ALUMNI “BAR STORIES”
Below are the “bar preparation profiles” provided by some of the successful
Concord alumni who have passed the California Bar Exam (CBX).
Cliff Crowder: “I think my success on the bar is largely due to the fact that I'm somewhat
gullible. When I'm told by those who should know about such things as studying for the
California Bar, and I have zero experience at it, I'm inclined to listen to them. I heard
Greg Brandes, Steve Bracci and others from Concord make it very plain that the
California Bar Exam was in all likelihood the most difficult exam I would ever take and I
could plainly see the pass rate. I acted accordingly and took the exam dead seriously.
While I don't remember a specific recommendation that "You should go with BarPassers"
for the bar review, it was pretty clear from a couple of Concord people that BarPassers
was an excellent program. So I went with it. I know next to nothing about the others.
Once with it, and having paid close to $4,000 for the product in hopes of passing the bar,
there was simply no way I was not going to closely follow their program. So I did. I did
every essay and performance test they recommended. I did the simulated exam under
timed conditions. The simulated exam was a great confidence builder. I reviewed the
majority of essays in the essay workbook. I listened to all the substantive law tapes twice
and annotated the chart book as I listened to them. I read all the outlines. The only thing
I felt like I maybe could have done more of, but lacked the time and energy, was MBE
questions. I would say I did in the neighborhood of only 2,000 including the workshop
questions in the BarPassers material. From the numbers I have heard from others, that
sounds low, but I did go over the answers to all of them to make sure I was actually
learning something and not just doing them to see what my score was. It is difficult for
me to believe one could do some of the large numbers of questions I have heard stated
and actually learn from the process.
I began the BarPassers about mid-December and went through all the substantive law
tapes by January 1. Then I got into one of the BarPassers schedules leading up to the
bar exam and stuck with it, except for not living up to the required number of MBE
questions. I took six weeks off work beginning mid-January and studied full bore seven
days a week except for the visit to the Supreme Court on January 20 and, I think, one
other day where reality intervened. I selected an exam site (Oakland) where I would
know nobody else and went out to California on Sunday before the exam and stuck to
myself. I was in the hotel on site at the Convention Center. I studied essays from the
essay book all the way out on the plane and concentrated on essays both Sunday and
Monday before the exam just to remain sharp. I went over some practice MBEs Tuesday
night after the first exam day and reviewed some more essay material Wednesday before
the final exam day. I concentrated on those subjects I thought, based on past tests, would
most likely be tested. I guessed pretty much right. In the end, I was lucky. But I think I
made part of my own luck by adhering to the sound advice from Concord as close as I
could. I would recommend others to do likewise.
That's it in a nutshell. I enjoyed law school. And I remained disciplined right
through school and up to the Bar Exam. The reward was worth the effort involved.”
Gillian Fryer: “I was lucky that I could take time off from work for a couple of months
and study exclusively for the bar. After the holidays, I purposely scheduled less work and
my husband took care of most annoyances and made sure that I ate.
I followed Bar Passers strictly, trying to get ahead a few days so I had a buffer to take off
time when work or personal life demanded. I did every assigned essay including all the
optional essays --22 total, and 4 PTs. I wrote about 10 essays in every subject and
outlined every one I could get my hands on (another 8 essays in every subject). I
reviewed every PT I could get and outlined them all -- about another 8. I did every MBE
in the Bar Passers books plus about half of the MBEs on the Micro Mash CD, about half
the PLIs and half the Finz book. I am guessing about 5000. I reduced the Bar Passer's
review time by 20% by playing back the tapes at an increased speed. I studied a total of
500 hours from Dec 26 through to the weekend prior to the bar. I spent about 20
sessions of 15 minutes practicing speed reading. I had 20-30 minutes left over after each
session at the bar, which gave me time to review my work and drastically reduced my
stress level.
