BAR/BRI

Thomas Jefferson School of Law Believes Its 2011 Graduates To Be Kind of Stupid

By Elie Mystal

When I saw the abysmal bar passage rate posted by the Thomas Jefferson School of Law on the July 2011 administration of the California bar exam, I opined that TJSL should lose its American Bar Association accreditation. Of course, that won’t happen. The ABA standards on accreditation are so lax that law schools can lie to the ABA and still not get kicked out.

Much to the ABA’s embarrassment, TJSL released some papers to reassure students that even with a 33% first time bar passage rate (and an incomprehensible 13% pass rate for returning test takers), Thomas Jefferson Law was still well within ABA parameters. TJSL sent out an email that reiterated ABA Standard 301, which sets forth bar passage requirements for accredited schools:

Standard 301

Standard 301 (A): A law school’s bar passage rate shall be sufficient, for purposes of Standard 301(a), if the school demonstrates that it meets any one of the following tests:

(1) That for students who graduated from the law school within the five most recently completed calendar years:

(a) 75 percent or more of these graduates who sat for the bar passed a bar examination, or

(b) in at least three of these calendar years, 75 percent of the students graduating in those years and sitting for the bar have passed a bar examination.

2) That in three or more of the five most recently completed calendar years, the school’s annual first-time bar passage rate in the jurisdictions reported by the school is no more than 15 points below the average first-time bar passage rates for graduates of ABA-approved law schools taking the bar examination in these same jurisdictions.

TJSL representatives say that they are in compliance with the two out of the three possible methods of compliance. They even produce a graph that shows how the class of 2011 was an outlier result — not that this graph is really something TJSL administrators should be proud of.

The solution? Blame Bar/Bri, and the students themselves….

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Everybody Whose State Did NOT Make A Last Minute Change In Bar Exam Grading, Step Forward. Not So Fast, Tennessee.

By Elie Mystal

Bar exams are underway all across this great nation. It’s an exciting time for the next crop of young lawyers (at least “exciting” in the sense that being trapped in a mall while zombies swarm around trying to eat your brains is certainly not dull).

In Tennessee, where the bar exam starts tomorrow, the state Board of Law Examiners has found a way to make things even more exciting for test takers. Over the weekend, a rumor surfaced that the grading for the July bar exam would be different than the grading for previous tests.

How? In what way? What would it affect? What does it mean?

I’d like to imagine every Tennessee test taker trying to ask those questions at the exact same time all at once, thereby providing the first direct evidence that we must be living in a universe with more than four dimensions.

Alas, the change turned out to be a minor one — to the extent that any “change” can be called minor, when you only learn about it the day before the bar exam…

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Courtship Connection: Very Public Displays of Affection

By Kashmir Hill

I spent last week with a bunch of journos working from a beach house in the Outer Banks. I set my computer up in the house’s crow nest, blogging with a view of the ocean and a cool sea breeze. “Lunch hour” was spent playing in the waves. At night, we would make frozen drinks (summer cocktail recommendation: Jameson M&M milkshakes) and sit beneath the stars debating whether or not Anthony Weiner was cocky enough to send out that Twitter pic. This is perfect, I thought to myself.

But then late Tuesday night, it got even better, as I got to throw a little vicarious pleasure into the mix. At 10:10 p.m., my Droid buzzed with an email from a Courtship Connection couple I had sent to the Black Rooster pub earlier that night: “Full recap from us tomorrow but we have been making out all over Dupont!”

As regular readers know, that’s a rarity in this series. So what was it about this pairing that awakened the lawyers’ libidos?

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When Did The Bar Exam Become The Kobayashi Maru?

By Elie Mystal

Sorry, we can’t help you with registering for the New York Bar Exam.

Yeah, for those who haven’t been paying attention to some of my prior coverage, the New York Board of Law Examiners occasionally has problems. Today they’ve got a big one. People were supposed to be able to figure out where they’d be taking the bar exam this summer, but things have not gone smoothly. A tipster reports:

the email with a link to the sign up for NY Bar locations for out-of-state test takers went out today at 2:36. The site crashed at 2:41. I think that the Bar Association could at least pretend to give a s*** and make an effort to make sure their equipment works.

