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I am taking the UBE and I really don't like Themis. I know a lot of people are wondering about which service to take but as far as I am concerned, I don't like Themis. That does not mean that other services would be better because I only took Themis and can't compare it with other services.

1. I don't like some of the professors who give lectures. Why do some professor say so many unrelated his personal things during the lecture? Should I listen to babbling by paying for the service?

2. I don't like their lecture handouts and outlines etc. Outlines are too long and handouts are too short and less structured. I am taking the UBE soon but upon reflection, I would have been much better off if I just reviewed my first year outlines and added/modified with the free online UBE outline you can find on Internet or other much much cheaper bar outline services (they are like one hundred dollars). I ended up buying one of these bar outlines from somewhere else and use them most of my time. I feel like I have wasted my time and money.

3. It takes days to get the response for your answers. By then, you have to refresh your memory all over again.

yeah, well, thats just, like, your opinion, man.

i thought themis was a great value and left the bar feeling very confident and well-prepared after completing the recommended amount of the program

I'm not a huge Themis fan either. Not that their product is bad, but their teaching style doesn't mesh well with my learning style. I'd much rather a system that was more assessment focused rather than lecture focused. Since I only got to 60% completion and their assessments are backloaded, I spent 85% of my time listening to lecturers speak and maybe 15% of my time doing anything assessment related. Grinding through 8+ hours of contracts lectures is much less helpful to me than 50 or 100 multiple choice questions testing my knowledge of the topics in contract law, and it burns me out quicker, too. I think I could've gotten further faster if the video lectures were used for remediating poor understanding rather than as the primary focus of the first 2/3 of the class.

/vent

I loved Themis. I feel like with any bar prep the lectures are pretty useless. But I really liked their approach. A lot of people walked out of the MBE feeling like they had studied another test and felt bamboozled by the MBE questions, but I felt like the MBE questions were like the ones I had studied, some even seeming verbatim of some questions I had studied. Sure, there were some weird questions that tested a nuance that I hadn't seen (thanks to civ pro) but overall, I didn't feel too worried about the MBE.

hate themis with a passion, for the same reasons

1. I watched lectures on 1.5x speed
2. I basically reoutlined everything from scratch (but made sure the outlines were very similar/exactly same as Themis') for multiple reasons. First, it helped me retain the info. Second, it condensed the 40 page outlines into fewer pages that are easy to read. Third, some information on the outline needed to be condensed/expanded so I could customize this.
3. Skip the torts lecture.

Ended up saving a lot of time. Finished 45% of themis but still passed.

If I had to redo everything, I would just look for completed outlines and reoutline them and watch lectures ONLY for subjects that you have no familiarity with.

Themis has terrible essay grading. Don't even use actual essay graders. Just to test it, I submitted a model answer from a former CalBarX grader to one of their graded essays. They gave me a 60 lol. I don't know why they don't contract actual bar exam graders or why they don't offer you more ways to improve your essays. For California, it is crucial and a big handicap.

I loved Themis (as much as you can love a bar prep company). What I liked about Themis compared to Barbri was (1) the cost and (2) Themis didn't make me feel like I was going to fail the bar every single day -- Barbri's scare tactics are not helpful to me, and I knew it wouldn't be a good fit.

I did like Themis's outlines and handouts. I didn't have a problem getting questions answered quickly I don't think.

It's a prep company, not a tutor. You have to figure out how to make it work for you. In retrospect, I wouldn't have watched all of the lectures and would have spent more time condensing outlines because I learn better that way. But I still passed with a lot of room to spare, so I guess maybe I wouldn't have changed anything.

iliketurtles123 wrote:hate themis with a passion, for the same reasons

1. I watched lectures on 1.5x speed
2. I basically reoutlined everything from scratch (but made sure the outlines were very similar/exactly same as Themis') for multiple reasons. First, it helped me retain the info. Second, it condensed the 40 page outlines into fewer pages that are easy to read. Third, some information on the outline needed to be condensed/expanded so I could customize this.
3. Skip the torts lecture.

Ended up saving a lot of time. Finished 45% of themis but still passed.

If I had to redo everything, I would just look for completed outlines and reoutline them and watch lectures ONLY for subjects that you have no familiarity with.

The lectures are worthless.

Themis was baller. I even enjoyed my bar prep time. Passed.