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Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Sorry to hear about the test, but it's great that you're looking forward. I would stick with Pieper if you can get it for free, but if you're going to pay full price for another course, it only makes sense to try Barbri or Kaplan. Whatever you go with, I would highly recommend also signing up for Adaptibar. It's very helpful.

Also, I've heard good things about BarWrite, and you might want to look into that. I know a lot of foreign educated lawyers have found it very helpful. It's like a 3 day intensive course on writing the essays. Best of luck!

stronitsing wrote:

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Sorry to hear about the test, but it's great that you're looking forward. I would stick with Pieper if you can get it for free, but if you're going to pay full price for another course, it only makes sense to try Barbri or Kaplan. Whatever you go with, I would highly recommend also signing up for Adaptibar. It's very helpful.

Also, I've heard good things about BarWrite, and you might want to look into that. I know a lot of foreign educated lawyers have found it very helpful. It's like a 3 day intensive course on writing the essays. Best of luck!

Thank you so much. That is really helpful.

stronitsing wrote:

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Sorry to hear about the test, but it's great that you're looking forward. I would stick with Pieper if you can get it for free, but if you're going to pay full price for another course, it only makes sense to try Barbri or Kaplan. Whatever you go with, I would highly recommend also signing up for Adaptibar. It's very helpful.

Also, I've heard good things about BarWrite, and you might want to look into that. I know a lot of foreign educated lawyers have found it very helpful. It's like a 3 day intensive course on writing the essays. Best of luck!

Thank you so much. That is really helpful.

stronitsing wrote:

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Sorry to hear about the test, but it's great that you're looking forward. I would stick with Pieper if you can get it for free, but if you're going to pay full price for another course, it only makes sense to try Barbri or Kaplan. Whatever you go with, I would highly recommend also signing up for Adaptibar. It's very helpful.

Also, I've heard good things about BarWrite, and you might want to look into that. I know a lot of foreign educated lawyers have found it very helpful. It's like a 3 day intensive course on writing the essays. Best of luck!

Thank you so much. I was planning to take pieper essay prep but now I would look into barwrite.

Nybar2015 wrote:

stronitsing wrote:

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

Sorry to hear about the test, but it's great that you're looking forward. I would stick with Pieper if you can get it for free, but if you're going to pay full price for another course, it only makes sense to try Barbri or Kaplan. Whatever you go with, I would highly recommend also signing up for Adaptibar. It's very helpful.

Also, I've heard good things about BarWrite, and you might want to look into that. I know a lot of foreign educated lawyers have found it very helpful. It's like a 3 day intensive course on writing the essays. Best of luck!

Nybar2015 wrote:Hi there
I took NY bar in Feb and July and got a score of 554 and 557. The first time around I did not study much so I expected the results but this July I studied the material but didn't practice enough essays and mbes, but hard to digest such low scores.
I took pieper and currently supplementing with seperac and Kaplan.
Can some please guide me if I should stick to pieper or go with barbri at this point. Has anyone with such low scores ever passed??. Also kindly share your study plan as I really get worn out some times.
II am not working now and intend to study hard and get it done this time.
Thank you for your help

I don't know your background. It is not easy to pass the NY bar as a foreigner , especially if English is not your first language.

For foreign bar examinee, there are three main obstacles to pass the exam.

1. language. if your first language is not English.

2. understand the laws, if you haven't taken enough classes for common law.

3. understand how to take the exams. You don't know how to answer the questions or write essays.

Bar review companies might only be able to solve the third problem. But for the first two problems, you need to do more than that.

you can also look into 'llm bar exam' - they are specifically adressing the abovementioned concerns foreign lawyers have and make you write about 40 essays (i think 20 of them get graded) - their pass rate for llms is also around 80% (according to their homepage) which is significantly better than the 33% general pass rate for foreigners

good luck- you can do it! just don't give up

Scale wrote:you can also look into 'llm bar exam' - they are specifically adressing the abovementioned concerns foreign lawyers have and make you write about 40 essays (i think 20 of them get graded) - their pass rate for llms is also around 80% (according to their homepage) which is significantly better than the 33% general pass rate for foreigners

good luck- you can do it! just don't give up

Thank you so much

Foreign lawyer here (from the UK), working for an investment bank, 70hrs + per week! Also failed the July NY exam. Did pretty OK in the essay portion but the MBE was my downfall (121). Recently purchased Adaptibar to give me more MBE practice. Worried I don't have enough time to get through as many questions as possible by Feb ;-(

Any further tips/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Scale wrote:you can also look into 'llm bar exam' - they are specifically adressing the abovementioned concerns foreign lawyers have and make you write about 40 essays (i think 20 of them get graded) - their pass rate for llms is also around 80% (according to their homepage) which is significantly better than the 33% general pass rate for foreigners

good luck- you can do it! just don't give up

I took LLM bar exam last july.

I kept the textbooks because i thought the outlines were pretty good and clear enough and there was a shit ton of essays.

However, I failed so i don't know how good it is compared with barbri...

