You’re staring at your bar exam registration deadline trying to come up with a game plan.
Your inbox is full of emails from Barbri, Themis, and Kaplan. “Sign up for our course to pass. Hurry!!!”
Then you see the price tag.
Is this mandatory? Or just a sales pitch?
What typically happens is that prospective bar takers default toward courses on auto-pilot after exposure to three years of marketing.
Understandable! You’re not sure where to even start, and law schools will farm you out to big courses. They’re not going to go out of their way to teach you. (What are they, some kind of charity?)
And it’s exciting when the first video starts playing. Time to buckle down and dive in! Yeah!! Whether you’ll end up lost and frustrated anyway in 5 weeks is another matter.
The bar exam sounds scary, and that’s exactly what they’re banking on. We’re drawn to what feels “safe” and familiar even if it may not the best thing for us. But if you think about it, there’s no real reason you must take a course or be in that situationship.
Courses are a luxury supplement when it comes to bar review. Remember that, and treat them as such.
❌ “Should I use Barbri or Themis?”
✅ “Should I use Barbri or Themis at all?”
❌ “What’s the nicest, ‘best’ option?”
✅ “Where in this bar prep process am I going to feel stuck, and what can I use to make that part go smoother?”
The first question is like sorting by business class when shopping for plane tickets. Maybe this is actually how you want to travel, especially if it’s long distance or an important trip (or someone’s paying for it).
There are legitimate reasons some folks should buy a course. Not everyone should DIY this.
But maybe you weren’t even aware of other options that also get you to point B more cost-efficiently (and more effectively while wasting less time). The first time I took the bar, I didn’t know there were paths other than the default one given to me. I even got excited because “everything I needed to know was in that box of books”!
Lots of people pass with a course. Lots of people pass without one. It’s not the course that determines your success.
I’m going to show you the evidence and perspectives you may not have considered so that you can decide for yourself whether you should take a course or self-study.
Continue reading “Do I Really Need a $3,000 Bar Prep Course? Is Self-Study Enough to Pass the Bar Exam? What the Data Shows”