The Florida Bar Exam can be tough: Here is how I passed it on my first try
I took and passed the Florida Bar Exam on my first try, in February 2020. I was one of those fortunate bar applicants who took the bar exam only a few weeks before the Coronavirus became a worldwide concern. I know that many of my friends are currently studying for the July 2020 bar exam during the stress of the Coronavirus pandemic. I cannot imagine going through the stress of the bar exam while dealing with the threat of COVID-19.
I am writing this piece because I struggled to find testimonies from past bar exam takers who also released their bar exam scores and compared them to the scores they had during bar prep. I was so thankful to the few that I found and those who agreed to share their experience. I understand that many law students will not need to do what I did to pass the bar, but if this article can help even one person, I have reached my goal.
Here is a quick summary of my bar exam journey:
- I chose a bar prep company (Barbri) and supplemented it with Adaptibar. (I am not advertising for these companies. I share their names only for clarity). Beside that, I used printed materials and videos offered by my law school’s bar coach, Professor Philip Sandon who is a great resource for bar prep.
- I completed most of Barbri Early Start Review. I did all AMPs, watched all videos, and took the diagnostic test. I only did not submit the graded essay available on Early Start. I later realized that I should have taken advantage of this first graded essay. No big deal. Also, since I was a summer graduate taking the bar in February, I wisely used my time in October and November before bar prep officially starts. If you don’t have time for anything I mention here, it’s totally ok, but take a diagnostic test before bar prep starts!
- I stayed one week ahead of Barbri’s course schedule. Since the program becomes available at least one week before it officially starts, I started one week early and stayed ahead of it until the last two weeks. After you take the Simulated MBE, you mostly will need to do your own things to catch up in any area where you did not do well in the simulated exam. For example, I was doing great in Property and Constitutional Law, but I had to review Civil Procedure. I could not follow my bar prep company’s schedule anymore . At this point most major bar prep companies will have extra exercises available for you to catch up in any area where you scored below average in the simulated exam.
- I completed 93% of Barbri, answered around 900 questions on Adaptibar including 3 of the 4 OPE tests available (NCBE released questions), took Sandon’s Florida Simulated tests, turned in all Barbri graded essays, also wrote some essays for my bar coach to review. OPE 3 and 4 are a little harder, so if you only have time to take one OPE, I recommend 3 or 4.
- I attended the review sessions held by my law school’s bar coach during bar prep. It was hard to fit all of these extra courses in my bar prep company’s schedule so I did miss some sessions. I also took advantage of the bar coach for some extra graded essays since most bar prep companies offer a very limited number of graded essays. I pick some essay questions from past Florida Bar Exam and wrote these essays especially for my bar coach to review. I did choose at least one essay with a homestead question as this tends to be a recurring essay subject in Florida. However, we did not have any homestead question in the essays in the February 2020 Florida Bar Exam. Sadly for me.
- I did not work during bar prep, so I studied for about 10 to 12 hours per day. Of course, some people don’t need all that time.
- For the Florida portion, I did the practice questions provided by my bar prep course, twice per subject. I did Florida Civil and Criminal Procedure three times. I did not write my answers in the book so I could retake the test. I found that reading the answer explanations also help in structuring your essay’s answer in the way the examiners want to see them.
- I read a lot of the past essay questions and model answers. I found it more helpful for me to read the model answers provided in the Florida Board of Bar Examiners’ website than to read the model answers on my bar prep company’s book. I tried to read both. The companies’ models are sometime long and detailed. With the very limited time you have at the bar exam, writing an answer like these models can be very challenging. The past students answers available on the Board of Bar Examiners’ website are concise, on point, and were helpful to me.
- After I received the results for my first graded essay, I was disappointed. I even thought about postponing my exam date. I went online and read some comments from previous bar takers. That gave me some encouragement. Considering my score in the Florida portion (essay and multiple choice questions), I agree that my bar prep graders were harsher than the bar examiners.
- I avoided predicting the essay subjects because I found it to be a dangerous approach. I prepared for everything but obviously there are some subjects I did not wish to see on the essays and some others I felt more comfortable with. If you feel the same, it’s normal.
- After the simulated MBE, I watched all the answer explanation videos even though my bar prep company did not recommend that for someone with my score (I’ll elaborate below). If you scored higher than 120, you did not have to watch all the videos.
Exam day
- Yes, I studied the day before the bar exam.
- First Day: While in the hotel room in Tampa the night before the first day, I read some model answers for essays. Fortunately, I read an essay with an ethic question about contingency fee and in the morning, I had an essay question exactly about that.
- The night before the first day, I tried to predict the three essay subjects (based on nothing, only feeling). I predicted: Family Law, Contract/Ethic, and Florida Con Law. Two of my predictions were right. The Florida essays for February 2020 were: Contract/Ethic, Tort/Ethic, and Florida Con Law.
- Second day: After the first day, which is the Florida Portion, I took a 50 questions MBE exam on Adaptibar before I went to bed. I do not recommend that. However, if Evidence was part of the Florida portion, you might want to do some MBE evidence questions in the evening just to forget the Florida difference and get ready for the MBE portion. Evidence was not part of the Florida multiple choice questions in February 2020 when I took the bar exam. The subjects were: Procedures, Wills and Administration of Estates, and Business Entities.
Here are my scores during bar prep and my scores for the actual bar exam
How you do during bar prep can give you an idea of your possible performance on bar exam day. Without getting into the details of the scoring system used by the bar examiners, all you need to know is that a scaled score of 136 is needed in order to pass the bar exam in Florida. A MBE scaled score of 136 is typically equal to 118–123 raw score. Here are my scores:
Bar Prep scores
- Diagnostic test (before bar prep starts): 61/100
- Barbri Simulated MBE (raw score): 136 (72nd percentile)
- Florida simulated multiple choice: 65/100 (Passing average : 55)
- My law school bar coach’s simulated Florida questions: 77/100 (Passing average: 55–60)
- Barbri MBE refresher: 69/100
Actual Bar Exam scores
- MBE: 156
- Florida: 157
If I had to retake the Bar Exam what would I do differently?
- Focus more on exam taking skills and less on studying the black letter law i.e. take more simulated exams while under exam condition (timed, no water, no break, no restroom) for three hours.
- The bar exam was my first time not drinking water for 3 hours straight, twice in one day. I had to use the restroom and drink some water on the last day, during the MBE afternoon session. I wasted time trying to fight my thirst then I started coughing. I did not want to leave my desk because it was a long walk from where I was seated. I finally had to. So, I wasted time fighting it, coughing, and finally walking to go get what I needed. I finished the MBE under stress because time was almost up. If you need to use the restroom and drink some water, do it! You’ll feel better when you come back.
