299: Breaking Down Bar Prep (w/Stephanie Acosta from UWorld/Themis)

Episode Transcript
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Lee Burgess (00:01):
Welcome to the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast.
Today, we're excited to have StephanieAcosta from UWorld and Themis,
talking to us about bar exam prep.
Your Bar Exam Toolbox hosts are AlisonMonahan and Lee Burgess, that's me.
We're here to demystify the barexam experience, so you can study
effectively, stay sane, and hopefullypass and move on with your life.
We're the co-creators of the Law SchoolToolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the

(00:23):
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Alison also runs TheGirl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, please leavea review on your favorite listening
app, and check out our sister podcast,the Law School Toolbox podcast.
If you have any questions, don'thesitate to reach out to us.
You can reach us via the contactform on BarExamToolbox.com,
and we'd love to hear from you.
And with that, let's get started.

(00:44):
We would like to thank Themis Bar Reviewand UWorld for sponsoring this podcast.
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Welcome back.
Today we are excited to have StephanieAcosta, a content director at UWorld,

(02:26):
which has acquired Themis Bar Review,joining us to talk more about what
these commercial bar prep providersdo to create all of the content
to help you study for the bar.
So Stephanie, thank you for takingtime this morning and joining us.
I appreciate it.

Stephanie Acosta (02:42):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Excited to be here.

So to get things kicked off, can you share a little bit more about
yourself and what led to you working forUWorld and Themis to support bar takers?

Yeah.
So, Themis Bar Review is the commercialbar prep company that I think we
all know and are familiar with.
And so, I became a part of the ThemisBar Review family by way of the UWorld
acquisition of Themis back in 2020,which was just right before the pandemic.
So that was fun.
I was actually the founding member ofthe legal education vertical at UWorld

(03:18):
back in 2017, and that was a reallyunexpected opportunity that was presented
to me by way of my sister volunteeringme to meet with the UWorld CEO.
So, my sister's actually thehead of content development for
UWorld's medical education products.
And so, around the time when UWorldwanted to move past medical education

(03:40):
and be involved with helping studentsprepare for other high stakes exams,
the bar exam came up and my sister said,"Hey, Stephanie is an attorney. Go talk
to her." So, that's how it happened.
I volunteered, yeah.
But when I met with our CEO, Dr. ChandraPemmasani, what prompted me to make
the very unexpected career change wasan opportunity to work in bar review,

(04:06):
but for a company that had not beeninvolved in legal education at all, which
meant that there was no preconceivednotion as to how law should be taught
and how our materials should look.
And so that gave me the opportunityto be really creative and really
innovative, with truly one goal, whichwas that I had to make a product that
was going to be number one on the market.

(04:27):
If he was going to hire me tomake the product, I needed to make
it the best product out there.
So, no pressure.
But his just unwavering commitmentto wanting a top-of-the-line product,
to wanting to have the best contentno matter the cost, was really an
exciting and unexpected opportunity.

(04:48):
And it's been great that he hasremained so true to that commitment.
And that's kind of the story thatruns through all of the UWorld family,
and also into Themis Bar Review.

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize
that UWorld, although
it feels like they're newer to the bar scene, has been
in test prep for a long time.

Yes, yes.
As I noted, they started outwith the medical licensing exam.
And that's a really cute story whereChandra Pemmasani, our CEO, who was just
kind of creating these practice questionsduring his residency and partnered up with
his brother and his brother's roommate atthe time, to make it an online study tool.

(05:30):
And it just took off from there.
And so, it's been really interesting tocome from a company like UWorld who has
its foundation in medical education, butfind ways in which a lot of those teaching
principles do create opportunities andoverlap with the legal education realm.
And then certainly it's really fun to haveall of the experience and knowledge of

(05:54):
Themis Bar Review to join forces with usto create what I think is a really great
product that we're all excited about.
And we've had the opportunity tomake some really, really cool content
enhancements these past five years.

Great.
And so, did you go straight fromlaw school into working in bar
prep, or did you take a breakand practice law for a bit?

I did practice law for a bit.
I actually had my dream job.
I got to work at an appellate lawfirm when I graduated law school.
I'm a moot court nerd, so I didcourt in law school and I actually
still coach for my alma mater.
So, when I had the opportunity togo right into an appellate law firm,
I just thought, "This is amazing.
All I want to do is wear pajamas, readrecords and write appellate briefs.

