HELP! Best CA Bar Prep Course Forum

[placidstate]

Whichever you guys think is best, I am also planning to supplement it with Adaptibar. Thanks so much!

[JohnnieSockran]

Jagdish (Jay) Bijlani (private tutoring). He's expensive, but he got me a passing score (after failing with Kaplan). I used Jay's course + Adaptibar and that's it.

[Porkypots]

i need help deciding as well. for CA test! are you leaning to any at the moment?

[placidstate]

As of right now, I'm leaning towards BARBRI because I tried their MPRE course and i like how structured it is (although lecture was not super helpful). But I've also heard that BARBRI is not as good as people say it is and is mostly a reputation thing... Hence why I welcome any input on this!

[FinallyPassedTheBar]

Everything you need to know in the Barbri course is in the Convisor Mini-review book, which can be purchased used for around $200 on Ebay. Supplement that with Baressays.com and Adaptibar.com, and you won't be missing anything that the full bar courses provide, with the exception of essay grading feedback.

[diatribe]

You're not likely to find an objective view of these companies. The people who pass are often likely to recommend their own program, the people who fail are often likely say to avoid that company. The only people who use more than one company for the same state do so because they failed. Even if you get an objective view, each person has personal needs.

I felt my needs were MBE related so I went with Kaplan because I have tended to see more positive things for them regarding the MBE. I also took an MBE prep class as part of my regular law school instruction. That course used Themis MBE material. I can't say I liked one more than the other, I think both program's question and answer sets were comparable. Kaplan has an "ask an expert" function where you send in legal questions and get answers. I sent in over 100 questions over my bar prep. My only experience with Barbri was with the free outline books you get from all three companies. And all three companies' books for that were riddled with various mistakes (some typographical and some substantive)

Nearly everyone I know took Barbri. The remainder were divided between Kaplan and Themis. Themis releases its bar pass rates, Kaplan and Barbri do not. Common sense tells me this is because Barbri and Kaplan have comparable pass rates to Themis, but do not want to lose business by revealing this fact. Barbri and Kaplan are far above Themis' price and Barbri's biggest selling point is that everyone takes Barbri. At least at my school and legal community there was a lot of fear mongering surrounding those who chose other companies over Barbri. It went like this: "I"m sure you'll pass the bar, you took Barbri, right? Oh, Kaplan/Themis? I'm sure it'll be fine anyway." There was even a Barbri ad at my school something along the lines of "Don't be the only one to experiment, take Barbri"