Bar review is frustrating. So far, after a couple weeks of pretty intense studying, I remain convinced that the only way to pass the bar is to work hard, learn the law, and practice.

So what exactly are the bar review people peddling?

I purchased two courses, one that is structured, that addresses every part of the California bar exam, and a self-study course that focuses on the multistate portion. Essentially, here’s what I received in return for payment of the purchase price:

• books full of substantive outlines;
• books full of multiple choice questions and answers;
• books full of old California bar exam essay questions;
• books full of practice performance tests;
• a recommended studying schedule;
• some video lectures;
• some lame software.

Starting next week, I’ll also have the ability to turn in practice essays for “grading.” We’ll see how useful that is. I have my doubts.

Last year, when I was choosing my bar review courses, I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t just buy the books. Why can’t I just go on Amazon.com and purchase books full of practice essays, multistate questions, and performance exams, with sample answers and explanations? Doesn’t that seem absolutely reasonable?

But you can’t do that. Because the bar review peddlers, all of them, have a fanatical sense of protection over their stuff. Why? Other people, for other kinds of tests, write test preparation books and then just sell them on the open market, where anybody can buy them. But for the bar exam, no sir, not no way, not no how. Sure, you can go online and try to buy used books from people who have already taken bar review courses, but supply is low. Bar review peddlers pay good money if you return the books when you’re done with them. The last thing they want is for their product to get out there on the open market.

This seems to me like a dead giveaway that what the bar review people are peddling isn’t really worth the amount of money they’re charging. They just take advantage of the desperation of law students. “You want our books? Okay, give us a couple thousand dollars for our full-service course. Which you need. We can’t offer you any proof or statistics to demonstrate that you need it, but just trust us. You’re scared. Because you should be. Because the bar exam is hard. So pay us a couple thousand dollars and we’ll hold your hand. Oh, and give you practice questions, too.”

The National Conference of Bar Examiners, which writes the multistate test, is not much better. They’ve been administering this thing for many years now, but if you go to their website and try to buy old tests to practice on those questions, there are only three tests available (which comes to 600 questions). This despite the fact that everybody knows the only way to succeed on the multistate bar exam is to do thousands of practice questions before you go into the exam.

The longer I think about it and the more I study, the less I am convinced that bar review courses are necessary. Bar review preparation materials, like practice questions and outlines? Yes, those are necessary. Then you do the questions and you study the outlines and you take notes and you make flash cards—you work hard, learn the law, and practice. But you can’t just buy those materials at a reasonable price, the same way you can go down to your local bookstore and find books to prepare you for loads of other professional licensing tests.

Then the other day I wrote on my blog about my self-study multistate course. It was very critical of their software, which seemed so cool before I got it, when I was trapped in ignorance, because you can’t just go down to the bookstore and thumb through their stuff the way you can with any other book. It’s like they want you to think there’s some secret. You know what the secret is? Work hard, learn the law, practice.

But anyway, the self-study course. They have my money now. Close to a thousand dollars. And their software sucks. Really. It’s just questions, which could be printed in a book, and explanations for the answers, which could also be printed in a book. They could just sell you the book. They could sell it on Amazon.com or in Borders or Barnes & Noble or wherever. Or even directly from their own website on the internet. And then you do the work (which you’ll do anyway). Instead, they hawk this software like it’s some wonderful thing.

So I wrote some stuff on my blog that was critical of the self-study course. They emailed and demanded that I remove it or retract what I said. They claim it wasn’t true. I think they’re wrong. I think anybody who is so sensitive about their stuff that they can’t buck a little criticism is impliedly demonstrating that their stuff isn’t that great to begin with. And their stuff is not that great. It’s just poorly presented practice questions, with lots and lots of typos. I just wanted questions to practice on. But I had to buy a “system.” A “course.” That’s all these people sell. It’s a sham.

I took that blog entry down because I don’t have the time or resources to argue with them. Bar review people know that none of us have the time or resources to argue with them after we have purchased their junk and they also know that none of us have the clarity of mind to know ahead of time not to purchase their stuff. They have the superior position.

If bar review people were really offering something special, other than just selling books wrapped up in a “course” package, if what they sold actually caused people to pass the bar exam, then they would only charge money after their customers passed. But the truth is that the only thing that causes people to pass the bar exam is working hard, learning the law, and practicing. So they charge money up front, and then you study while they count it.

Take, for instance, the video lectures in my structured course. They’re recorded from live lectures and delayed a week. People say the live lectures are better, but I suspect there’s no appreciable difference. Nothing on the video indicates that people at the live lectures have any different experience. It doesn’t appear that they get to ask questions. The lecturers (at least so far) don’t appear to be using any visual aids. It’s just video of a talking head. (A really smart head, because most of the lecturers are top law professors, but a talking head nonetheless.) This could easily be sold as mere audio. Or even just text. The only helpful function of the scheduled video lectures, that is unique to that medium, is that they require me to be in attendance by 9:00 every morning.

It’s a sham. I know there are lots of things I learned in law school that I have forgotten about and which I now need to remember. I know I need to do a lot of practice questions. I know there are tons of things I don’t know. I know that the way to overcome these deficiencies is by working hard, learning the law, and practicing.

So why do I need a bar review course to do that?

During law school, one of my professors suggested this to me. I remember that I wanted to believe him, but I was so terrified of the bar exam, and so enthralled by this idea that bar review courses have some hidden secret, which is why they are so zealous about protecting their materials, that I blew off his suggestion.

I was probably wrong, at least in the sense that I believed bar review courses offered something special.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell up-and-comers not to purchase a bar review course. You kind of have to, because it’s the only way they’ll let you look at their materials, which include practice questions, outlines, etc.—the things you need to study with. You can’t just go to Bar/Bri (or any other bar review purveyor, that I know of) and say “I want to buy only the books.”

This, in my opinion, is just another way for legal publishers to squeeze more money out of people. Meanwhile, a flock of new websites is beginning to offer legal research information online, for free. PreCYdent is pretty good and getting better. The Legal Information Institute at Cornell is awesome. Here’s hoping they can break the backs of Thomson-West and LexisNexis, whose iron grip on information-needy lawyers begins with the peddling of bar review courses. Once that happens, maybe bar prep can just be studying, without shelling out a bunch of money for stuff that ought to be sold like any other books.