Who Needs Law School When BarBri Can Cram It All In Two Months? (UPDATED)
Written: Aug 04 '07 (Updated Nov 25 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Teaches you all you need to pass the Bar with their tried and proven methods.
Cons: Expensive, uneven quality of lecturers and materials
The Bottom Line: Not many people can learn all they need to know to pass the Bar on their own; BarBri effectively summarizes everything a Bar-taker needs in order to pass.
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| sdeinhorn's Full Review: BAR/BRI Bar Review |
Update: Several readers have quibbled with my title, "Who needs three years of law school when BarBri can cram it into two months." Just in case the body of this review does not flesh my conclusion out, let me be very clear: I believe that an intelligent person can take BarBri and pass the bar without having spent a day in law school (though no jurisdiction would allow a person to do that, not even California); however, BarBri does NOT train a person to actually practice law. Law school is about the process of understanding the law, the theory, the research, and practical application of legal concepts -- BarBri teaches none of that. BarBri simply teaches the basic legal principles with an eye towards the Bar exam. BarBri does a great job preparing its students to answer Bar-type questions in the way that the Bar examiners want the answer presented. BarBri also does a good job of offering overviews for law students to help them see the big picture during law school. However, if a person tries to provide legal advice in the real world based upon what BarBri taught, that person will be walking malpractice. Does everybody need BarBri to pass the Bar? Not necessarily. There are other review courses to choose from, though BarBri is by far the most popular. Additionally, some law schools "teach to the Bar exam" (generally lower ranked schools that are worried about their Bar passage rates) -- graduates of these schools will need to determine for themselves if spending $3000 on BarBri is really necessary.
What is BarBri?
Soon after graduation, I was talking to my father, explaining that I would begin my Bar exam course soon. His reply, “Are you saying that law school didn’t prepare you for the Bar exam?” The question took me back for a second, but the answer was, honestly, no, three years of nonstop study during law school did not prepare me for the monstrous beast of the Bar exam. In law school I learned a lot of law; I learned how to research the law; I learned how to argue the law—but law school is primarily about the process of learning the law. For the Bar, the process is rather meaningless—it is all about memorizing huge amounts of black letter law and being prepared to analyze confusing fact patterns and spit the correct obscure rule back to the Bar examiners.
Each state has its own requirements for the Bar, but generally a bar exam will consist of at least twenty subjects, some of which a law student may have taken during law school, but some of the subject will remain foreign territory. Somehow, all of the material covered in law school must by synthesized, condensed, and mastered in order to pass the Bar. If I could barely do that in three years of law school, how could I possibly get it done in one summer? The answer is BarBri.
BarBri is an intense cram course of everything they anticipate being on the exam. Note that I said “they anticipate being on the bar”—BarBri has no idea what will be on the exam and does not even pretend to teach everything that could or will be on the exam. Instead, BarBri Lectures boil the subjects down and only bother its students with what has been tested in the past or what has a reasonable chance of being tested in the future. If all of that material is mastered, you will pass the bar. When most lawyers and law students think of BarBri, they think of those endless lectures, but BarBri is so much more than just lectures. For those who sign up for BarBri early, BarBri will help its students succeed in law school and through the Bar exam.
What BarBri Gives You
What does BarBri give you? The answer is books. Lots and lots of books. BarBri books can basically organized into the following categories:
1. First Year Outlines
For those smart enough to sign up for BarBri during their first year of law school, not only will you receive a lower price locked in for the BarBri course, but you will also receive a thick book containing outlines of the first year curriculum that virtually every law school in America teaches (contracts, torts, civil procedure, property, criminal law, constitutional law, etc.). Personally, I made a mistake in law school and did not use this book enough. During my first year, I stubbornly spent hundreds of hours creating my own outlines based upon the reading and my notes. While that was excellent preparation, I could have saved countless hours if I incorporated these outlines into the process because they are simple, concise, and really pretty good (honestly, I think my own outlines would have been better if I had looked at the BarBri materials). Everyone goes out and spends hundreds of dollars on commercial outlines for their courses, but the BarBri outlines are surprisingly good and not used nearly enough by most law students.
2. Upper Year Outlines
The upper year outlines are essentially the same as the first year outlines, but these outlines primarily cover upper-year electives. These outlines are given to students who sign up for BarBri before their last year of law school as a perk for signing up early. It was during my second year that I first decided to take a look at what BarBri had sold me. When I took courses such as Secured Transactions and Commercial Transactions, the BarBri outlines were invaluable for their brevity and clarity.
3. “Long Outlines”
Eight weeks before the Bar, BarBri had a special time designated for everyone to come pick up their books. When we arrived, each one of us was handed a fifty-pound box of books. On these 50 pounds of paper was everything we needed to know for the Bar. The heaviest thing in the box is what we called the “long outlines.” These long outlines were comprehensive teaching outlines of every area of law that would be on the exam. The long outlines were rather long, containing every rule that we needed to know as well as overviews of the major cases and also examples to help us understand each concept. When studying for the Bar, there is a huge amount of information to digest—most of us found these long outlines to be too long for us to spend too much time with. However, when I was confused about how a concept worked, I could look it up in these outlines and within a few pages I would feel that I understood a complicated area of the law.
4. “Conviser Outlines”
The Conviser Outlines are simply a stripped down versions of the long outlines. While the long outlines include cases and illustrations, the Conviser outlines simply consist of black letter law. Sprinkled throughout these outlines are test tips and charts which are extremely helpful. The people I know who got the highest scores on the exam spent a lot of time with these books.
