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 100% and you’ll pass!”

Could you imagine if that’s all it took tho

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 other responsibilities like work or 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.

When you thought the lectures made sense

“Trust the process.”

I remember those days. All of those things above are things I stopped doing on my second attempt at preparing for the bar exam.

Here’s what I’d do instead:

Learn how to learn.

Why are some of the best entertainers, filmmakers, and cooks not formally certified? (See: YouTubers)

They don’t always graduate from a formal program with standard-issue instructors.

Instead, they have a deep desire to absorb and try things on their own. They study the craft. They learn, test, and adjust, effectively designing their own curriculum.

They’re deliberate and make independent choices that make sense to them.

For example, I spoke with someone who passed the California Bar Exam after many (double digit) tries, who said this:

“Every moment I’m asking, ‘Am I doing something that helps me prepare?’”

A conscious approach indeed.

Of course, bar preparation can be overwhelming. You might have other responsibilities like a full-time job or a family that make it hard to make bar prep your priority. Bar takers often get analysis paralysis when they’re starting out or overwhelmed with options. It’s natural to seek help.

The thing is, they can ALL work. Even if you’re working while studying, a repeater, a first-timer, a foreign attorney, or a left-handed Capricorn.

Ultimately, bar preparation is a self-study endeavor. Courses and supplements are simply there to support your self-study. Even Barbri’s (or whoever’s) plan may be good enough. Even if a jacket is one-size-fits-all, you can still drape it over yourself.

Instead of agonizing over which is the “best” resource or who is the “best” teacher, you should be concerned about how YOU can be the best student.

Successful students apply the advice they do get instead of waiting for the advice they want to hear. Pick a few resources you trust, and use them.

Remember that you’re the dean of your own studies.

Not Barbri, not your law school, not me, not anyone.

You’ll be responsible for your own success. No one cares about you as much as you. Only you can prevent forest fires.

Rather than blindly “trusting the process,” consider “trusting yourself” and tailoring the process to your needs and style. The right process for you is one that helps you understand and retain the material and answer questions correctly.

The system—or a system—can work for you. It may not work for you. You decide and develop the curriculum as the dean of your own studies.

Below are 4 common mindsets that hold you back from being an effective dean.

Are you telling yourself any of these things below? If you are, I invite you as the dean to shift the way you approach your bar preparation curriculum.

1) The default

Typical thinking: I need to take a huge course. They’ve been throwing themselves at me since I started law school. Oh, maybe I’ll get the cheapest course. I need to memorize everything first. I need to check off all the boxes. Feels like progress!

Conscious thinking: Hmm, this cookie-cutter curriculum can be useful in some ways, but how can I tailor the materials to my own situation? How can I use this material to learn what is required of me to pass the bar? How can I use this material to learn how to apply the rules, not just “know” them conceptually?

Brian’s comment: Don’t wait for a holy grail to fall from the heavens. Being a successful student isn’t about getting perfectly tailored advice; it’s about tailoring the advice you do get to your situation. If you’re not learning anything from the default path, change what you’re doing.

2) Extreme tactics

Typical thinking: I’ll just power through 15-hour days! 100 MBE questions every day! Who needs sleep?!

Conscious thinking: Hard work is a given. I’ll do my best to have no regrets, but extreme tactics are unrealistic and unsustainable. Let’s not turn excitement into delusion. What are the critical areas that I should focus more on (so that I can be prepared for the bar even if I don’t have a lot of time)?

Brian’s comment: Energy and focus limit you more than time. I go more in depth about the #1 key to productivity in my Mental Engines course. (If you’re enrolled already, look at Module 2 Lesson 2.)

3) Using too few resources

Typical thinking: I’ll just snoop around the Internet for weeks and manually cobble together resources I scraped together. Look at these flashcards some 2L uploaded and I retyped! Who needs outlines? I’m not gonna pay for anything. I’m not a SUCKER!!!

Conscious thinking: Wait a minute, I came all this way from the LSAT to law school to this final hurdle. Resourcefulness has its place, but there’s no need to reinvent the wheel (with the right tools). Even a 1% greater chance to make this my last time is worth it in the long term.

Maybe it’ll work; maybe it won’t. That’s why it’s an investment. I know I can make back whatever I invest now within hours—or even minutes—later.

Check samples for Magicsheets here.

Brian’s comment: It is indeed possible to prepare for the bar exam no matter your budget. I can think of ways to spend over $1,000 (not counting a bar course) or $0. You could walk a paved road. Or you could be a lone wolf and figure it out by yourself.

Somehow, we tend to be the most frugal when it comes to the thing that will stay with us the most—the act of educating ourselves. I used to cheap out on single pages of paper in school and then pay for it on the back end when my studies were not as effective as they could have been.

If you truly value your time and self-care (which we say we do), then it’s a no-brainer to buy your time back with resources that someone else spent hundreds of hours putting together over years so that you can gain even a 1% edge.

4) Using too many resources

Typical thinking: I’ll keep collecting a bunch of tools and jump from one to another until I find the silver bullet that plugs me into the Matrix and uploads everything I need to know for the bar exam.

Conscious thinking: Investing in my success is important, but nothing is going to be perfect. The resources out there can all be useful in their own ways, but their utility depends on how I use them. Where can I get some key supplements and resources that will help me do the work I need to do? They are tools that serve me, not the other way around.

Brian’s comment: It’s more effective to be the best student than to seek the perfect tutor, course, outline, or other resource. You don’t need to get lost in supplement hell where you have a bunch of stuff that you won’t use. Like with anything else, having too many moving parts only complicates your life. Keep it simple.

Are you just looking for information because you don’t want to do what you know you need to do?

What do you notice about these shifts?

If life gave you lemons, you weren’t looking for the oranges.

If you don’t proactively and consciously think about what’s possible, you get the default. Your life decides for you instead.

These shifts boil down to trusting yourself and doing what makes sense to you (based on your experiences in school or past attempts at the bar exam). It’s your call.

“Trust myself? I did that and still got fucked on the bar exam”

I’m not telling you to predict subjects, write essays the way they worked back in law school, or rely on your future self to bullshit the exam.

I’m talking about having control over your approach to preparation.

• Saying NO to the fear that seduces you to jump to the shallow end of the pool rather than doing the mentally straining work that moves the needle.
• Being thoughtful about your decisions despite the 51 different opinions you’re going to hear.
• Training as deliberately as you can, then trusting that your legs will keep you pushing forward during bar week.

(Did you know that the muscles pro golfers work on are actually their legs? Stable foundations keep their aim true and far. No wonder they wear baggy pants.)

In the end, whether you use a prep course, whether you get a tutor, whether you study on your own… bar prep is a self-study endeavor. You’re the one preparing for the exam.

It doesn’t matter if you get the best outlines, the best tutor, the best whatever. Showing up with the fanciest clubs isn’t going to let you beat Tiger Woods. It’s still up to you in the end.

Even if you get the “best” course, bar prep is a self-study endeavor.

You’re the dean. You set the curriculum. You make the executive decisions.

It’s scary to be the boss, but it is also freeing.

Counterintuitively, you’ll have MORE confidence by being more conscious even if it means straying from a one-size-fits-all structure.