Service has been spotty to non-existent since then. That’s okay, out-of-state test takers. I hear Albany is lovely in the middle of the summer. (/Sarcasm off.)

We can’t make registering for the bar any faster, but perhaps we can make studying for the bar a lot faster for everybody taking BAR/BRI this year…

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Signing Up For, Or Objecting To, The BAR/BRI Class Action Settlement

By David Lat

Did you take a BAR/BRI bar exam review course sometime in the past five years? Or are you taking BAR/BRI now, having paid for it prior to March 21? If so, keep reading.

As we recently mentioned, the deadline for joining or objecting to the proposed class action settlement in Stetson v. West Publishing Corp. is fast approaching (May 30). The lawsuit, alleging antitrust violations, was filed against West Publishing, which owns (but is selling) BAR/BRI, and Kaplan, the test prep company owned by the Washington Post. The class is defined as “[a]ll persons and entities who paid for a BAR/BRI full-service bar-review course from August 1, 2006, through and including March 21, 2011.”

Are you a class member? Let’s review your options….

UPDATE (5:30 PM): Please note the updates added to the end of this post.

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BAR/BRI Class Actions: Open Thread

By David Lat

As we reported last month, it looks like Leeds Equity Partners will be acquiring BAR/BRI, the well-known bar exam preparation business, from West Publishing / Thomson Reuters. If you’ve taken a bar exam prep course, odds are that you took BAR/BRI — although there are alternatives, such as BarMax and Themis (disclosure: ATL advertisers, whom we thank for their support).

If the deal goes through, Leeds will get its hands on what would seem to be a very good business. BAR/BRI courses aren’t cheap, at a few thousand a pop (often paid by law firms, which aren’t very price-sensitive). And since BAR/BRI has had its bar-prep infrastructure in place for a long time — curricula, instructors, etc. — its marginal costs for each new teaching cycle aren’t that high. In short, BAR/BRI seems like a money-making machine.

(Note: This analysis about the economics of BAR/BRI is somewhat speculative. Please correct us, by email or in the comments, if we’re wrong.)

But Leeds will also inherit complaints about BAR/BRI. Some are of the consumer variety — e.g., the website going down when people were trying to pick their course locations, the date by which books must be returned in order to get deposits back being set too early, unfair late fees, etc.

And some complaints are of the legal variety, in the form of antitrust class actions alleging collusion between (1) West Publishing, the owner of BAR/BRI, and (2) Kaplan Inc., the test prep company owned by the Washington Post Company that is known in the legal community for its LSAT courses. One of the lawsuits alleges “that BAR/BRI agreed not to compete in the LSAT business and that Kaplan agreed not to compete in the bar review business, thereby allocating to BAR/BRI the market for full-service bar review courses in the United States.” (Now, of course, Kaplan has its own full-service bar review course.)

To the legal complaints we now turn. You should follow along, since there might be some money in it for you….

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Leeds Private Equity To Acquire BAR/BRI

By Elie Mystal

Back in November, we told you that Thomson Reuters was looking to unload BAR/BRI, its bar exam preparation business. The news was huge, given BAR/BRI’s status as a de facto finishing school for would-be lawyers.

Today, it appears that BAR/BRI has found a home. According to various reports, BAR/BRI will be acquired by Leeds Equity Partners. Leeds is a private equity firm that specializes in educational products and services.

Above the Law just spoke with Jeffrey T. Leeds, the co-founder and president of Leeds. He called BAR/BRI a “jewel” for the firm. And since the man is a graduate of Harvard Law School (Class of ’83), he knows just how important BAR/BRI is to our system of legal education… .

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Law Student Witch Sells Spells for Bar Exam Prep Course Money
(And begs her classmates for cash, too.)

By David Lat

Even witches must pay full price for BAR/BRI.

