ Magicsheets & Approsheets
▶▶ BarEssays
Use code here for $25 off BarEssays
▶▶ Mary Basick’s Essay Exam Writing for the California Bar Exam, California Performance Test Workbook, and MBE Decoded: Multistate Bar Exam
▶▶ JD Advising One Sheets
▶▶ UWorld MBE QBank (AdaptiBar would also work; use code here for 10%/$40 off the MBE Simulator and anything in your cart)
▶▶ MTYLT coaching emails and success stories
Build belief from seeing others win. Sign up here. Nowhere else will you get a weekly case study for free.
How Laura approached her bar preparation while working full-time
I loved Laura’s story because reading about her excitement was contagious and got me excited at how confident she was by the end of this process!
It’s a story of possibility, not what you CAN’T do. You CAN do this—in four different ways:
1) You CAN do it on your own.
Bar prep courses can be a good introduction to the material.
But remember that they are luxury options. Would you look at first-class plane tickets first? Somehow, they’ve convinced you that they’re the default options.
You don’t have to give in to the uncertainty and fear. Laura didn’t cave to it.
💬 “When I decided to sit for the bar, I had already decided there was absolutely no way I was paying a company the exorbitant fees that they charge (factor in the exchange rate as well, and no way was this happening). I was going to do it on my own.”
Instead, she took stock of what she needed to know.
💬 “So I started researching what exactly the whole bar exam process was about, what was tested, and how in the world do I start to prepare myself for learning 14 brand new areas of law. And then memorise them.”
Then she looked toward resources that would work for the way she was going to learn. She wanted something that was not too dense and not too light.
By doing so, she was reducing friction as much as she could. It’s CLARITY that moves you forward.
💬 “I ordered all of Mary Basick’s books, and purchased JD Advising One Sheets. I figured this would be enough to get by, but the books were dense and the one sheets were very, very light on. I needed something that was somewhere in the middle of the two. I kept seeing people talk about Magic Sheets and thought I should take a look at them. I but the bullet and purchased Magicsheets and the Approsheets. Game. Changer.”
She also used other resources for each portion of the exam:
💬 “I used baressays.com to review my essays”
💬 “I opened [Mary Basick’s] PT book in the final week and read through all the questions and her process”
💬 “I used uworld for questions and Mary Basick’s MBE decoded book when I was doing open book. Also just used the actual law a fair bit. If I was doing evidence questions, I had the federal rules of evidence open etc”
Like many other successful bar takers, she escaped the false dilemma of “which company” and wants others to do the same.
💬 “Just keen to add to the helpful stories of people who did something a bit different. Hopefully one day, it won’t be a question of what bar prep company should I chose, but instead, what materials do I need to help me pass.”
2) You CAN do what works for you.
There were other reasons Laura said NO to the course:
She knew going through the course would conflict with her busy full-time work schedule.
She also knew that she wouldn’t be learning from the way courses were structured.
💬 “It wasn’t just the fees, but also knowing I was working full time and I know I don’t learn from staring at a screen trying to listen to a lecture. My focus drifts very quickly and it would just be setting myself up for failure.”
Not only is sitting and absorbing photons through your eyes generally INEFFECTIVE (without doing the follow-up work of using what you absorbed), but it’s also surprisingly EXHAUSTING.
Your brain is too active to just let it sit on the toilet playing Candy Crush. Let it play and create the way that it wants to.
How do you even know “what works for you”?
Remember how you studied in college, in law school, during bar prep, and even during previous bar studies.
Not sure because you suck at academia and this is the first time you couldn’t slide by such a huge hurdle as the bar exam?
That’s OK. Now’s the time to figure it out.
I failed the first time for the same reason. I had a GPA of 2.83 because none of the study methods preached in law school meshed with how I learned. They said my engineer brain would eventually get used to law school (lol).
(To be fair, my Bs and Cs did eventually turn to As by 3L. Still fell into classic traps on my first bar prep.)
It was ONLY when I said “fuck all that” after a humbling failure and took control of my studies my way that my brain stopped resisting the materials, information turned into intuition, and things became more relaxed and enjoyable. Your body knows best. Don’t ask fish to climb a tree.
If you failed once or multiple times, you might feel compelled to cling onto safe, ineffective (and boring) paths even harder. Un-grip your fingers. Try letting go a little and see how that goes. And when something works for you, note it so that you can come back to it.
In Laura’s case, the way it clicked for her was recording herself reading Magicsheets and playing it back to herself.
