Make This Your Last Time

August 19, 2025August 19, 2026 - No Comments

How to Study for the Bar Exam While Working Full Time

Studying for the bar exam while working full time is a tough ask.

You already have a full plate at work, and now you’re supposed to come home and grind through lectures and questions on top of that. It sounds brutal because, well, it is.

But the thing is, working candidates pass the bar exam every single day. You don’t have to be gifted or lucky, just focus on the right things that help you learn efficiently. It’s very doable if you study smart, stay consistent, and refuse to compare your journey to someone sitting at home studying eight hours a day while doomscrolling for half that time.

The guiding principle here is that constraints force you to be creative with your time and focus on what moves the needle. We’ll trim the fluff and time wasters (like repeating lectures on 0.75x speed).

Whether you’re working full time at a firm, doing contract work, or coming home to a baby who won’t sleep while you’re wishing you could, the strategies here are practical and built around the reality of limited time.

July 11, 2025November 25, 2025 - No Comments

UK Attorney Got a 316 on the NY UBE on Her First Try While Working Full Time

Sushmita passed the February 2025 New York Bar Exam on her first attempt:

as a UK-trained attorney
right after taking another exam
while working full time
starting with ZERO prior knowledge of American law
with a score of 316 (!)

💬 “I did not study any US law during my LLM save for a short intro module for international students, i.e., I did not require an LLM to be eligible to take the bar exam.”

💬 “I am delighted to share that I’ve passed the UBE in NY with a score of 316.”

That’s just unnecessarily impressive.

On top of that, she went into prep already knowing she didn’t want to use a big box bar review program.

💬 “I have no wish to purchase bar prep from the big players like Barbri, Themis, JD Advising, Kaplan etc.”

💬 “Given my trauma in dealing with these terrible companies, I was looking for assistance similar to what I found for the [Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)], from people who genuinely want to help students. I found your website again when looking through my old bookmarks from 2022, and I am glad I did.”

Most first-time bar takers default to using a big course. How did she so confidently decide not to use one?

More importantly, how did she beat this exam without using one on her first try?

July 5, 2025July 5, 2026 - No Comments

How to Know If You’re Actually Learning the Law or Just Memorizing the Words

Many bar exam candidates spend weeks or months watching lectures and reviewing outlines, only to freeze when they sit down to answer practice questions.

You’ve read the material over and over. You’ve highlighted your notes. You can nod along when your bar prep course explains a concept. But when exam day arrives, you’ve suddenly got amnesia, and the rules you thought you knew suddenly feel slippery.

The problem is that you’ve been memorizing words on a page instead of learning what they mean. There’s a vast difference between the two. True understanding means you can recall the rules (not just recognize them in an outline), and adapt them to new fact patterns (until they become repetitive) under pressure.

Becoming familiar with the issues and rules feels productive in the moment but is unreliable when you need it most. Understanding this distinction is the first step toward transforming your bar prep mastery.

July 4, 2025July 13, 2025 - No Comments

Marilynn Winged Bar Prep and Failed. Then She Passed the Bar Exam Doing This

Marilynn passed the February 2025 California Bar Exam on her second attempt. A classic repeater situation.

Right now, you have a massive advantage:

If you’re a repeater, you are starting from experience, not from scratch.

If you’re a first timer, you have a crystal ball into your future. It’s up to you to decide how much of these visions you’ll adopt or let pass as a dream.

If you aren’t confident academically, the good news is your law school grades are meaningless. It took one cycle of mistakes for Marilynn and me to realize that law school and bar prep are separate skills.

💬 “I was feeling so much disappointment, despair, and guilt for not passing the first time, especially as someone who also finished at around a 2.8 GPA in law school.”

Here’s where you’ll once again learn about the pitfalls of first timers you can avoid today.

June 27, 2025January 8, 2026 - No Comments

Passing the CA Bar Exam in 3+ Tries: Don’t Define Your Progress by How Much You Torture Yourself

It was a long journey for “SC” who took the California Bar Exam multiple times…

💬 “It wasn’t till my Xth attempt in February ‘22 that I really buckled down and used them and your materials really helped my score jump up, I think I got a 1340 or 1350 that time. Prior attempts, I followed a bar prep company.”

But she always got back up to finish the job.

💬 “I was pretty mad at myself though and at the bar exam process when I didn’t pass and I haven’t touched my bar materials since that attempt or thought about retaking it since until now.”

It wasn’t only that each step took her closer to success. Sometimes you have to prove yourself to the world. What’s your motivation?

💬 “I just got this bee in my bonnet and the job market has been rough without the esquire. Plus it’s been pretty irritating doing law and motion work without that law and motion attorney salary.”

When SC asked whether it was realistic to go for July 2024 while working, I said it was realistic but challenging.

SC didn’t end up passing the July exam but finally passed the February 2025 exam!

💬 “Clearly didn’t pass J24, but it was the closest I had ever gotten, which I thought was pretty incredible considering I had about 9 weeks to study, and I didn’t take any time off of work aside from the week of the bar exam, so that kind of solidified that it was my mental state getting in the way.”

What did she do to finally get over that threshold?