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Hello. I have to take the MPRE in March. I am not a law student. What are the best ways to study for this exam? For instance, should I study the ABA's model rules, or is there a better set of rules? Also, are there any good prep courses or study guides that are reasonably priced?

Thanks.

ihadadream wrote:Hello. I have to take the MPRE in March. I am not a law student.

What? How does a non-law student have to take the MPRE?

If this is in any way serious, the MPRE is a guessing game but there are tons of free materials to help. Kaplan had free online stuff that required registration on their website and I bet Themis and BarBri do the same.

ihadadream wrote:Hello. I have to take the MPRE in March. I am not a law student. What are the best ways to study for this exam? For instance, should I study the ABA's model rules, or is there a better set of rules? Also, are there any good prep courses or study guides that are reasonably priced?

Thanks.

Barbri and other bar prep providers provide free materials that you can obtain from their website. If you get the Barbri materials you should read through the mini-outline and then do the problems. This should not take more than 10 hours and likely no more than 5-6.

ihadadream wrote:Hello. I have to take the MPRE in March. I am not a law student. What are the best ways to study for this exam? For instance, should I study the ABA's model rules, or is there a better set of rules? Also, are there any good prep courses or study guides that are reasonably priced?

Thanks.

I listened to the sum & substance lectures (on CD) by Chemerinsky and passed no problem with no other studying. They're like $40 on Amazon.

Capitol_Idea wrote:

ihadadream wrote:Hello. I have to take the MPRE in March. I am not a law student.

What? How does a non-law student have to take the MPRE?

If this is in any way serious, the MPRE is a guessing game but there are tons of free materials to help. Kaplan had free online stuff that required registration on their website and I bet Themis and BarBri do the same.

california bar, maybe?

Thanks. I didn't take the MPRE in law school because I took the Maryland bar exam. They test professional responsibility on the exam and, therefore, you don't need the MPRE to pass. However, I would like to waive into the D.C. bar, for which I have to have it. I already checked with bar admissions.

Thanks for the tips.

just watch the 3 hour video on barbri

Did any of you guys use more than one? If so, which one did you prefer?

Went with Barbri. Paid $15 for the book. Watched the videos and working the review and practice questions online. Then took the four practice tests in the book. Positive I passed.

Thanks again for the tips.

I found the March 2016 MPRE exam pretty difficult. Watched barbri vid, studied outline for about an hour and took a practice test (got 70%).

Did Barbri free online practice exams, did not do their videos or whatever. Also read over the Themis MPRE free review book, pretty simple and straightforward outline. I think Barbri was adequate on its own, just do the practice exams, know why you got the questions wrong, and you should be good.

Joining the group of March 16 takers to share my experience.

I took PR over a year ago and didn't learn a thing. My primary study resource for MPRE prep was the free Kaplan online course. I watched the lecture attentively, and did two of the timed practice exams, along with 100+ Qbank questions, reading the answer explanations and looking up the rules when I got questions wrong. I also found some practice exams online - there's a website called rongolini that has a bank of old MPRE questions - and I went through two or three of those. Last I watched about half of the Barbri lecture and that provided me with a few (likely) correct answers that I would've missed from Kaplan.

Altogether I probably put in about 25 hours of prep over 4 weeks.

Five hours after taking the MPRE, I believe I was very well prepared to pass the exam. I could've done better - on a few questions I'd like to have memorized the precise definition of the "practice of law" for unauthorized practice of law purposes, or when exactly a client needs to be represented by independent counsel in deciding whether to give informed consent vs. simply being advised of the propriety of doing so... but at the end of the day I just needed to pass, and I probably did.

I'll post again with my result for future takers' information.

EDIT: scores were posted today. I got a 127. 47 points over passing in my jurisdiction.

About 20 hours of study will make you feel good after the exam but anything over 12 is probably overkill. I studied about 15 hours and left knowing I passed.

Just take the test in law school. If you fail, take it again. Spend maybe 3 hours going over the ethics rules and use some common sense on the test and you'll be fine.

I just listened to the lectures from Themis and Barbri (both free) while I was out for a walk. Didn't get much out of them because I wasn't concentrating very hard. Then did as many practice questions as I could the two evenings before the test. Maybe 6-8 hours of practice questions. That was when I actually learned what I needed to know. Felt like I had to guess on basically every question on the real thing, was fairly sure I had failed. Ended up passing pretty easily (94, I think?). For comparison, while everyone was worried that they had bombed the MBE, I thought I had done okay, so I'm not prone assuming the worst. Anyway, practice questions are where it's at, focus on them. Don't go overboard, even if you fail it doesn't matter, you can just take it after the bar.

Literally all I did was take the 4 barbri tests in the back and review all of the answers from the tests (that's the key - studying the answers). (Didn't have time to read the book).

Ended up with like a 120 or something like that on the MPRE.

FYI: March 19 scores are posted

ihadadream wrote:Did any of you guys use more than one? If so, which one did you prefer?

Themis was better than Barbri