I brought the chartbook outlines and several samples of old essays and MBE samples to
review each night and morning before the bar. I found the 1 hour wait between entering
the bar site and actually starting was distracting and made it difficult to 'get into' the
essays, and the 1st essay on the 1st day was intense.
I did find that reviewing essays using the chartbooks enabled be to visualize the
chartbooks very well, but I cannot say I memorized much of anything... it was more as
though I was better able to work through a discussion this way. Bar Passers emphasized
outlining of essays, which was not promoted when I started at Concord... that made a big
difference to my organization.
I wrote the Bar as I am not a great typist and I did not want any technical problems,
which we had heard about for years. I thought the simulated 3 day exam that Bar Passers
pushed was great as mental and physical preparation. Anyone who did not do this may
well have been unprepared for the physical demands... as indicated by lower test scores
on day three even from writers.
I have always been decent at writing, and I planned my essays to be clear and messfree. I made use of underlining and indenting to highlight my points so the grader would
not have to work to follow my reasoning.
We may not agree with the process, but the bar examiners have established what they are
looking for. It is not all that difficult to apply oneself and just give that to them, especially
with the past four years of work at stake. While I know I could have done a little better
(although I don't have any grades), I could not have put in any more time without getting
totally burned out. Had I had more time, I would not have done much more, so I must
conclude that the two months was just about perfect. I attacked this from the perspective
of doing it right the first time, I quit resisting essays and focused on practicing.”
Carol Brodie : “My bar review was very structured. I used Bar Passers as my bar review
course. I completed the early study program, which was during the last 2 months of my
4th year studies. That consisted of listening to all the substantive tapes, taking notes in
the chartbook and doing some MBE questions. Bar Passers then sent out a final 8-week
study schedule. I followed it fairly closely.
I divided my study time in all three areas. I outlined the majority of the essays provided
by Bar Passers in addition to writing out all the assigned and optional essays for
grading. I completed all the assigned MBE questions and did as many more as I could fit
in. I also completed and sent in the assigned PTs for grading and did the others in the
book for practice.
I took 8 weeks off of work and prepared approximately 8-12 hours per day, less on the
weekends due to family commitments. The last two weeks I conditioned myself by writing
out essays for 3 hrs in the AM and doing blocks of MBE questions for 3 hrs in the PM to
prepare for an exhausting 3 days of testing.”
Chris Zouboulakis: My only secret is that I was afraid of the exam, so I spent too much
time preparing for it. I thought that being 40, I was too old, specially compared to the 23
year olds... But in reality my age worked for me and not against me because I was so
much cooler that the young ones...
Finish (and I mean finish) the bar review volumes of BARBRI or BarPassers before you
start the bar course, go through the hoops with them and you will do fine.
The bar exam is not that difficult. I mean, look at the attorneys that you know, there must
be some that are not so bright. Passing the bar is not an indication that one is smart and
of course it is not a validation that one is not. It's a huge amount of information and the
examiners are looking for your bird's eye view, so organization is very important: you
want to put out all the big issues in a way that will allow the examiners to see it all.
It's your nerves that will hold you back and mess with you. Be afraid of the exam and face
your fear with extra preparation. And you will see, that it's not such a difficult exam.”
Michael Kaner: “Because of my job and the fact that I have young children, time
management was an important consideration for me in Bar preparation. I took a Bar
preparation course, Barpassers with the tape option since I live in Pennsylvania. I
listened to the tapes whenever I could and made an outline from them and consolidated
that with the Barpasers outlines. From that I had an outline for each course that I used to
learn the material.
In addition, I reviewed all the essays and made an outline of every issue tested in each
essay. Some issues were tested repeatedly so I had two outlines for each subject, a
substantive law summary and an essay issue.
I spent at least half my time doing as many multiple choice as possible with two things in
mind, recognizing fact patterns that showed up time and again and learning black letter
law. 3 of the 6 essays usually were MBE subjects, so concentrating on MBE (while not
ignoring the other subjects) helped in MBE and 3 of the 6 essays.”