(06:39):
That's amazing." So yeah, I really wasn'tlooking at bar prep at all, but because
of my experience in the appellate world,when I got the opportunity to develop a
bar prep product, what was really cool isthat a lot of the changes in legal writing
that were happening in the appellatefield were super applicable to what we

(06:59):
needed to do with our bar review content.
For example, in the appellate lawpractice, that's where we were
really thinking about making surethat we're writing in simplistic
language and avoiding legalese.
There was a movement towardsusing more simplistic sentences.
We were really cognizant ofthe fact that judges weren't
reading briefs on paper anymore.

(07:20):
We submit them electronically,they're reading them on their
laptops, on their iPads.
And so, when we're dealing with anon-screen reader, they're processing this
content and this information differently.
And that translates perfectly towhat we're seeing with our bar prep
students, and our law students as well.
They're reading textbooksonline more so than ever.
They're digesting the majorityof their bar review content

(07:43):
through a digital platform.
And with NextGen, that'llbe 100% digital, right?
Everything will be online.
And so, it allowed us to take a lotof those writing strategies that
kept judges engaged in what it is wewere writing in appellate briefs and
apply it to the bar review format.
So that's why in UWorld and now inThemis, you see us using those shorter

(08:03):
sentences, you see us using bulletpoints in our writing, short paragraphs,
strategic bolding, and different thingslike that to just keep our students
engaged and focused on what we're saying.

Yeah.
The real question is, willNextGen adopt the whiteboard like
California has for its online exam?
With all the debate about what pensare allowed... And I feel like I'm
going to order a bunch of pens onAmazon and test them out, so I can
tell my students what whiteboardpens I think we should recommend.
I mean, hopefully it won't be that weird.

Oh, goodness.
I'm kind of jealous that theCalifornia students get a whiteboard.
I mean, maybe that's justme, but the ability to...

I don't everyone's excited about the whiteboard.
I'll be honest.

Okay, good.
Okay, good.
It's not just me.
I mean, how amazing tojust wipe and go and

just...
Yeah, but then think the logistics, likeyou can accidentally erase with your hand.
That's the part that would get me,like you really have to practice
writing on it a little bit.
I don't know.
It's going to be a thing.
We'll see how it all goes.
But I think it's pretty anxiety-inducingat this point to be the first
group to use the whiteboard.
So, we'll see.

If that happens, I'm really hoping that we make Themis-branded
whiteboards that we can pass out

students

there you go.
I know.
Because I want one for myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.

I know, I know.
Alright, so let's talk about content.
A lot of what a bar provider is,is the presentation of content.
So, how do you create these productsto help people study for the bar exam?
I think most of our listenershave never thought about how a
bar provider develops content.

(09:39):
Some of that content is licensedfrom the bar exams and provided,
but a lot of it is not.
So, how do you all do that piece?

Yeah.
So, as your question subtly implied,when we're looking at bar review content,
we're looking at two different things.
One thing is the practice questions,which is when we're developing that
content, we want it to look as closeto the actual exam as possible, which
is why any question that we're able tolicense, we want to license it and make
sure that our students get to see that.

(10:11):
But also when we're expanding upon thepool of questions that students can use to
practice with, we are going to scrutinizethose licensed questions and make sure
that what we're writing fits seamlesslywith the style writing language use
that the examiners are using themselves.
The other side of content developmentis all of the supporting materials

(10:34):
that help you learn the law andlawyering skills and exam-taking
skills that are going to be needed tosuccessfully answer those questions
that you're going to see on exam day.
And with those materials, that'swhere we're really trying to
think about, okay, how do we meetour students where they're at?
What do we do with our materials toensure that they're understandable,

(10:57):
easily digestible, and studentsare able to retain what it
is that we're teaching them?
And one way I think UWorld has really madea name for itself in this area is through
the use of images in our MBE QBank, andhaving those images in the explanations.
And that's a strategy that we'repulling more and more through the

(11:17):
Themis Bar Review product, wherewe have these really great visuals
to accompany our lectures now.
And actually come summer, thiscoming summer, we're going to start
having a lot of that imagery showup in some of our outlines too.
And so, I'm really excited tosee the student responses there.
But when we're talking about images, Ithink it's really easy to think, "Oh,

(11:38):
it's just a picture." But really, whenI'm talking about images, I'm thinking of
something that's much broader than that.
It goes from something that's as simpleas a table that can show a compare and
contrast of different terminologies, orlayout the elements of a cause of action
in a different way, or we can go to aflowchart that shows a thought process for

(12:00):
legal analyses, or how the Fifth Amendmentconnects to the Sixth Amendment, a chain
of title and timelines for real property.
When we think of an image,it's a full-blown illustration.
And it stems, because UWorld startedout in medical education, where images
just are such a logical connection.
Of course you need to know whatskin cancer looks like, for example.

