Perrin

I am involved in a Class Action lawsuit alleging antitrust violations by barbri that make the courses much more expensive, and substantively worse (outdated materials, etc.), because of numerous outright illegal actions taken by barbri to become a dominant monopoly. The Class will be comprised of everyone who took a barbri course in 2007 or thereafter. Would that include you?

If so, I wanted to ask you, first and foremost: how did you feel about the course? Lots of people have lots of complaints, e.g. "I didn't even get my practice essays back until after the exam!", etc. In my experience, most of us wound up at least a little disgruntled about the experience in general, especially if you paid for it yourself.

Also, if it so happens that you failed the bar, you might be interested to know that passage rates are down dramatically all around the country since barbri's illegal anti-competitive behavior started, based on the failure of barbri to improve (or even just update!) their product like they would HAVE to do if they still had any legitimate competition in the market.

I don't know if you took antitrust in law school, but if you did, then I don't need to tell you about the principles involved here... or about the automatic trebling of damages in most antitrust actions.

I'm eager to pick your brain about this... don't worry, I'll be gentle.

Category: Bar Exam - General

cabartutor

I took BarBri and it was fine. "Overpriced?" --perhaps... but all bar prep. courses are... Flemings is expensive, PMBR is considering it is so short a course, all the variations out there. BarBri has good materials and the lecturers generally were entertaining enough to keep me focused (specifically Chemerinsky and the female prof. who taught property my year...).

In terms of BarBri not "updating" I am not sure what you mean. If anything, i think they offer TOO much information. The bar is not about knowing every little nuance known in the common law. BarBri might not work for everyone. Also, sometimes people just don't put in the work. Othertimes, people are poor test takers. Other times things happen in one's life during bar prep (like a breakup or a death of a loved one or a medical problem) that distract from one's ability to focus. LOTS of factors play into the reason people fail. Additionally, passage rates can be low for MANY reasons. First and foremost more people are going to law school, more law schools are opening up shop, thus more people are taking the bar that otherwise likely would not have been in the applicant pool before. I went to a 4th tier-- so i am by no means saying that is a crappy education, however, when law schools (ABA and non-ABA) are availing such an education to students who otherwise would not have got (i.e. could not get into schools because of GPAs or bad LSATs or whathaveyou) then the passage rate is going to reflect that. I think blaming one company is a little lacking in logic. and no, i don't work for BarBri and yes, I think the Anti-trust suit was warranted (and yes, i am one of the many in the class getting reimbursed a measly $130 bucks or something)... HOWEVER, I think your posting is a little to suggestive in terms of BarBri's affect on passage rates and their overall evil-ness. It's a business, just like most things in America. I am not sure where you took the bar, but there are other options, and BarBri might not be perfect, but I think they do a pretty decent job considering the volume of information they teach and organizing it all into the lecture schedule and the materials they create to supplement the lectures.

Guess I just thought a counter-point was warranted.

Best of luck in your future bar endeavors,

:)

__________________
CABarTutor
~recent grad ('06), admittee MA/CA, and Tutor in the Los Angeles area.

cclose1

I am taking the Ca Barbri class right now and it is terrible. Just terrible. The "example answers" for some of the essay questions are just wrong, clearly wrong.

A particular pet peeve of mine is the "admission against interest" THERE IS NO SUCH THING. There is an Admission - which does not require "against interest" and there is a "statement against interest." My Evidence teacher would be screaming.

The classes themselves are also terrible, 55 people meet everyday to WATCH A VIDEO. Yes no real prof. Also, i have no idea what is up with their 'book lease' and essay grading (everyone i know "fails" every essay, without explanation.) For example one professor stated: "stay away from policy arguments" and everyone in the class fails this practical because "missing policy arguments." None of the professors seem to be on the same page. All of the class notes and outlines are in different format written by individual professors with varying quality. Barbri's lectures are very different from the 'mini review' and then the 'essay workshops' are somewhere out in left field. Barbri does not give comprehensive approach, or any kind. There is no game plan. I will pass the bar, in spite of Barbri, certainly not because of barbri. I knew a group of (7) students from stanford who got together and decided to study on their own, dividing the subjects and teaching them to each other and working the exams from the CA Bar website. All passed the first time. If i could do it again i would not take barbri.

rensational

I agree--barbri is not the necessity so many people think it is. I am not taking barbri because I can't afford it, and the NY bar course isn't offered in the area I live in. However, the first thing I did even before law school was over was buy barbri's materials and go to their website to download everything I could. My plan was to follow the barbri course as if I were taking it. I have friends taking barbri, and we talk and share info from the course. My opinion, then, is obviously more for people reading who will take the bar in the future, who are wondering about barbri or are just reading this.