Bill Gilliam: “I was unsuccessful in July 2003, and I really understand the frustration
that occurs after preparing for 3 months, taking a 3 day test and then waiting for over 3
months to be disappointed. I want to share a strategy that I developed to prepare to retake the exam. I hope that this strategy/way of thinking is helpful to someone.
I used to compete in triathlon races. I started competing after many years as a runner,
and with little biking and almost no competitive swimming experience. I had to learn 2
new sports. The CBX is a true "triathlon." It is an endurance contest, it requires an
enormous dedication of practice time, and it is a "three sport" event. I firmly believe that
preparation for, and the skills associated with essays, PT's and MBE's are the "three
sports" of the CBX. I identified (it wasn't difficult) the fact that I knew the law last July,
and thereby excelled on the MBE's (I got a 157 raw score last July), I got lucky on one
PT, bombed the other, and then had a complete vomit attack on the essays. With 20/20
hindsight, I studied hard enough to "know the law" and achieve a great MBE, and I never
took the time to "learn" the other two CBX "sports."
In triathlon, runners fear the swim leg and sometimes the bike leg. On the February CBX
my strategy became one of studying at a level and with the planning to be as close to my
MBE skills in both essays and PT's as I could get. My performance last July was so out
of balance that I was able to plan a February study program that de-emphasized the
MBE. I took a review course (BARPASSERS tutorial) that involved an unreal quantity of
essay writing. All of the essays that I wrote were graded by the same person, and they
were purposefully graded "harder" than the CBX graders. I still struggled with what is
seemingly a difficult concept, namely writing exactly as the graders expect an applicant
to write. In the last month before the exam I "discovered" a new resource, a two book
series called "Bar Breaker" written by Jeff Adachi (www.survival-series.com). My first
reaction to these two books (I found them at the Golden Gate University book store) was
"this stuff is written on the level of third grade for the learning disabled." Guess what?
That's the level of a "clear pass" 75 point essay performance. This series of books truly
"broke the code" for me. I am convinced that my endless series of writing in
BARPASSERS would have allowed me to pass in February. However, my in class grades
on practice essays were sufficiently up and down to demonstrate that I was still "missing"
the "keep it simple" IRAC, usually on the easier discussible points. If you study enough
to score big on the MBE, you miss the stupid, obvious point on an essay that kills the
score on that essay; why discuss that, it's obvious, right? Not to the guys that got 35-40
points below my July MBE, wrote about the "obvious" stuff in the essays and passed
when I failed.
Everyone that was unsuccessful will have received their scores and can now obtain their
essay and PT books. I truly believe that approaching the CBX from the point of view of
realistic assessment of the test as a "three sport" event is crucial. The skills and the
preparation for each part of the exam are totally different. Probably everyone that takes
the exam thinks of one or two parts of the exam as "better" for them. I didn't want to
even think of failing twice. I therefore decided that I would study as many hours for
February as I did for July, but that I would study hard enough and smart enough in
essays to have as much confidence in my essay skills as I had in my MBE skills. The CBX
is truly a "three sport" endurance test. I am convinced that every single Concord student
has already proven that they have the "long distance" skills of mastering 4 years of
dedication to getting a law degree. Any Concord graduate that determines and plans to
study their failure and plan a study program to ensure that they are equally strong in all
three testing areas will pass on the second go-around. One blessing we have in
California is "no time for grief."
If you want to pass the July exam you need to be planning and studying right now. I
found that the time from the release of results in November until the end of February
literally flew by. My thoughts and good wishes are with everyone that was disappointed
last week. I have confidence in all of my fellow alumni. Good luck.”
