advice for 1Ls and 2Ls from a recent grad Forum

[mjj]

I wanted to pass this along because I think it is an incredibly valuable piece of information that I learned completely by accident. I don't know where else to boost the signal, so I'm boosting it here.

Bar prep is incredibly expensive, especially Barbri. Since most courses have shifted to an online model and they know that students are anxious about getting good preparation for the bar exam, most of the companies are charging WAY more than they "have" to. This is no surprise, really - but use it to your advantage.

I put down a deposit with Barbri, then realized I wouldn't be able to afford it and went with Themis instead because it was a third the price and they offered to credit me for my Barbri deposit. This put me on some kind of list of people who had half-enrolled in Barbri but never committed - and they started calling me and offering me incredible discounts to complete my enrollment. A sales rep called me during finals and offered me a $1000 scholarship out of the blue; I said even with a $1000 discount Barbri was still $1400 more than Themis, and the rep immediately said, "in that case, I can offer you $2000!" They also offered to credit me for any money I couldn't get back from Themis in the event that they wouldn't give me a full refund. Literally on my graduation day I proposed to combine those two offers ($2000 + $1100 credit for Themis --> $300 for the full Barbri course, possibly without even having to give up Themis), and I got an immediate email from the sales rep saying he was "interested in meeting my proposed terms or something similar." (I ended up just sticking with Themis because I didn't have an extra $300 anyway and I honestly started to view Barbri as a slimy monopoly and didn't want to give them any of my money anyway. Themis is going fine for me.)

Anyway, my point is that as far as I can tell, any money you give them is pure profit for them. I don't know how much longer it will last (it seems inevitable that Barbri will have to lower its rates to match the competition eventually), but if I hadn't enrolled in another course, holding out would have been hugely profitable for me; I had all the power in the negotiation. You do not have to pay $3500 for Barbri, but most of my friends did because they didn't really know any better.