(12:23):
Of course you need to be able to readan X-ray, and so the incorporation of
images in that product was really logical.
And so, when I started the MBE QBank, Ihad a whole team of medical illustrators
and graphic designers at my disposal.
And it was like, "Well, why not give ita try and see how we can do that in legal
education as well?" And the students'response to that has just been awesome.

(12:47):
And it's been so nice to see that asthey're starting to digest content
and learn through images and be visuallearners more and more and more, that
we've been able to do our best to evolveour materials and keep up with them, so
that we can teach them these conceptsin a way that resonates with them.

I do think that that's one of the biggest comments I get
when I encourage folks to testout their bar review options.
Especially for things like themultiple choice, that is one of the
pieces of feedback I get, is that somefolks are very taken by the images.
And I think if you are a more visualperson, that's something that will
really resonate with you, especially ifyou're not the type of person that wants

(13:26):
to create any of your own imagery, youwant to borrow images from someone else.

Yeah.
And sometimes it's just a nice wayto have a little bit of fun in what
can sometimes feel a bit monotonousand dry with your materials.
I'm thinking we have an image thatone of my content developers created
that I just wasn't really sure about,but it came from an MBE question
where there's the leader at a circus,who sics a tiger on somebody.

(13:57):
And could there be a battery, becausethe circus leader didn't actually
touch the plaintiff in that case?
And so it's like, I'm going tocreate an image where there's a tiger
and a circus guy, and I'm showinghow there can be different types
of contact in a battery action.
And it's actually really wonderfulto see how many student comments

(14:17):
we get just from that one imagethat I thought, that's a bit silly.
I'm not sure how difficult of a conceptit is, but hey, it made them laugh.
It was great way for them to rememberthis principle when it comes to battery.
And while that might have been a simplemultiple-choice question, then they
remembered to spot that issue whenthey were going and tackling an essay.

(14:37):
And so, it's been really fun tolearn about the power of images
in our memory and as a teachingtool and that sort thing.

Yeah.
Alright, let's talk about what'scoming down the pipe for the bar exam.
So, changes are coming.
We already referenced that changes existright now for California, but we're
not going to spend a bunch of time onthat because it stresses everybody out.
But for those of you who don't know,outside of California, California is
launching its own virtual bar examfor the first time in February 2025.

(15:11):
So, stay tuned to this podcast if youwant to hear more about it, because
we'll be talking about it a lot andhave been talking about it a lot.
But the NextGen bar exam is really,I think, what is the major change
that is coming around the country,and jurisdictions have been adopting
it, as a part of its rolling out.
Not everybody's going to adopt it in 2026.
There still is not a lotof information out there.

(15:34):
They have not released everything thatthey said they were going to release.
And so, there're still a lot of openquestions, but we have students in
law school right now who are going toend up sitting for this NextGen exam.
So, what is UWorld and Themisdoing to position itself to help
students prepare for the NextGen?

Yeah, I love that question.
We're doing a lot.
And what I will say is, at ThemisBar Review, we have the largest, most
experienced team of full-time contentdevelopers of any bar review company.
And I will say that while for studentswho are currently in law school and
who are looking at taking the bar examin the next few years, the uncertainty

(16:17):
surrounding NextGen can feel reallyscary, and I'm really sympathetic to that.
But for those of us who are in the barreview industry, this isn't new to us.
I mean, Lee, as you mentioned inCalifornia, we just had to adapt to
the changes that we learned aboutfor this coming February California
exam, with less than six months'notice, and we were able to do that.

(16:38):
With the Florida bar exam, Florida'sreally special, in that they like to roll
out changes in the law, even just a weekbefore the exam and test students on it.
And we adapt our materials accordingly.
So, I know that when students are sittinghere trying to figure out, "Okay, well,
is my jurisdiction going NextGen ornot?" or, "Hey, I know my jurisdiction's
going NextGen and I still feel likeI don't know everything" - we get it.

(17:03):
But the good news is that we'rereally experienced when it comes
to developing bar prep products.
And so, from the moment we heard aboutNextGen, before we ever saw any sample
questions from the NCBE, we said,"You know what? We're going to start
creating this kind of content." Take theintegrated question sets, for example,
which is a really new testing conceptfor those of us in legal education.

(17:26):
We kind of heard the goals that theNCBE was trying to achieve with this
new item type and immediately gotto work drafting our own questions.
And what was so cool and what Ithink really tells the story of our
experience is that when we finallysaw a sample integrated question set
from the NCBE - man, we were prettydarn close with what we had created.