Now that it's two weeks before the exam, I have concluded that barbri is a pretty bad course. I do agree that you can't blame everything for everyone on them. However, it seems like their method is to just overprepare you and over-scare you into doing well on the bar. By "overprepare," I mean the unnecessary amount of material they give you. Some of those books the majority of people NEVER open; others, some people hardly ever open; there are too many practice questions and practice essays--this would be fine, except at least with respect to the practice MBE questions they aren't even like the ones on the bar exam (I say this because I have many old MBE released questions, barbri's released questions are different from their fake MBE questions, and other people who have taken the exam pretty much ALL say barbri's questions aren't like actual MBE questions). With the questions being as different as they are, I don't feel as if all the practicing with them helps.

Their paced schedule is insane, and the class structure was one of the reasons why I knew I could be okay without their course--for a lot of people, the classes will just be videos, and so many of the classes consist of you just filling in their lecture handouts! That's three hours you can be spending doing whatever study method works best for you or even relaxing! The fact that they provide so much material is almost, if not actually is for some people, counterproductive to doing well and preparing intelligently/efficiently for the exam. It's essentially no use to remembering any of their "tips," and it's as if they don't focus you in on what's most important and troubling in the materials--they just throw it ALL at you. Other books out there will SPELL OUT troubling points and tips a lot more clearly and succinctly, make them easier to find just because they are in ONE book and tell you very helpful things barbri won't.

Barbri also emphasizes volume at the expense of telling you what's REALLY most essential to preparing for the bar--memorizing. I realized that sitting around doing practice problems like everyone says was maybe helping with recognition, which is fine for the MBE, but wasn't helping with recitation. So when I sat down to do essays, I would recognize most of the issues but couldn't spit out black letter law like a lawyer can, and this is what state bars are looking for, as well as that you then apply that law. Barbri doesn't help with this. That's why so many people who take barbri end up doing other self-help things that increases the volume of their materials, such as create their own outlines and flashcards--to help with memorization. THIS is why they pass (figuring out memory is the key, and/or they are just the kind of person who can remember well anyway or through exposure); NOT barbri. In contrast, PMBR, while they have their own problems, gives you ready-made, more concise materials that help with memorizing more easily, such as flashcards and audio CDs. That's way better than 9 or so huge books.

By "over-scare," I mean not just the amount of material but also their simulated MBE and essay grading. They make the simulated MBE insane on purpose, so three weeks before the exam so many people are sitting around freaking out and sure they're not going to pass because they missed half the questions on it. Then barbri tries to take all the credit by saying stuff like "our students improve an average of 28 points from this test to the actual MBE." If anything, the students would already have been doing close to whatever they got on the actual MBE three weeks before if they'd been given questions more like the actual MBE, or their low simulated MBE score freaked them out so much that they studied like a beast the last three weeks. And as cclose1 said, it seems like everyone does horribly on the barbri essays, but then they pass the bar exam just fine.

If I had it to do again--and I say that because if I fail, I have no intention of going through this again since I don't even want to be a lawyer anymore--I would just buy the PMBR audio CDs and their flashcards, Walton and Emanuel's "Strategies and Tactics for the MBE," Gallagher's "Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays," barbri's "Drills & Released Questions" book, barbri's "Conviser Mini Review" book and maybe barbri's NY essay book (since I'm taking the NY bar exam). I would go to the NY bar website and download their old released essays and model answers, and I would use a site called the Flashcard Exchange to help me learn/review the law for the NY essay subjects in addition to Conviser. I would not spend all the money I have, I would not follow barbri. I would have spent week after week just replaying the audio CDs over and over and over and reviewing flashcards over and over and over, doing practice questions and noting what I miss. This would be a more efficient use of 8 hours every day, and you could probably take at least one day every weekend off doing this. Get over needing a "classroom structure" to motivate you. This is the bar exam--you have to be disciplined, and given that you only have two months you have to make the most efficient use of your time. Barbri just isn't efficient, in my opinion. They follow the law school/legal profession motto that everything must be 1,000 times harder and more confusing than it actually is/should be. That's not what we need, especially when preparing for the bar.

johndiu

I can't believe they let you guys just watch videos!!! I thought you pay for all those professors' expensive hourly rate!! I guess I got lucky in the sense that I had live lectures, and my professors actually answer my calls.

I thought Barbri should not be used independently because it really does "overscare" you and does not tell you what is really important on the exam. On the other hand, it is so comprehensive that if you do not have a good grasp of the material, it is a good start. To compensate for the information overload, you should always use a set of baroutlines to focus on the tested issues.

Those of you who got no discount and no real professor, you should really sue them!!