Bar Exams, iPhone, Lawyer of the Day, Technology

Lawyer of the Day: Mike Ghaffary, the JD/MBA Behind the $1,000 Bar Exam iPhone App

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Over the holiday weekend, reports came pouring into the ATL inbox about the most expensive iPhone app currently on the market. It costs $1,000 and is aimed at legal types, specifically those who want to be lawyers in California. From PCWorld:

BarMax: California Edition, available now in the iPhone’s App Store for $999.99, is a study guide for the California Bar Exam. Harvard lawyers oversaw development of the app, which weighs in at 1 GB and includes outlines, lectures, a study calendar, and real questions and essays from previous exams. The only comparable app available now is from BarBri, but you must be enrolled in the company’s $3000 to $4000 classes to use most of the features.

According to TechCrunch, the man behind the app is Mike Ghaffary, a JD/MBA ’06 Harvard grad. Ghaffary was just recently admitted to the California bar himself, in December 2009.
He says he came up with the BarMax app idea while studying…


From TechCrunch:

Mike Ghaffary came up with the idea when he himself was preparing for the bar exam. He could not believe BarBri charged the $4,000 to send him an iPod with audio notes on it, and that there was no real competition in the space. So he got in touch with some successful iPhone app developers in Los Angeles, as well as some fellow Harvard Law graduates to create the app. Ghaffary, who is the director of business development at TrialPay by day, is serving as an advisor now to the team.

The application is only useful for Californian JDs with iPhones for now, but the company is planning to roll out expensive-yet-cheap-by-comparison-to-BarBri aids for those in New York, and the five other most popular states by the end of 2010. Sorry, North Dakotans.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mike Ghaffary summered at Orrick way back in 2003, but has since utilized his MBA more than his JD, working in business development at a series of Internet companies.
Is he business savvy? How many of you would opt for the $1,000 iPhone app rather than paying multiple gs for BarBri?

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$1000 iPhone App Returns with BarMax [PCWorld]
BarMax: The $1,000 iPhone App That Might Actually Be Worth It [Techcrunch]

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