(17:48):
And so, we were able to look at thatsample and make some really minor tweaks.
And we've moved forward withthat content development.
So, I know a lot of people in legaleducation and a lot of your listeners
and law students are feeling a bitof anxiety, and that's super normal
when we're dealing with something new.
But trust in the experience that yourlegal educators, your teachers, your

(18:10):
academic support personnel and bar reviewproviders are bringing to the table.
Because while this is a new experiencefor you, I promise we've got this
and we're going to keep you prepared.
I also want to say I think we havea tendency to focus on things that
are different and sometimes we forgetjust how much is actually staying

(18:31):
the same with the NextGen exam.
If we look at multiple-choice questions,for example, there're some really minor
stylistic changes between the currentMBE questions and what we're going to
see on NextGen, but nothing that shouldderail students, even those who are
used to seeing a standard MBE question.
We're going from a 90-minute MPTto now something that's 60 minutes.

(18:54):
It's the exact same skill set.
It looks largely the same; it'sjust a shortened time span.
And so, those are things thatshouldn't alarm students.
And ultimately, the bar exam is stilljust a baseline understanding of legal
skills and legal knowledge, right?
And the subject matter outlinesaren't changing all that much.
In fact, you're goingto have to learn less.

(19:16):
And so, I think there are a lotof positive things that should
reduce student anxiety as they'reconfronting these new challenges.

Yeah.
So, for jurisdictions that are notadopting NextGen right away or haven't
come out whether or not they will adoptit, you mentioned earlier that you've
seen stylistically that the bar iskind of shifted in the same way that
you saw your appellate work shifting- this real focus on short and concise
sentences, concise rule statements.

(19:43):
I think I'm adding that one towhat you were talking about, but
that you are really trying to be asefficient as possible in your writing.
So, what other things have you seen inthe bar exam, both with the multiple
choice and the essays that you thinkhas changed over the last few years?
And has it changed how we askstudents to prepare for it?

Not really.
I mean, at the end of the day,we've been teaching IRAC in
legal education forever, right?
And so, this process of legal writingisn't becoming fundamentally different.
And if anything, I think studentsare being encouraged to write
more how they would speak.
And I think that lends itself to helpingstudents succeed even more so on the exam.

(20:27):
We're talking about changes inmultiple-choice questions, but at
the end of the day, multiple-choicequestions are still teaching on your
ability to issue spot and on yourability to conduct a legal analysis
and reach a logical conclusion.
And so, I think when we're lookingat changes in the bar exam, one thing
that does feel a bit reassuring inthe tumultuous time starting with

(20:52):
COVID, NextGen, California, is thatthere are still a lot of things
that are remaining consistent.
But one thing that I'm really excitedabout is to see more of these lawyering
skills, which I think is what yourquestion was getting at, start to
be tested in the bar review realm.

(21:12):
And so, I think it's been great thatthe MPT seems to have always really
resonated with the legal community as afair assessment of what a newly licensed
attorney should be able to achieve ina law firm, so it's exciting to see
that continue into the NextGen exam.
And it's really cool to see that we'regoing to have lawyering skills like
client counseling, and with integratedquestions being able to see sample

(21:36):
documents and have questions that arerelated to those kinds of readings
being part of the bar exam as well.
And that's just showing how thebar exam and law school in general
is being reflective of what we'redoing in actual legal practice.
So, it's not as though law school's nowjust based on learning legal doctrine.
There's really been an emphasis onlearning these lawyering skills.

(21:59):
So, we see ADR becoming a lotmore popular, and there're a lot
more competitions for moot court,going back to that mock trial,
client counseling, alternativedispute resolution, negotiations.
And then also even more clinics andthings like that that are giving
students real world legal experiences.
And so, I'm really excited to seethat show up more so on the exam, and

(22:23):
to have questions that are placingstudents in the role of the attorney.
I think that actually is going tofeel like a much more logical testing
process and a more natural testingprocess than what we're seeing
with the current bar exam today.

Great.
So, what are some common mistakes thatyou think students make when they're
engaging with Themis as their bar reviewprovider, or UWorld as their MBE practice?

Yeah, so the low hanging fruit answer there is, you have to use
the materials and get through them.
That's obvious.
I think the less obvious answer, andwhat I would love to see students
do more of, is to invest more timein self-assessment, and also utilize
their known study strategies.

