New York Bar Exam Advice
Can BarWrite show you how to pass the
New York Bar Exam? In this letter, one of our former students
offers some New York bar exam advice that can help you pass
the NY bar exam.
From: Stefanie Weiss, Attorney-at-Law, New York, NY 10280
To: New York Bar Candidates and Law School Faculty:
I take this opportunity to write and tell you about my classes
at BarWrite, Dr. Mary Campbell Gallagher's large-class bar-examination
preparation program. My experiences tell me that BarWrite's
intervention can help any bar candidate pass the bar examination
and can help bring up the bar-exam pass rate at any law school.
I am uniquely qualified to make suggestions about how to
pass the New York bar exam. I am an educator with 15 years'
experience, and I am a 2005 graduate of Brooklyn Law School.
Although I passed the New Jersey bar immediately, I did not
pass the New York exam the first time.
I sat through one course of BARBRI, two courses of PMBR,
one Marino Retaker course, and two BARBRI Marino essay courses.
Finally, I took the 10-day BarWrite course, and it was the
only one that made me feel prepared for the New York bar exam.
The only course that I now recommend to other people is the
BarWrite course, which I loved.
Dr. Gallagher graduated from Harvard Law School in 1974.
Perhaps because she holds a Ph.D. in linguistics, BarWrite
focuses on logic and systems, and so it is different from
the other courses.
BarWrite teaches the most-frequently tested rules of law
in the ten most-tested areas of law, and it also covers the
challenges that haunt New York bar retakers. Designed to be
either a supplement to a full bar-review course like Pieper
or else a retaker course, it does not assume that one merely
lacks knowledge, which other courses assume, but which is
often not the problem.
I failed the New York bar because I did not know how to handle
the different sections on the complicated New York exam. The
confusion and anxiety it generated made it impossible for
me to pass. My primary problem was timing and format on the
essays, but other bar retakers that I met were challenged
by handling the MBE questions, by finding the correct issues
to address on the essays, or by producing the correct format
within the time limits of the MPT tasks. None of the other
bar review courses addressed these challenges in a comprehensive
or comprehensible way. I was relieved when Dr. Gallagher taught
us systems for handling all of them.
BarWrite covered every aspect of the exam. Dr. Gallagher
used a number of frequently-tested subjects, starting with
contracts, to teach both the law and the fundamentals of bar
examination essay-writing. In the 10-day course, we wrote
practice New York essays in seven subjects, using special
New York class materials and Dr. Gallagher's book Scoring
High on Bar Exam Essays. Dr. Gallagher also offered optional
teleseminars, where we reviewed especially difficult New York
essay questions on the telephone, three times during the course.
Two days of the course focused on learning and practicing
the BarWrite MBE study system.
To make sure students had workable study schedules and to
support them in using the MBE study system, BarWrite provided
telephone tutoring by practicing lawyers. One day of the course
focused on the MPT, for which Dr. Gallagher provides a unique
system. Ten-day students were also encouraged to attend two
of BarWrite's one-day MPT boot camps, without charge, for
an extra study boost.
In every class session, Dr. Gallagher addressed timing, conciseness,
and logical thinking. By teaching me how to handle the entire
New York exam with very specific instructions, BarWrite alleviated
my anxiety, which made it easier for me to complete the exam.
Because I was prepared for all of the testing issues I would
encounter in the two-day exam, I took the bar in the summer
of 2007 confidently, instead of with a queasy stomach. Words
cannot express how good it felt to sit in the MBE intellectually
analyzing the MBE fact patterns--which is what the BarWrite
MBE study system teaches students how to do--instead of panicking
over deciding among the answer-choices.
As an educator, I know that Dr. Gallagher's BarWrite program
is what enabled me to bring up my score on the New York bar
exam to a passing grade. Based on my own experience with BarWrite,
I believe that Dr. Gallagher's intervention will help other
bar candidates. I believe it will yield additional passers
for any law school.
If law schools use the BarWrite courses to target the at-risk
students, perhaps by offering an eight- or ten-day class to
them during the winter break, seven months before the bar
exam, with a three-day refresher course in July, after Pieper
and Barbri finish, I feel sure that more students like me-the
"almost-passers"-will make the cut and pass the bar exam the
first time around.
Yours very truly,
Stefanie Weiss, Brooklyn Law School 2005
Member, New York and New Jersey bars
If you need help passing the New York bar exam, BarWrite can make the difference. Please call us at (212) 327-2817 to learn more about our New York bar exam prep courses and tutoring options.
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