Law school is expensive. We get it. Preparing for the bar exam is expensive too. We know.

What’s a law student to do? Taking out more loans is the obvious answer, but at a certain point, one cries out, “!No más!”

Some have turned to, for lack of a better word, begging — like this aspiring UNC law student, and this 3L at Arizona State. But their efforts were not well-received. In these troubled times, we all have our own financial burdens to bear.

Alas, one student at Temple Law School didn’t get the “no begging” memo. She sent out a Facebook invitation to almost 800 people, requesting their attendance at an event entitled “HELP [REDACTED] RAISE MONEY FOR THE BAR EXAM IN JULY!!!!”

Yes, she’s asking her law school classmates — some of whom are probably just as cash-strapped and debt-burdened as she is — to just give her money.

Or pay her for one of her magic spells. Because she’s a witch, you see….

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(And begs her classmates for cash, too.)“

Pls Hndle Thx: Do You Need to Take a Bar Review Course?

By Marin

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

Dear ATL,

I’m in my last year of law school and will be taking the bar this summer. I was wondering if you had some advice on the necessity of a bar review course. The opinions I’ve received from friends who have passed the bar has been split. They all say that it helped keep them “on pace” or “forced them to study” which I’m frankly not worried about. Is there going to be enough new law in one year to sink your bar exam if you’re studying from the previous year’s materials?

– Pay to Play

Dear Pay to Play,

Upon realizing that Suze Orman’s Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke was not itself filled with money, I recently sat down with a “financial advisor”…

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Becoming a Lawyer Is Getting To Be More Like Becoming a Plumber

By Elie Mystal

Wouldn't it be awesome if every person in this picture received education from the same place?

As we’ve previously reported, Thomson Reuters is contemplating the sale of Bar/Bri. Instead of preparing the lawyers of the future, Thomson Reuters has acquired Pangea3, a legal outsourcing company. We’ve speculated on what Thomson Reuters’s shift says about the legal economy.

But who wants to get into the business of preparing recent graduates to pass the bar exam and become actual attorneys? There are so many kids in law school and law schools don’t even pretend to prepare people to pass the bar. Surely there’s a business opportunity there.

One company is being mentioned as possibly interested in acquiring Bar/Bri. And put it like this: it would kind of make sense if the company responsible for helping you pass the bar could also help you get a degree in refrigerator repair…

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Thomson Reuters Exploring Sale of BAR/BRI, Will Acquire Pangea3

By Elie Mystal

Hang onto your hats, your legal world is about to get rocked. At least behind the scenes.

Thomson Reuters, owner of West Publishing and BAR/BRI is selling BAR/BRI. The reports have been confirmed by people who are enrolled in BAR/BRI. They all received an email from the company tonight.

Above the Law obtained a copy of this stunning email containing the news….

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Recent Bar Exam Results: Open Thread
AZ, CT, MI, PA, VA, WA — any others?

By David Lat

Nice torso -- no wonder he gets lucky.

Almost a month has passed since our last open thread devoted to bar exam results. So we have some catching up to do.

It’s not yet November, so California and New York test takers still have some time left to wait. But if you took the Massachusetts bar exam, release of the results is imminent, according to Stuff To Do During BarBri.

(Random aside: BAR/BRI isn’t the only provider of bar exam preparation services. For a comparison of BAR/BRI, Kaplan PMBR, and BarMax, see here — including the comments.)

Stuff To Do During BarBri attributes the Massachusetts mailing, said to be taking place tomorrow, to “the grape vine allegedly originating in the Massachusetts Superior Court.” So at this point it’s still rumor.

But we do have confirmed news of bar exam outcomes from other states….

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AZ, CT, MI, PA, VA, WA — any others?“

Bar Exam Studying: Open Thread
Just three weeks left until the big day!

By David Lat

Ann Althouse did it. So can you.

Fourth of July weekend is behind us. And we all know what that means: if you’re studying for the July 2010 bar exam, it’s time to buckle down and focus. There are just three weeks left until your date with destiny.