💬 “So I took it up a notch and recorded myself reading out the PR Magic Sheet outline. It was 28 minutes. My regular run route is 30 minutes. Guess what I was listening to!”
What Laura tried on one subject worked for her. She had figured it out. So she applied the same approach to other areas she was struggling with.
💬 “I can hand on heart say that my PR essay was solid and it is because it was so ingrained in my memory, spotting issues, citing rule statements and then analysing the crap out of them was just second nature by that point. Listening to the recordings worked so well for me that I recorded other areas I was struggling with straight from the Magic Sheets. By this stage, I was able to do my daily essays mostly closed book, with only the occasional glance at Magic Sheets if needed.”
I have some strong opinions about bar prep. But at the end of the day, I’m a huge proponent of emphasizing that that there is no right, one-size-fits-all answer.
You should determine what it is that you need (like Laura did in part 1). You can get advice from elsewhere, but you have to stop and assess at some point. The crystal ball is just an advisor. You are the dean of your own studies. Not Barbri, not your law school, not your tutor, not me—you.
I’m not saying what Laura did will necessarily work for you.
I can give you the strategies, but I don’t know what will work for you specifically. Today, I’m just sharing one of million ways it can work in the hopes that it inspires you to pave your own path forward.
But the allure of hiding behind safe work and shortcutting the process is too strong for some. Their eyes will lose focus and glaze over. Other things will take priority. Will this open doors for them? I don’t know. Maybe that’s their way of being the dean. Take what you like, leave the rest, and develop your own curriculum.
3) You CAN focus on the big icebergs.
Not every portion of the bar exam should be treated equally. Not every portion has the same rights. Discriminate accordingly.
To put in terms that pass substantive due process: Triage portions of the exam according to their importance to your score.
💬 “About a month prior to the exam, having really resonated with the tripod method, I really wanted to nail the PR exam. I wanted to have the best damn PR essay these graders had ever seen.”
On the California Bar Exam, you have the MBE, the performance test, and the Professional Responsibility essay as the biggest leverage points (check the link above for more on the salience of each portion). These components to a minimally effective approach take up over 70% of your score.
In other words, focus on key drivers of scores. They are big icebergs you want to be sure to navigate around. If you crash into one, it’s harder to recover. On the other hand, if you nail them, you’re that much closer to securing your win.
Put your hand down. I’m not suggesting you should ONLY focus on these leveraged areas. Please use your logic and common sense.
If you’re a UBE taker, what are some key levers you could move?
4) You CAN get excited to study and take the exam.
Enjoying the process is important to bar prep. You sustain momentum, stay consistent, and make it less likely to burn out.
What would it look like if you were enjoying this?
💬 “I remember printing them out at work and getting so excited to start writing essays. From then on in, I felt way more equipped to write essays. I started getting up super early before work and writing 1-2 essays, using the Approsheets to structure my response and the Magicsheets as my go-to for the rule statements. I created a spreadsheet with every exam going back 20 years, with the audacious goal to complete every essay before the exam.”
By the end, Laura was able to actually answer questions! Now that’s exciting!
💬 “By the time the exam came around, I was very excited. I was so proud of myself for getting to a position where I could actually answer questions. Looking back to when I started my bar study, I had literally never heard of the concept of ‘strict scrutiny review’ or ‘rational basis test’. And now, I was a quasi con law expert (not really, but these foreign terms no longer felt so foreign).”
Great! That’s the purpose of preparation. Progress and results are motivating.
That excitement carried over to the exam, and she came out confident. Confidence comes from competence.
💬 “I walked into the convention centre with a big smile on my face, excited to get into it. There’s a lot to be said about tricking your mind into believing something that isn’t true, and this was a big part of it. . . . I had flown 15 hours to get here and here I was! Epic. I walked out of the exam feeling confident, and importantly, knowing that I gave it my everything and was proud of myself. Whatever happened, pass or fail, it was worthy of a celebration.”
Way to go, Laura!
Did Laura’s story get you excited too? What are you going to do about it?
Here are the resources Laura used again.
Laura’s full story
Wanted to post in the group to share how the Magic Sheets helped me pass the California Bar on the first attempt. For context, I am a foreign lawyer from Australia (LLB and just finished an LLM while prepping for the bar), working full time as a senior lawyer in a global firm.