5. Lecture Handouts
For each subject on the Bar, BarBri provides a very large book that contains an outline compiled by the professor who will lecture on that subject. The lecture handouts generally consist of a fill-in-the-blank format, where the outlines are not particularly helpful until the student attends the lecture and fills in the missing key words. Some of these outlines are absolutely outstanding, most of them are very good, but some of them are just plain horrible.
Class Lectures
The lectures are the primary teaching tool of BarBri. BarBri brings in a highly respected law professor in for each area that the Bar tests who then lectures for one or more classes (approximately three and a half hours each). In major cities, BarBri brings in faculty members for live lectures, but for most locations, a BarBri representative simply inserts a DVD of a lecture that was recorded a few days earlier in one of the major cities. I attended BarBri in Fort Worth, where we watched the DVDs. It was a little humorous to think about how 150 of us would gather in a large lecture hall everyday for six weeks to watch a video together. However, the videos were good quality: the picture was adequate, the sound quality was always fine.
Most of the BarBri lecturers are highly respected law professors who do an outstanding job. However, some of the lecturers BarBri brings in are absolutely, utterly horrible. In Texas, our horrid class was Oil and Gas Law (it was poorly organized, incomprehensibly explained, and basically total chaos; I did take Oil and Gas in law school, and I still thought BarBri’s class was a disaster). On the other hand, some of the professors come and provide absolutely outstanding courses on the subject. Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, of Duke Law School, provides an outstanding two-day overview of Constitutional law (my understanding is that Chemerinsky provides the lectures for most BarBri lectures throughout the country).
How BarBri Prepares Its Students for Each Component of the Bar:
1. The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)
The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) is not actually part of the Bar, but all applicants are required to pass this exam before being admitted to the Bar and being able to practice law. A prospective lawyer can take the MPRE either before or after the Bar exam to prove that she or she is ethical. Actually, the MPRE does not prove that a person is ethical, but that he can recognize what ethical is supposed to look like; it also ensures that the applicant will know all of the loopholes of what they can get away with while remaining within the bounds of professional responsibility.
BarBri assists their students in passing the MPRE in three ways. First, they provide a rather thick book that contains: a short “Conviser” outline and also a “long outline” covering all the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (which is the material on the test). Second, BarBri provides a four-hour class and a lecture handout with all that a person really needs to know to pass the exam. Finally, BarBri provides hundreds of practice questions to help their students prepare. Personally, I went to the lecture, I read through about half of the big outline, I read through the Conviser outline twice and then I passed with a lot of points to spare.
2. The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE)
The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is a standardized, multiple-choice law that is given in almost every jurisdiction in America as one portion of the Bar Exam. The MBE has 200 questions covering Constitutional Law, Real Property, Contracts, Evidence, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. BarBri seems to do an adequate job preparing its students for the Multistate Bar Exam by not only providing the lectures, lecture handouts, Conviser outlines, and the Big Outlines, but by also giving their students thousands of practice questions, a DVD which a one hour superficial overview of each subject, and a three day MBE workship (day one is a practice exam and days two and three have an excellent professor explaining the answers and providing test tips).
3. The Multistate Performance Test (MPT)
The Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tests the applicant’s ability to do a “real lawyer task” and is now a part of the Bar exam in a majority of American jurisdictions. This exercise is essentially an intelligence test, giving the applicant a packet of information (generally 30-40 pages), which includes fake statutes, fact cases, and then requires writing some legal document based upon instructions included in the packet. What makes the MPT difficult is the time pressure: applicants only have ninety minutes from the time they open their packet until they put their pens down. BarBri assists its students in passing this portion of the exam in two ways. First, by giving a three hour class which focuses on basic strategies and test taking tips. Second, by providing the actual MPTs which have been used over the past fifteen years along with model answers drafted by law professors retained by BarBri. Honestly, this is not really a part of the exam that can be prepared for. All prospective Bar takers can do is understand the basic format, understand the time constraints, and then trust their training and instincts.
4. State Essay Questions
While BarBri is extremely helpful for all areas of the Bar Exam, it is their instruction to help prepare for the state essay questions that I found most helpful. I have already discussed everything that BarBri provides for each subject tested on the state essays (long outlines, Conviser outlines, lectures, lecture notes). Additionally, BarBri provides their students with a very large book containing every state essay question for every subject for the last fifteen years. Providing old questions is very helpful, but a skeptic may note that they can find old essay questions on most states’ Bar examiners’ websites; true, but BarBri also provides model answers which are incredibly helpful. I found that as I studied I would read through an essay question, then I would write my own outline of an answer (about one page). After that I would read through the model answer and this is when some of the complicated issues began to make sense. Reading answers not only reinforced the law that I already know, but the answers contained discussions on minor points that I would not have known (or retained) if my thought process had not begun churning after working through the problem myself.
Final Thoughts
BarBri is extremely expensive (about $3,000). Personally, I do not take spending $3,000 lightly, but for those who are serious about wanting to pass the Bar exam, I could not imagine preparing any other way. The Bar covers way too much material for any one person to organize, condense, understand, and memorize alone. Everybody who passes the bar still needs to understand and memorize the material, but at least BarBri organizes and condenses it for us.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sdeinhorn
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Location: New York, New York, USA
Reviews written: 45
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
Tax attorney who loves photography, electronic gadgets, computers, theology, and books.
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