Brian almost flunked out of a non-accredited law school but passed the hardest bar exam in the country on his first try. Wow!
💬 “I passed the February 2024 California Bar exam on my first try. I went to a non-ABA but Ca accredited law school online. I do not know my class position but I did get a 3.3 GPA and I did take the FYLSE and did well on that test.”
He also took his sweet time getting out of school.
💬 “I took a year off in the middle of law school and so instead of 4 years I took 5 and torts, contracts and property were a long time ago.”
It is cool that he was able to snipe the exam in one shot. But I’m not surprised. Why?
The bar exam is the great equalizer.
Bar prep is a learnable skill even if you’re short on academic talent (no offense, Brian), especially if you’re a reader of mine. You don’t need to be a legal rockstar. You don’t need to be a genius or a “good writer.”
Jeez, where were these reassurances when I was studying for the bar? My pain is your gain.
Here are three takeaways (and a satisfying epilogue) from Brian’s success story…
- Resources used to pass the California Bar Exam on his first try
- 1) Commercial bar review courses can be helpful to the extent you need them.
- 2) Emphasize your weak areas and the bar exam’s key components (80/20 your bar prep).
- 3) You don’t have to treat your stronger areas the same as your weaker areas.
- Epilogue: What happens when you pass the bar?
- Brian’s full story
“Once I more or less had the outlines learned I would focus on my weaker areas like civ pro, con law, and contracts and really take deeper dives into my materials to try to understand the parts I struggled with to try to strengthen those areas.”
Resources used to pass the California Bar Exam on his first try
▶ Critical Pass flashcards
💬 “I did not like the Barbri MCQ’s, they did not seem to be as good. Now that I passed, I can say they are not as good.”
- Use code MTYLT10 to get 10% off your entire cart
▶ Mary Basick’s Essay Exam Writing for the California Bar Exam
▶ Barbri (selectively)
▶ MTYLT emails (you’re reading one)
💬 “Overall, I wanted to say thank you for all that you do in making the Magicsheets and the regular supportive emails which include the practice MCQ’s. I am not sure that without those I would be able to say I never have to take that damn test again!! HA!”
1) Commercial bar review courses can be helpful to the extent you need them.
Brian signed up with Barbri like many people. But he used it intentionally.
One way he used it was to get an initial bearing and go through concepts or subjects that he specifically wanted to brush up on.
💬 “I did use Barbri, but I mostly used it to have a basic starting game plan to study and to listen to the videos at 2x speed to help me remember concepts I had forgotten.”
There’s no requirement to slog through the entire course! A course is simply a tool to support your learning. The Program is not something you have to follow exactly.
You can pick and choose what you like. Another way Brian used Barbri was for essay grading and deep diving into specific areas.
💬 “I also used Barbri for the essay grading and to have an extra resource to take deep dives into topic areas I struggled to understand.”
When you read a Wikipedia article or even a case study like this, you might not read all of it. Maybe you just skim parts that matter to you. Or maybe you are interested in looking at all of it, which may very well be you if you need a full refresher as a first-time bar taker.
But remember that the goal is to pass the bar exam. You’re not being graded on how much of their syllabus you complete. In fact, YOU are the dean of your own studies. What’s on YOUR syllabus?
What matters is spending your time, energy, and attention in a way that maximizes how well you
- Understand and retain the material,
- Gain insights and intuition, and
- Be able to do what you will do on the exam.
Contrary to belief, courses aren’t the only resources that can help you get there. (It’s OK. Advertising works on me too.)
💬 “I think I could have passed without Barbri at all but parts of it I think did help. What really helped were those Magicsheets. . . . They feel so short and compact but stuffed with so much information. So many other outlines I considered were so long and drawn out and felt like they would just go on for a million pages. Which at that point does not feel like an outline but a book.”
I don’t want you to take this message the wrong way. Multiple dualities can be true about courses:
They can work for some as an all-in-one standalone resource, but they go as fast as the slowest member of the herd.