When I decided to sit for the bar, I had already decided there was absolutely no way I was paying a company the exorbitant fees that they charge (factor in the exchange rate as well, and no way was this happening). I was going to do it on my own. It wasn’t just the fees, but also knowing I was working full time and I know I don’t learn from staring at a screen trying to listen to a lecture. My focus drifts very quickly and it would just be setting myself up for failure. So I started researching what exactly the whole bar exam process was about, what was tested, and how in the world do I start to prepare myself for learning 14 brand new areas of law. And then memorise them.
I ordered all of Mary Basick’s books, and purchased JD Advising One Sheets. I figured this would be enough to get by, but the books were dense and the one sheets were very, very light on. I needed something that was somewhere in the middle of the two. I kept seeing people talk about Magic Sheets and thought I should take a look at them. I but the bullet and purchased Magic Sheets and the Approsheets. Game. Changer. I remember printing them out at work and getting so excited to start writing essays. From then on in, I felt way more equipped to write essays. I started getting up super early before work and writing 1-2 essays, using the Appropsheets to structure my response and the Magic Sheets as my go-to for the rule statements. I created a spreadsheet with every exam going back 20 years, with the audacious goal to complete every essay before the exam.
About a month prior to the exam, having really resonated with the tripod method, I really wanted to nail the PR exam. I wanted to have the best damn PR essay these graders had ever seen. So I took it up a notch and recorded myself reading out the PR Magic Sheet outline. It was 28 minutes. My regular run route is 30 minutes. Guess what I was listening to! I can hand on heart say that my PR essay was solid and it is because it was so ingrained in my memory, spotting issues, citing rule statements and then analysing the crap out of them was just second nature by that point. Listening to the recordings worked so well for me that I recorded other areas I was struggling with straight from the Magic Sheets. By this stage, I was able to do my daily essays mostly closed book, with only the occasional glance at Magic Sheets if needed.
The week of the exam, I was studying from my firm’s LA office. Everyday I would literally pace up and down my tiny little office, with a Magic Sheet in hand, checking my ability to recall the statement for each heading. I would run through the sheet, and then pick some random essays for that subject and issue spot. Rinse. Repeat.
I get the feeling this isn’t a very popular thing to say, but by the time the exam came around, I was very excited. I was so proud of myself for getting to a position where I could actually answer questions. Looking back to when I started my bar study, I had literally never heard of the concept of ‘strict scrutiny review’ or ‘rational basis test’. And now, I was a quasi con law expert (not really, but these foreign terms no longer felt so foreign). I walked into the convention centre with a big smile on my face, excited to get into it. There’s a lot to be said about tricking your mind into believing something that isn’t true, and this was a big part of it. Whilst I was excited, I definitely was tricking myself to be more excited than I was. I had flown 15 hours to get here and here I was! Epic. I walked out of the exam feeling confident, and importantly, knowing that I gave it my everything and was proud of myself. Whatever happened, pass or fail, it was worthy of a celebration.
So as you can see, I heavily relied on the magical magic sheets as part of my lone wolf study plan. They were the perfect level of detail required to tackle the essays. Did I understand every concept? No, not really. Did I know enough to get by? You bet. Thank you Brian for your resources, and also thanks for the blog posts and emails each week. I bloody loved reading these and more so, LOVED reading about others who were doing it without a commercial course. I appreciate that not everybody learns best this way, but I am so here for spreading the word that it is totally okay to do something a bit left of centre if you know this is suited better to your style. Don’t feel the need to ‘follow the crowd’ and decide how you want to tackle this beast.
Sorry this is so long and all the best future bar takers!
Edit to also add I used baressays.com to review my essays, but not to actually write them.
Additional clarifications:
I took the full exam with MBEs. Foreigners can’t take the attorney exam or I totally would have
I used uworld for questions and Mary Basick’s MBE decoded book when I was doing open book. Also just used the actual law a fair bit. If I was doing evidence questions, I had the federal rules of evidence open etc
I had them all. I opened the PT book in the final week and read through all the questions and her process, but never actually did one myself (I intended to, though!) Definitely found the PT on the day to be the easiest, so I think was just relying on my 10 years of practice pulling through. So disclaimer to not try this at home
it should be heavily caveated if so and yeh I wouldn’t recommend it for most people, especially given the weighting and how much people struggle with it. It just makes so much sense to me that I took the gamble
Brian: I think so too! PT is one area where prior lawyer experience may come in handy. Essays, not so much IMO
Haha yeh agree. Definitely felt like I was back in first year learning everything again