I'm a UK lawyer, passed NY bar first time. I used barmax, which was good because it has tons of real MBE questions. I did lots of questions, and where I got them wrong, took time to understand the answer and then write down a one-line rule which was the thing I'd misunderstood/got wrong. That one-liner went on a list I called the "Don't Know List", which I reviewed every few days. Some of the things on that don't know list never came up again, but lots of them did.
For the essays, I used a thing I found on the internet, I think it was called Smart Bar Prep but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll find it. It basically analysed all the essay questions from the last several years and lists which issues come up with what frequency. I made a chart of each issue in order of frequency, and then for each issue I wrote down the rule that I would want to state in an essay. In this way, I made sure to learn the most important, frequently used stuff. It meant that in the exam there were a few things that I had no clue about - things that had come up either once before or never before. So I guessed for those and probably got them wrong. But the majority of stuff in the exam had come up somewhere before and I was able to quickly and easily state the rule and apply.
I'm happy to provide my copy of that rule chart if anyone wants.

katxyz wrote:I'm a UK lawyer, passed NY bar first time. I used barmax, which was good because it has tons of real MBE questions. I did lots of questions, and where I got them wrong, took time to understand the answer and then write down a one-line rule which was the thing I'd misunderstood/got wrong. That one-liner went on a list I called the "Don't Know List", which I reviewed every few days. Some of the things on that don't know list never came up again, but lots of them did.
For the essays, I used a thing I found on the internet, I think it was called Smart Bar Prep but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll find it. It basically analysed all the essay questions from the last several years and lists which issues come up with what frequency. I made a chart of each issue in order of frequency, and then for each issue I wrote down the rule that I would want to state in an essay. In this way, I made sure to learn the most important, frequently used stuff. It meant that in the exam there were a few things that I had no clue about - things that had come up either once before or never before. So I guessed for those and probably got them wrong. But the majority of stuff in the exam had come up somewhere before and I was able to quickly and easily state the rule and apply.
I'm happy to provide my copy of that rule chart if anyone wants.

Thanks katxyx - that's very helpful. I am also a UK lawyer but failed on my first attempt and intend to retake in Feb. I just need to work on my MBE score!!

I'm a UK lawyer too and sat the July exams.

I did have a bit of a meltdown a couple of weeks before the exams when my MBE practice scores were no where near a decent mark. I had already been through about 1300 Themis MBE questions. I then read about Emanuel's MBE book and got hold of a copy. I worked through the book as much as I could and got to grips with how to quickly eliminate some wrong answer choices. I strongly recommend doing the same. Note that the book doesn't cover the Civil Pro MBE questions though.

If you want a push for your essays then this book may help, 'What Not To Write: Ny Bar Exam Essay Book'. I thought it was insightful in terms of how marks are given for essays.

I too worked full-time while studying and it was very challenging. So hats off for giving it another go. I'm sure that you'll get through this time.

Feel free to PM me if there's anything that I can do to help.

Lean sheets is useful as a raw minimum of what you need to know by heart. I'd imagine that the correct approach for you will require a self analysis of why you've failed, and whether it was essays or multiple choices, and whether it was a result of not adequately understanding the law or struggling to apply them to fact in a way that maximizes your point tally. If it's the latter then simply regurgitating more and more law is likely neither sufficient nor necessary. Either way, good luck!

Uk_Law15 wrote:I'm a UK lawyer too and sat the July exams.

I did have a bit of a meltdown a couple of weeks before the exams when my MBE practice scores were no where near a decent mark. I had already been through about 1300 Themis MBE questions. I then read about Emanuel's MBE book and got hold of a copy. I worked through the book as much as I could and got to grips with how to quickly eliminate some wrong answer choices. I strongly recommend doing the same. Note that the book doesn't cover the Civil Pro MBE questions though.

If you want a push for your essays then this book may help, 'What Not To Write: Ny Bar Exam Essay Book'. I thought it was insightful in terms of how marks are given for essays.

I too worked full-time while studying and it was very challenging. So hats off for giving it another go. I'm sure that you'll get through this time.

Feel free to PM me if there's anything that I can do to help.

Thanks Uk_Law15. Can you please confirm the author of 'What Not to Write'?

Here's the link on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Not-To-Write ... 0735588139


The book is written by Tania Shah and Melissa Gill.

I'm putting my books up for sale if you're interested.

katxyz wrote:I'm a UK lawyer, passed NY bar first time. I used barmax, which was good because it has tons of real MBE questions. I did lots of questions, and where I got them wrong, took time to understand the answer and then write down a one-line rule which was the thing I'd misunderstood/got wrong. That one-liner went on a list I called the "Don't Know List", which I reviewed every few days. Some of the things on that don't know list never came up again, but lots of them did.
For the essays, I used a thing I found on the internet, I think it was called Smart Bar Prep but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll find it. It basically analysed all the essay questions from the last several years and lists which issues come up with what frequency. I made a chart of each issue in order of frequency, and then for each issue I wrote down the rule that I would want to state in an essay. In this way, I made sure to learn the most important, frequently used stuff. It meant that in the exam there were a few things that I had no clue about - things that had come up either once before or never before. So I guessed for those and probably got them wrong. But the majority of stuff in the exam had come up somewhere before and I was able to quickly and easily state the rule and apply.
I'm happy to provide my copy of that rule chart if anyone wants.

Hi, I'm new to the forum and I'm 3 years late to the conversation LOL. I'm a fresh grad, having done my LLB in the UK, and I hope to take the NY bar in July '19. May I please have some advise, notes, rule charts etc. from you guys? I have to learn American law from scratch

Fingers crossed that you guys have successfully completed the bar by now!! Haha

I think because I'm new to the forum, I'm unable to send messages.
However, I'd really really appreciate some advice and someone to talk to, as I currently have no peer support nor guidance; working towards the NY Bar for July '19 all on my own!

My email is [Redacted] and my whatsapp is [Redacted]
Please reach out to me!

If you're starting from scratch, I suggest you read the 1L outlines. This will give you the basic information for all the UBE subjects. I bought the Barbri 1L outline from amazon for 10 dollars, very good investment.