Any attorneys who have taken a 2nd bar? Forum

[Pierrot]

If so, did you self-study or take a course? I passed the CA bar within past 5 years and I'm planning on taking the bar in a UBE state. I'll be working full time while I study. Has anyone use the Barbri or another service's attorneys' bar review course?

[team slug]

If so, did you self-study or take a course? I passed the CA bar within past 5 years and I'm planning on taking the bar in a UBE state. I'll be working full time while I study. Has anyone use the Barbri or another service's attorneys' bar review course?

I passed CA Bar in 2016 and the NY Bar in 2019. I was working full-time when I was studying for the NY Bar and used the Barbri attorney course. It was grueling experience and I barely got through 50% of the materials. I ended up taking a 1.5 weeks off work before the exam and I absolutely needed it. Leading up to the exam, I'd recommend taking off as much time as your employer will allow.

[lavarman84]

Yes, I passed the Florida Bar and then took the UBE a few years later. I used Themis for both. I felt it was necessary. I retained a little knowledge from the first time (to the point that I was better at the MBE), but it was nowhere near enough to not have to study hard.

[yost]

If so, did you self-study or take a course? I passed the CA bar within past 5 years and I'm planning on taking the bar in a UBE state. I'll be working full time while I study. Has anyone use the Barbri or another service's attorneys' bar review course?

I took and passed California on my first attempt in July 2017 and I'm currently taking the UBE. I did Barbri both times, but I deviated from the program a lot more this time due to the lack of time I had. I'm in big law, and it was pretty much impossible to study while I was working. I managed maybe four hours per week. I did take four weeks off to exclusively study, though, and I expect that I will pass in my very low cutoff score state.

[Pierrot]

If so, did you self-study or take a course? I passed the CA bar within past 5 years and I'm planning on taking the bar in a UBE state. I'll be working full time while I study. Has anyone use the Barbri or another service's attorneys' bar review course?

I passed CA Bar in 2016 and the NY Bar in 2019. I was working full-time when I was studying for the NY Bar and used the Barbri attorney course. It was grueling experience and I barely got through 50% of the materials. I ended up taking a 1.5 weeks off work before the exam and I absolutely needed it. Leading up to the exam, I'd recommend taking off as much time as your employer will allow.

It's great that you passed after only doing 50% of the materials! Do you recall how many weeks the attorneys' bar course was and how, if anything, it was different from the course for first time takers?

[Wobble]

I've taken several (including UBE) since my first state. FYI, I blogged about my reflections/advice at length here https://wobble.blog/?p=1 and posted on these forums not too long ago. I'll say in short that I'm a big advocate of doing what's most comfortable for you, but if the CA bar did not have you in cold sweats, you feel like the cobwebs of what you learned to prep for the CA bar is still there, and you have minimal time to study, I'd strongly advocate self studying. I personally studied only LeanSheets (very abbreviated outlines) to prep for the UBE, but I did take it like 6 months after taking my first bar exam. I think you can't go wrong just picking up a copy of BarBri's convier mini review for your state and studying just that. Of course, though, again, do what suits you best!

[SilvermanBarPrep]

A lot of what the bar course teaches you is how to take a bar exam (essay writing, etc.). So if you were successful the first time around, much may be redundant. You'll need to learn quite a lot of law each time you take a new exam but if you're independent with that kind of thing then I'd say it's very doable for someone taking another bar to do much of the work on their own. As mentioned by others in this thread, I'd recommend the Barbri Conviser Mini Review for learning the substantive law.

Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)

[team slug]

If so, did you self-study or take a course? I passed the CA bar within past 5 years and I'm planning on taking the bar in a UBE state. I'll be working full time while I study. Has anyone use the Barbri or another service's attorneys' bar review course?

I passed CA Bar in 2016 and the NY Bar in 2019. I was working full-time when I was studying for the NY Bar and used the Barbri attorney course. It was grueling experience and I barely got through 50% of the materials. I ended up taking a 1.5 weeks off work before the exam and I absolutely needed it. Leading up to the exam, I'd recommend taking off as much time as your employer will allow.

It's great that you passed after only doing 50% of the materials! Do you recall how many weeks the attorneys' bar course was and how, if anything, it was different from the course for first time takers?

I believe the attorney course is recommended for 3-4 months if you're studying part-time. Like the first-time takers, if you miss assignments they build up later and your assignments adjusts automatically. Other than the assignments being adjusted for someone studying part-time, the materials seemed the same.

[northernbelle91]

Passed PA in 2016 and NY in Feb 2019. Didn't use a course or take significant time off work, just self-studied with my old materials and bought a supplement for NY essays. Did pretty terribly but a pass is a pass. If you have to take while working, would recommend taking 2 weeks off at least if your firm will let you (my nonprofit wouldn't).

[mburton18]

I took Georgia in July 2018 and took the UBE in February 2020. For me studying the second time was much easier; it might be different for people who have a longer gap between exams. My firm paid for Barbri, but I did not follow the study plan. I used the Barbri books to review the material, listened to the Barbri lectures during my commute, and did around 1250 Adapitbar questions and a couple hundred Barbri MBE questions. I did not practice essays at all. I ended up scoring higher than my first exam, but only studied about 20% as much.

[RandomInternetPerson]

You likely have reciprocity options in mist states coming out of CA. It's different going out of CA as a lawyer then coming in.....if I understand it correctly. Maybe not for all states but I believe for at least some.

[deanrobbins1]

I self studied and passed CA July 2016, admitted sometime in late 2017 while clerking, started biglaw early 2018.

I took the UBE in July 2020. used barbri's regular course and studied about 10-20 hours a week. passed with a 325. MBE was 171 so apparently my essays were kinda shit. I somewhat expected my essay score to be below my practice tests because the mix of essay topics was basically the worst possible draw of MEE subjects (based on where perceive myself being strong versus weak) since the test started, based on barbri's historical chart of the MEE subject mix.

somehow I got 5's, 4's and one 3 (out of 6) on the MEE essays and fucking 2's on both MPT's. that's kind of embarrassing for a practicing atty and surprising since all the performance tests I turned in for grading to barbri they scored as eightieth percentile or above, but whatever. I chalk it up to them doing two really weird memos/letters for the July performance test, whereas I pretty much only did the argument brief section/persuasive memo type performance tests from barbri.

whatever, worked out fine. I think I would have been perfectly fine self studying with a UBE Convisior mini and some old barbri simulated MBE's bought off ebay, like I did for California. but it was nice having the structure of the barbri course dashboard and all of the books and people to grade my essays and whatnot.

[Anonymous User]

I took a second one when my MBE score was still good. So I just had to do the essays. Some states allow that.

If you get a high enough score, some states will let you just roll in no exam at all. Sometimes it has to be from the right state 1 into the proper state 2 but not always. I think MN is an example of one that takes literally anyone with a high enough MBE score with no essays required as long as you passed in your original state and didn't fail their local exam in the last few years.

This information is a few years old, so it may be dated.

- For an extreme example (if anyone has trouble passing literally anywhere but has unlimited funds and enjoys travel) http://palausupremecourt.net/upload/P14 ... 855811.pdf
A minimum score of 120 is required on
the MBE to be admitted to the Palau Bar.

You could sleep walk that into the goal line. Be stuck doing "licensed anywhere" bar review....but I think that most states would let reciprocity kick in after a few years as long as you kept an active pobox and gave online legal advise to locals in that area from time to time to claim "was actively practicing with a presence in the jurisdiction". Be kind of a crazy extreme. But by no means undoable.