What To Do (And Not To Do) If You Fail The Bar Exam

More than 50,000 aspiring lawyers sit for the bar exam in the United States each year, but more than 1 out of 3 fail in many states! And the news gets worse: students repeating the bar exam have pass rates lower than 40 percent, with decreasing odds of passing after each failed attempt.

Why can’t these students pass? Is it because they don’t know the law? Is it because they don’t study hard enough? Is it because they are not smart enough?

Based on our decades of experience helping students pass the bar exam, the answer to all of the above questions is NO. Exam takers generally know plenty of law, study much harder than first-time takers and are certainly smart enough to pass the exam.

Here are our tips to help retakers do better the next time around. For customized advice, send us your score report so we can provide a free evaluation on what went wrong last time and how to fix the problem going forward.

notes

Have A Plan
Don’t just squirrel up in a room and study prior bar material. Get some help. Consider a tutor or a specialized course like our Retaker Course. You need structure and guidance, which a course designed for retaker students can provide.

no turnaround

Don’t Give Up
It helps to remind yourself that many very successful lawyers and politicians have failed the bar exam before passing and moving on to successful careers. You, too, will soon join this list!

examine

Learn A Method To Help Improve Your Test Taking Skills
Be strategic. Reacquaint yourself with the law, learn a method, practice it and then perfect it by doing lots of questions when you are ready — not right from the start. When it comes to questions, quality, not quantity, is key. The bar examiners wrote each question with a specific answer in mind. To find it, you must develop a method to work within the time allotted.

hourglass

Don’t Spend Hours Reviewing Hundreds Of Questions
You likely did this the first time, and it did not work. Use a proven approach (like our MBE Method) to practice on MBE questions. This will give you the analytical skills you need to see your score improve.

brain

Review Rules Most Likely To Be Tested
Our Memory Boosters™ eliminate the fluff and give students the rules that are tested time and time again. You’d be surprised by how much first-time material you learned is unlikely to show up on your exam.

books

Don’t Study Entire Subject Areas
The exam does not test subject areas; it tests specific rules. Learn these rules on the UBE and focus on scoring points with them.

people

Get Feedback As You Progress
The Marino Retaker Course includes three hours with a personal tutor who will assess your work product and show you exactly how to improve on each section. This is critical to increasing your performance and passing the exam.

notes review

Familiarity Doesn’t Equal Knowledge
Students go over the same notes they studied the first time but get less out of them; familiarity is easily confused with knowledge. Just because the rules are familiar does not mean you comprehend them. Consider whether you truly understand how to apply the rules.

no

Don’t Assume You Can Go It Alone
Just because you have studied for the exam before does not make you an expert. Let the team with 70+ years of experience at Marino Bar Review help you pass!

star

Contact Us For FREE Help
Simply submit your score report here for a free evaluation of your test results.