law canva draftI would like to welcome our guest-blogger, Brian Hahn, the founder of Make This Your Last Time and a second-time passer of the California Bar Exam. He is here to share one of his techniques that flipped his entire approach to essays.

If you’re here reading this on the website BarIssues.com, you must have some inkling of an interest in identifying issues on the CA essays.

Which is good because issues are the most important part of IRAC. Don’t get me wrong, rules and their application are still important, no, critical. You still need to make sure you’re solid in those areas. But without the seeds of issues, IRACs can’t even sprout in the first place.

Consider this another way: Although you can still get partial credit if you make up a reasonable rule or shove in facts until your application looks hefty enough (classic BS techniques), you will get zero credit for an issue that should have been raised but is never raised.

This was actually the biggest game-changing insight I had for my second time. We all have issues that we want to show off, but let’s see if there’s a way to nail down the right issues and fearlessly present them to the grader. Read More →

open bookYou’ve been through it before, and now you are about to go through it again. Somehow it’s almost comforting…the familiarity with the materials, your outlines, the essays, the multiple choice questions. But hold on! Brian of Make This Your Last Time wants to make sure this is your last time writing the bar exam.

When Brian wrote the California Bar Exam for the first time in July 2013 he did not pass. He immediately got to work studying for his second attempt where he improved his scaled score by over 70 points and passed the bar exam in February 2014. Read More →

time for changeIt’s bad enough that California bar exam takers have to wait anywhere from 2 ½ to 3 ½ months to get their results, but for repeaters who have written the exam a second time, the pressure during this waiting period is even more agonizing. A first-timer who fails is likely to turn around and without hesitation, take the exam again. But switch to the second-time bar taker who again fails – does anyone really want to take the bar exam for a third time, or God forbid, a fourth time? Would you feel defeated and give up? Read More →