They have detailed materials, but bar takers often need to supplement courses with other materials.
That’s why it’s up to you to be the dean of your own studies and explore the possibilities once you see that there’s a world outside the walls.
2) Emphasize your weak areas and the bar exam’s key components (80/20 your bar prep).
Brian targeted his weaker subjects… After all, it had been 5 years since he took core subjects in law school.
💬 “Once I more or less had the outlines learned I would focus on my weaker areas like civ pro, con law, and contracts and really take deeper dives into my materials to try to understand the parts I struggled with to try to strengthen those areas.”
He also focused on the issues and rules when practicing essays. Issues and rules are the two critical components to master in your essays, per the essay cooking technique. This is an efficiency technique for when you’ve already shown that you can write a full essay in time.
💬 “For the essays, I did use the Basick book for essay practice and the released Bar essays from the past. However, I did what I think is how you encourage people to tackle the essays, which is to outline them rather than write out a million essays.”
💬 “Figuring out the issues and writing the essays were not my struggle area. I knew I could write solid and effective essays, I needed to make sure I knew and understood the rules to make sure I went down, and stayed on, the correct path.”
Brian really went after the 80/20 (20% of your actions bringing 80% of the results). His weak subjects were low-hanging fruits that could raise his overall score.
Also, at least part of his essay practice was done by outlining. This saves time and focuses on the important parts that your essay scores hinge on. So it’s like he went after the “64/4” (finding the 20% of that 20% by 80/20-ing the 80/20).
“Ugh, math!” If there’s one thing I hate about law students, it’s that they’re proud of being allergic to math. “I’m in law because I suck at math LOL!” Yeah well you took the SAT during puberty, so a bit of philosophical multiplication isn’t going to kill you.
Can you think of a way to turn it into “50/1” by 80/20-ing the 64/4? The Tripod Approach is one way…
3) You don’t have to treat your stronger areas the same as your weaker areas.
If you’re studying independently from what someone else says you need to do, you can weight different portions of the exam differently. Bar prep is personal.
If you’re better at some subjects, you don’t need to sit through three days of lectures.
If you’re solid at performance tests, does this mean you still need to practice one every week?
💬 “For the MPT, which I left for the end on test day, I only wrote out one in practice. I did not have the patience to regularly sit for 1.5 hours practicing that.”
But Brian was able to rely on his experience at the DA’s office. Attorneys and people with legal work experience often find the PTs pretty doable.
💬 “I reviewed the different types of MPT’s that could be expected and noticed that mainly the laws don’t really change from what we are expected to know, thankfully. I mostly relied on my time working at the District Attorney’s office as an intern as experience to quickly be handed an issue with a few cases and then be expected to come up with an argument quickly.”
If that’s not you, don’t sleep on the PTs because they are worth a lot of points.
Maybe you have a personal advantage elsewhere. For other things, you’ll become solid through training. You don’t need to be good at everything already. Becoming prepared is the purpose of preparation.
💬 “For the MBE I used Adaptibar. I had previously used it for the FYLSE and I liked the portability of the app rather than carrying around a big book. By the time I was done I had done about 2300 and was at 80%, so I felt solid for the MBE.”
Epilogue: What happens when you pass the bar?
Just as there’s a whole world you’re free to explore outside the cage of big box programs, there’s a free life beyond the bar.
Passing the bar and getting that bar card flings doors open. You don’t have to delay your career and life!
Brian gets to take a well-deserved post-bar trip with no anxiety. Then he’ll return as a public defender—an attorney.
💬 “Now I am taking a break from my post-bar clerkship at the Public Defender’s office to go on a trip to the Ca coast before I start my new role as public defender!”
Great job, Brian! Here are the resources he used again.
I appreciate his sharing and paying it forward to inspire future bar takers like you. What did you learn from his success story?
Brian’s full story
One Reply to “Non-Accredited Law Grad Passes CA Bar Exam on His 1st Try”