It’s never too early to think ahead to bar exam prep.
Three years of law school and then you’re ready to be an attorney. Well, almost. Even after all the classes and exams, you still need to pass the bar exam. And that is a beast for even the sharpest of minds.
The exam will assess your knowledge of legal principles, reasoning and other skills needed to be a competent attorney. It is a huge fate decider. And with so much at stake, you don’t want to wing it.
In fact, most students don’t trust that law school alone will prepare them.
“Bar prep students should seek to capture what the prospect of an in-person bar prep program suggests: a program that provides structure, accountability and responsiveness,” said Joel Chanvisanuruk, senior director of programs for academic and bar success at AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence. “There are two sources of these necessary program components: your law school and your bar prep company.”
Chanvisanuruk said many schools offer support and space for bar preparation, including essay workshops and tutorials. But the process of helping students learn and memorize what they need to know for the exam often falls to commercial bar prep companies.
So, how do you choose which prep company is best for you?
While a lot of attention is focused on bar passage rates, Chanvisanuruk warns students to be careful. Many advertised passage rates are based on the performance of a select number of students, he said.
When choosing a program, it’s recommended that you test drive before you buy.
For example, many bar prep companies offer free prep materials for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), which students can start preparing for once they have finished a legal ethics course in their second year.
“The best way to get an idea of which bar exam course is a good fit for you is to try out the MPRE courses of the bar exam companies you are considering working with,” said Ashley Heidemann, CEO and founder of JD Advising and a columnist for The National Jurist.
“Many students take the MPRE in their second year. You can try out MPRE courses offered by each company and see which platform, lecture format and outline you like. How the company structures its MPRE course will give you a good idea of how its bar exam course is structured.”
The bar prep company Crushendo recommends that students take the MPRE before their third year. This allows students time to retake the test if they don’t pass the first time.
“Studying for the MPRE is like building with Lego bricks,” according to company promotional material. “You don’t half assemble a castle, and then half assemble a knight, and then half assemble a dragon. You build in chunks, so things don’t get too messy and confusing. You should study like that too.”
After using MPRE materials from a particular company, students should decide whether the materials fit their learning style.
“Questions to consider include: ‘Are the rules stated in a manner that is easy for me to understand and remember?’” Chanvisanuruk said. “‘Do the video lectures generally keep me engaged? Is the overall program structure clear? Does it make sense?’”
However, he said, since the MPRE is entirely multiple choice, users still won’t know how the bar prep company coaches and provides feedback for written components of a bar exam.
Andrei Zakhareuski, co-founder and CEO of Bar Prep Hero, said many experts believe that practicing on prior bar examination questions is the best way to go.
“Ask each bar prep administrator how many actual NCBE (National Conference of Bar Examiners) questions are provided in the program’s package,” he said. “The more the better. Determine what features are included in each program, and compare which gives you the most features, and the cost of each. Assure yourself in advance that you understand the package you are purchasing.”
While the learning material companies offer is similar, the way it is presented may make a difference. If you like learning by watching videos, you may want to consider a program such as AmeriBar, which includes online lectures, or Quimbee, which is completely online.
Quimbee offers a mixture of video courses, subject-specific outlines, coursebooks and practice problems. The daily homework often consists of a ton of practice problems, reading assignments from coursebooks, studying outlines and watching video lessons.
Some companies, such as Critical Pass and Celebration Bar Review, include apps with flash cards and quizzes. They may be the ones for you if you learn best that way.
Barbri, the largest bar prep company, offers online, in person or a combination of both. If you struggle to study online materials, you should consider an in-person program for your prep. But know that in-person instructors aren’t available for some programs.
“Decades ago, law students would gather in a room, and a traveling lecturer would arrive to review the day’s bar subject while they took notes,” Chanvisanuruk said. “Today, this notion of an in-person bar prep course is long lost.” Now, students in an in-person bar prep course will typically show up to a room and watch a recorded or live-streamed lecture play on a screen. A few topics might be delivered in person by a traveling professor, but only rarely.
Students taking the course in a large city may find that their classroom is the originating site of a live stream recording, so they will be watching the lecture in person.
“But the overwhelming majority of first-years should accept that in-person bar prep offerings do not include physically present professors available to interact with students or answer questions,” Chanvisanuruk said.
He recommends identifying the topics that will be graded on your state’s exam. If they include areas of law that you don’t naturally embrace or understand, invest time in studying those topics.
Meanwhile, if you practice good study habits in law school, it will be easier to fit bar prep into your schedule later.
“The best way to prepare for the bar exam in your first year of law school is to try to do well in your first-year classes,” Heidemann said. “Make outlines, learn the law and learn to apply the law.
“The bar exam heavily tests what you learn in your first year. So, rather than worrying about a specific course during your first year, focus on succeeding academically. It will go a long way.”
Chanvisanuruk recommends that when shopping for bar prep courses, ask about the frequency and type of feedback you will receive on your writing. Better yet, ask for a sample of feedback on student writing.
Many bar prep programs break topics in chunks for easier digestion of the material. A program that provides detailed outlines and real bar exam questions and breaks up the topics will help you go a long way.
Some companies, such as AdaptiBar, will shuffle back questions or topics that you are struggling with to help you improve your understanding. Many companies, such as Themis Bar Review and Bar Prep Hero, source their information from real bar exam questions.
Q&A with Beth McCormack, dean and professor of law at Vermont Law School
Q: When you’ve mentored students on taking the bar exam, what did you learn about how best to prepare them?
McCormack: We advise students to take about 500 to 600 hours of focused study right before the exam in addition to their law school degree. Most of them take the bar in July, giving them about 10 weeks to get the study time completed and to be prepared.
Students should enlist family support, if available. I think back to my own experience taking the bar exam. No one in my family was a lawyer, so they really didn’t understand what I was embarking upon and the difficulty of the exam, not to mention the stress.
It’s important to take care of yourself during bar prep. I encourage students to develop ways of coping with stress. This is not just for obtaining a legal education, but also for being a lawyer. Find a break from the stress of bar exam study — whether that’s exercise or meditation or occasionally getting together with friends. Have something as an outlet for that time.
I also encourage them to draw on their experience as being lifelong students. By the time they’re taking the bar exam, they’ve been in high school and college, and then three years of law school for most students. So I encourage them to use what they know about how to be a student, how to successfully prepare for exams, and not to blindly follow the bar preparation class.
Article from the 2025 Winter issue of The National Jurist.