Looking over our recent posts about the bar exam, we see higher-than-average numbers of Twitter mentions and Facebook shares. Perhaps some of you are procrastinating?

It pains us to say this, but for those of you taking the bar this summer, you should probably start rationing the amount of time you spend online (whether on Twitter, Facebook, or Above the Law). Use the prospect of web surfing to incentivize your studying. For example, let yourself surf the web for X minutes after you complete Y hours of study.

That’s just one tip for bar exam studying; there are many others. On our last post about the bar exam, in which Elie explained how you can fail the Bar/Bri “midterm” and still pass on the first try, this advice-dispensing comment was popular with readers (with over 20 “likes”):

(1) Use the BarBri/Pieper/PMBR study schedule to guide you. This will keep you from spending too much time on any given subject.

(2) Practice, practice, practice. Practice those essays. Practice those MBE questions. And better yet, time yourself when you practice.

(3) Stress. You’re supposed to stress. But stress just enough to keep fire under your a*s. Don’t stress so much that you black out or have an anxiety attack. E.g., a former coworker fainted the morning of the exam.

More bar exam advice, after the jump.

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Just three weeks left until the big day!“

How to Fail the BAR/BRI Midterm and Still Pass on the First Try

By Elie Mystal

Ann Althouse did it. So can you.

It’s about the time of year when students studying for the bar exam are gearing up for one of the big BAR/BRI practice tests: the midterm. Many, many people report that they only really step up their study efforts after the 4th of July — and the reason for that is usually a disappointing score on the midterm.

Most people who score poorly on the midterm will either slip into despair or go into crazy, hyper-studying overload. And both of those paths can lead to bar exam failure. For the vast majority of people, passage or failure on the bar exam is not about innate intellectual ability. It’s about managing your nerves and successfully gaming the test. Most people who can graduate from law school can pass a bar exam. But many will not, and their failure is not about being dumb.

To give hope to those who might be feeling hopeless this week, I’d like to tell you how I passed the bar on my first try — after absolutely bombing the midterm just a month before the real thing…

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BAR/BRI Like It Oughta Be

By Elie Mystal

Did you enjoy your BAR/BRI lecture today? Do you wish it could have gone just a little bit faster? You are not alone. A tipster reports that he too is bored to death by the interminable BAR/BRI lectures, and he’s not going to take it anymore:

After starting my Barbri Evidence lecture yesterday, I realized that the slower the lecture, the longer the lecture, and the more difficult it is to pay attention. So after 4 hours of searching the web and reading every blog available, I realized that ever since Barbri changed the software they use for the lectures, no one could adjust the speed at which these videos are played.

After about an hour of work, I pieced together a quick and easy way to watch the lectures at 1.5X speed. I am not only saving time, but I feel like it is actually easier to pay attention when they are moving through the material quickly.

Here’s the secret solution to making BAR/BRI go 50% faster…

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Which Bar Exam Prep Course is the Best?

By Kashmir Hill

Graduation marks the end of grueling law school exams… and the beginning of preparing for the worst exam of your life.

Most recent grads are heading straight from law school classes into bar exam prep classes, and so 3Ls have been bombarded for the last nine months with spam informational emails from bar prep companies touting their costs, features and success rates.

A new entrant into the bar prep field this year is BarMax, an iPhone-based course that’s significantly cheaper than BAR/BRI and Kaplan. In better times, when graduates could count on new employers to foot the bill for prep courses, they likely wouldn’t have considered a tele-course, but the high numbers of grads without firm jobs may bode well for the app.

How will having a cheap choice affect the market? And how does one decide between the options?

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Bar Exam Open Thread: Reviewing Bar Review

By Kashmir Hill

bar exam success good luck.jpgThe February bar exam is now over, for everyone, everywhere. Rejoice and enjoy that Inuit prostitute.

Some of you have suggested on open threads that things went reasonably well. Others are hot messes, desperately trying to figure out firm policy when it comes to second-time failing of the bar.