Laura Collins: “I approached bar review with the conviction that I was only going to take
the bar exam once. I began a substantive review of the law in October, taking one
subject a week for 13 weeks. During that time, I spent about 4 hours a day reviewing my
outlines, listening to audiotaped lectures and doing MBE questions. Beginning in
January, I started the Bar Passers home study course. I followed their program, except
that I also scheduled in additional subjects each week, so that I was constantly reviewing
the material we had already covered. During Bar Review, I broke the day into 2 hour
segments of lectures, MBE's, essays, flashcards and exam approaches – I studied 10
hours a day, 6 1/2 days a week. I made the flashcards and filled-out the flow charts as I
listened to the bar review lectures. I recorded both the flashcards and the essay exam
approaches for each subject onto audiotape. That way, I could walk each day and still
study. I photocopied the flowcharts from the Bar Passers book and taped the charts
for each subject onto a sheet of posterboard, so that I could see the entire subject at once.
I either wrote or outlined every essay in the Bar Passers book, plus all the essays that
were available at the CalBar website. For those that I outlined, I included my definitions
in the outline. Because I took the exam on my laptop, I downloaded Examsoft early and
wrote my practice essays using that software. I did over 2500 MBE questions – all the
ones that Bar Passers supplied, plus the MicroMash ones as well as the ones contained in
the study guides I had accumulated during law school (Strategies and Tactics, Siegel's,
Blonds, Emmanuel etc.) I really struggled with the performance exams until I used
Professor Brandes' technique - that really clicked for me. I did the full simulated bar
exam, plus I ordered 2 MBE exams from the National Bar Examiners and took those at
the end of my review. While my approach may seem like overkill, I went into the exam
feeling calm and confident that I was well-prepared.”
John Jascob: For me, the one key factor in passing the California bar examination was
establishing a disciplined study schedule. At the time I was studying for the exam, I was
employed full time. My job was divided between two offices, each of which involved a
lengthy commute. Given the somewhat inflexible demands of my work schedule, a
traditional classroom course would have been largely out of the question, and so I
enrolled in the BarPassers home study course. I also arranged with my employer to take
a total of two weeks of paid vacation over the two-month study period.
As suggested by Dean Brandes, I created a schedule in Microsoft Word which outlined
my activities for each day of the months of January and February. I took as my template
the calendar provided by BarPassers, which outlined the substantive topics covered on
each day, as well as the exercises to be completed independently by the student. I then
simply added the location where I would be on each day and, if I was working, whether it
would be for a full or a half-day. The entire process took less than an hour, but it gave
me an excellent road map for navigating through what seemed to be an overwhelming
amount of material.
My preparation was limited solely to the materials and exercises in the BarPassers
course, which I found to provide an excellent means of preparing for the exam. The
structural approach to the material seemed to be very similar to that used in the Concord
curriculum, while the suggested process of taking notes directly on the BarPassers flow
charts allowed me to create a set of working study outlines during each lecture, without
the need to recompile or reformat the notes at a later time. For me, this was a major
advantage over the bar preparation courses which suggest that the student complete a
series of rather lengthy handouts, then “condense” their notes at a later time for study
purposes.
One additional factor which I think worked in my favor was that I made a conscious
effort to make sure that my surroundings were as comfortable and as pleasing as possible
during the week that I was in Sacramento. In particular, I wanted to shield myself from
any of the stress that might be exhibited by other examinees; I was certainly feeling
enough pressure myself by that time.
While it was definitely not a time for socializing, my goal was to treat the week of the
exam as a rather quiet and subdued vacation. As I am very much interested in historical
architecture, I reserved a room in a relatively inexpensive bed and breakfast which was
located within an easy drive to the exam site and within walking distance of several nice
restaurants. While I was there, I also located an interesting coffeehouse with an outdoor
patio, which allowed me to review my notes or wind down at the end of each day, while
surreptitiously engaging in a bit of social observation of the local bohemians.
Make no mistake, however, preparing for the exam is often a very agonizing and lonely
process. In the end, I think I drew on my pride more than anything else to sustain me
during that period. The study of law had been a major part of my life for four years, and
I wanted to demonstrate that my knowledge and skills were equal to the requirements of
this rather demanding test.