Thread: Tutor dilemma - CA Bar

Hello to all,

I am going to take the July exam and am an attorney applicant. I live
in Florida and am thinking of using a tutor because I don't think I can
adequately study on my own and I am not in CA to attend any live
classes. Also, for the essays, I need the feedback that only a tutor
can provide. With that being said, I am between Paul Pfau of Cal Bar
Tutorial Review, Jay Chavkin of Personal Bar Prep and Barperfect. All
three are comparable in price and claim high passage rates for first
time attorney applicants. Which of the three has a better reputation?
Any huge advantages/disadvan tages to any of them that I should bear in
mind while making my decision? I thank in advance all those who
respond and wish all those sitting for the exam the best of luck.

Leanne

Category: CA - California Bar Exam

These are the opinions collected from the Studyfor.com forum:

Jay Chavkin:
I've had a good experience with Jay Chavkin in his Personal Bar Prep course. The best part of the course is the small group meetings where you go over essays, get tons of feedback, Jay answers questions about the law--he really knows his stuff. I passed, I believe, because of all the practice...I just knew what I was doing when I went in. During the course, I did so many practice essays, multiple choice and we also did practice performance tests. Lectures were great, too. Short, but really on point. One of my group mates that I got to know had taken the exam three times and she passed.

I had Jay Chavkin for my 2007 Feb Bar, and I passed 1st time. He's a nice guy. Is he the silver bullet? No. No Bar prep ever is. It's a matter of matching his style with yours. He's easy going and relaxed. We had large group meetings once a week and two small group meetings twice a week at his house. I'm a pretty disciplined guy when it comes to preparing my exam, so I only need good outlines (i.e., the minimum material needed) and practices. He offered me both. I don't need anyone to yell at me or to ask me to read some flash cards in front of him. One thing he did not do is performance test. To be fair, our group voted not to do PTs during the big group meetings. I voted against it. I didn't think it's time well spent for me to drive across town just to sit down with a group of people to do a PT practice exam. I wrote one completely for practice and just outlined three more PTs. You NEED to practice for the PT, but I think it's more important to check out as many old PTs as you can than writing them all out. Again, it's just my style. I think my advise is if you are looking for someone to coach you closely, Jay is not the guy for you.

Paul Pfau:

I'm taking Paul Phau now.

He primarily focuses on essay preparation and presentation, so if you're weak on the substantive law or MBE - you may want to go with the traditional courses offered, i.e. Barbri, Bar Passers, PMBR - because his expertise is essay writing. His program caters somewhat to older multiple repeaters from non-accredited schools, so if you went to a high ranked ABA accredited school like I did - keep it to yourself - and just blend in. If you're a 25 year old recent grad from UCLA - you may be somewhat uncomfortable compared with your surroundings in a law school class, but there are those of us in his program who didn't want the McDonald's experience some tutorial programs offer, while giving the law school a nice kickback based on the number of students enrolled. My academic dean flat out refused to provide me with the names of any tutorial programs other than Barbri, even though I expressly stated that I had no desire to sit with 400 students for 6 hours a day for two months. Paul's not about the hype whatsoever - he is here to help you pass the CA Bar. Just know it's pretty much a 30+ aged group in his program.

Essay writing is the key, and that's what Paul is all about. One of his former students didn't even go to law school - and passed. Another is now the attorney for a well known celebrity here in Los Angeles, and has been on the news with high profile cases.

Paul grades practice exams to Bar standards - not necessarily the anal law school standards - which is a plus, because you know exactly what the Bar graders are looking for in his detailed comments, rather than a law school prof who simply puts - "Need more analysis","Conclusory"; Paul tells you EXACTLY what you need to do in order to pass.

Finally, after all these years, he still cares about YOU passing - no sense of phoniness whatsoever.

Barperfect:

Bar Perfect is not good at all. It’s 4000 bucks, and there NO FEEDBACK is given!!!!I heard some good things about their tutor Steve, but the class is not good at all.I read in a forum that “HE PUTS YOU IN A ROOM TO WRITE TEST AND TALK TO YOU FOR ABOUT FIVE MINUTES ABOUT THE TEST. HE HAS NO REAL STRATEGY TO ATTACK.”

I would take Shana Karpeles, she is the lead tutor at CA Bar Style and really knows her stuff. She works mostly with repeaters and bar takers that are working full or part time. Her website can be found at www.cabarstyle.com

When I decided to re-take the BAR after failing twice I wanted a one-on-one coach. I knew my way wasn't working. I discovered Steve Zikman on his site (The Strategic Bar Coach) and knew from the beginning that he was the one. He took the time to really delve into my situation, listened and offered constructive suggestions as to how he would help. That was in the first 45 minutes.

Steve has many interests and they all help him to be a good coach. I had some fear, he patiently worked me through it. I had a contrarian writing style and he finally got me to see that I needed to refine it with a way that made it easy to tackle any rule. He has a strategy and he sticks to it. The way he separates out the exam really helps.

When I sat down for the first morning of my exam I felt prepared. Then the first question had a big curve ball and once I lowered my heart rate I was able to apply Steve's "rules" and was able to write without too much anxiety. Steve followed up in between and after each session and helped bring down the anxiety to a manageable level.

The main quality I appreciated with his program was I never felt he was too busy to help. When we had our review he went through all that was needed for that session. I never heard "I've got to go" or "We're going to have to cut this short".

His method worked. I passed. If I hadn't passed, I would have used Steve again. Since passing, I've known others that have used him and passed.

Craig Rasmussen
New College of California, 2000

Check out Themis bar review. They're like Barbri, but much cheaper and completely online-based, so you can view the lectures from your computer. I haven't taken them, but my friend has and said that they will frequently grade and give feedback on essays you turn in.
Bar Exam Review | Bar Review - Themis Bar Review

I recently wrote a post comparing Themis to Barbri and other programs:
Which Bar Exam Prep Program Should I Take? | I Passed My Bar Exam

Here's the winning formula: Barbri's Conviser for black letter law (just the book). PMBR for MBE (get all the books, take as many as possible, practice). BarGraders.com for essays - you practice under timed conditions, you get graded by former bar graders within hours, practice.