Many February takers are bar veterans. Maybe you can advise this soon-to-be lawyer gearing up for the July bar. She’s trying to make her bar review course decision:

I can already see the angry people who say it’s idiotic not to take BarBri. But, honestly, Kaplan’s complete bar review course in Cal. is seeming ever-more seductive. I would love to make an informed decision based on real information, but it appears to not be out there (ie pass rates for the two).

In addition to courses, there are other tools.

Since quantifiable data is lacking, anecdotal evidence shall have to suffice. Who is feeling the least screwed after taking the February exam — your Inuit friend aside — and which bar review course did you take? Or did you eschew a formal course and prepare in some other way? If so, how?

MPRE Review on The Cheap

By Kashmir Hill

An ATL reader sent us this photo from the University of Buffalo, writing:

What my barbri tuition got me for my mpre review class. This tv is for approximately 60 people.

MPRE class.jpg
The budgets are tight at law schools these days, but it seems like they could at least spring for a projector or a proper desk. Our tipster reports that they did have someone on hand to press play.

At Stanford Law School, It’s a Whole New Game of Quarters

By Elie Mystal

Stanford_Law_School_Logo.pngStanford Law School is one of the best law schools in the country. SLS is ranked #3 in the latest U.S. News law school rankings. Stanford graduates are generally intelligent, capable, and employable individuals (with some exceptions).
But are they smart enough to miss the first few weeks of Bar/Bri? The law school has changed its academic calendar to a quarters system. Stanford University already followed a quarters system, but the law school had been on a semester-based academic calendar.
The change could result in some conflict between 3L classes and the beginning of bar review courses. One student explains:

Stanford Law School changed to the quarter system, leaving their students in very precarious position vis a vis the bar exam. Classes do not end until several weeks after the California bar review courses start. Aside from the fact that this puts an extra burden on all SLS 3Ls, who will have to study for the bar at the same time they are attending classes and studying for finals, it creates a real mess for those students who are not remaining, or cannot remain in the immediate area. to study for and take the California bar.

This is because the bar review curricula differ from location to location. Accordingly, a student who is planning to take the bar review course somewhere other than in the Bay Area cannot take the first few weeks of the bar review course in the Stanford area and then move to wherever it is they are planning to move and finish up the bar review course at that location. Moreover, many of the students have leases on their apartments that end before the bar exam; thus, even those students who have the flexibility and financial wherewithal to change their relocation plans and remain in the Stanford area through the bar exam may not have any place to live (and how many of those do you think there are?) Stanford Law School refuses to address this issue head on, attempting to placate their students with vague promises that they’re “looking into it.”

We spoke to officials at Stanford Law School, and it appears that the school has “look[ed] into it.” Overall, the school feels that the benefits outweigh the burdens, and the burdens can be mitigated.
Look at it from Stanford’s perspective, after the jump.

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Open Thread: Is the ‘Bar Trip’ Barred By the Recession?

By Kashmir Hill

post bar travel scaled back.jpgNow that aspiring lawyers have taken the bar exam, they can relax and try to forget about it until the fall, when results come in. One way of relieving stress is “the bar trip”: a post-bar exam vacation to an exotic locale, for sun, surf, or snow, depending on one’s travel preferences.
The bar trip — the last hurrah before immersion into the grim realities of law firm life — is a tradition among law grads. But we’re hearing that the recession may be interfering with the tradition this year. With Biglaw start dates pushed back, and talk of lower salaries running rampant, law grads may be feeling less celebratory this year.
Purely anecdotally, law grads have told us that they’re scaling back. They’re not going on extravagant bar trips, and in some cases, not going on bar trips at all.
Are we only friends with fiscally conservative types, or is this actually a trend this year? Are you thinking of a “staycation,” or are you still planning a trip around the world?
If you’re traveling, please tell us where you’re heading and for how long. If you are heading out of the country, we hope you’ll be sure to spend some time in internet cafes checking out the latest ATL news.
Earlier: Post-Bar Travel: Open Thread