(23:08):
So, turning to self- assessments first,what I mean by that is, there really is
a difference in answering quickly 200questions and moving on, versus answering
100 questions and going through to seeif you understand, "Why did I get it
right, and did I actually understandwhy every alternative answer choice was
wrong?" There's a big difference inwriting answers to five essays, versus

(23:32):
writing out three essays and actuallygoing through the outlines and the
sample answers provided and seeing,was your writing clear and concise?
Did I use IRAC?
Did I spot all of the issues?
Are they presented in a logical way?
How could I have improved upon what I did?
There's a lot of known power in takingthat time to do self- assessment
and taking ownership over, not justgoing through the practice, but

(23:55):
synthesizing the results, that isreally going to elevate your studying.
And then moving to study strategies, Ithink that there's a big tendency for
law students to doubt themselves inwhat it is they should be doing when
it comes to studying for the bar exam.
But by the time we're studying, weshould all be pros at knowing what it

(24:16):
is we need to do to succeed on a test.
We'll see students who say, "Yeah,I just spent four hours trying to
read the long outline and I can'tremember a single thing." Well, okay.
Did you just read and rememberand succeed in law school, or
did you make your own flashcards?
Did you find a way to summarize whatyou were reading into textbooks into

(24:37):
a condensed outline in some way?
What did you do there so that youwere prepared for your final exam?
Because those are the exact samethings that you should be doing
when it comes to bar review.
So while my job is to give you as manytools as possible to study, I want
to give my visual learners a lectureto look at, or my auditory learners
something to listen to, I want to givemy visual learners pictures and texts

(25:00):
to read, my active learners or kineticlearners the ability to make their own
flashcards or make their own outlines.
But it's really up to the individualstudent to know what study strategies
work best for them and apply that tothe tools, and use the tools effectively
in how we think of them, and howwe have given them in bar review.

Yeah, I think what can be tricky for some students is that there
are some law schools who are reallyleaning heavily into the open-book
exams for these core 1L classes.
And I've always been pretty critical ofthat, not that anybody cares what I think.
No law school dean cares whatI think, but I still talk about
it because it's my podcast.
But I don't think that does aservice, when the licensing exam
still requires a lot of memorization.

(25:40):
And I do think that some studentsget to the bar and they are not
well versed in memorizing material.
They may be able to outline, they maybe able to reference, but they are not
used to that heavy level of memorization.
And so, I know for my students, I do goback to this idea that you have to be
constantly giving yourself assessmentsto see if the time that you're

(26:03):
putting in has a return on investment.
And so, if you're makingflashcards... I made this mistake
when I was studying for the bar.
I hate flashcards.
I don't know why I thought I hadto make flashcards for the bar.
That was a terrible choice.
I made them and then didn'tuse them, and then realized
that I was just wasting time.
And I had had closed-book exams inlaw school, I did have an idea of
how to do them, but I still wasted abunch of time, because everybody was

(26:24):
making flashcards and I thought thatwas what you were supposed to do.
So, the way that you find out whether ornot that is something you're supposed to
do, is to study it, and then do questions,and if you don't know the law, then
that's not the way you should be studying.
So, even if you don't have a lot ofexperience memorizing huge, massive
amounts of law in law school, by beingvery honest with yourself and doing

(26:47):
those testing assessments throughout,you're going to get that information.
I think one of the challenges is,it feels really crummy to do that.
Nobody enjoys testing themselves inthat way, because it makes you feel
uncomfortable, it's highlightingwhere your weak areas are, it
can be hard on your mental state.
You have to really be in a growth mindset.

(27:07):
But if you don't do that, you're notgetting any feedback about whether the
time you're putting in is useful or not.
And I think that that is hard.
If your law school didn't train youin that, then you need to make sure
that that assessment piece is evenmore critical during your bar prep.

Yeah.
I think, thank goodness thatwe have practice questions when
it comes to bar prep, right?
I mean, back in my day in law school,you never saw how the professor examined
you until you showed up for your final.
And so, having the practicequestions at your disposal is
really great and really useful.
What I will say is even with an open-bookexam... And I share your views in that

(27:47):
regard, because even as practicingattorneys, you're still expected to be
able to issue spot, and so you have tohave some level of general familiarity
with the law to represent your clientand to think through the story that
they're telling them and think of waysin which you can solve that problem.
And so, I think it is important to havea baseline knowledge of memory retention.

But what I will say is this (28:09):
You're never going to pass a final exam
if you're relying on a book toread through the materials and
understand them for the first time.
So, even if you are not focused on rotememorization for your final exam, you are
still involved in that learning process.
If you learn best by reading throughthe cases and going through the

(28:30):
process of outlining and synthesizingon your own, then do that when you're
reading the long outline in bar review.
If you learn best by recording your lawprofessor, if they let you, and listening
to that audio on repeat, then, hey, dothe same thing when you're listening
to a video lecture in bar review.
I think there're still a lot ofthings that you can take from your
academic experiences that willbe applicable to your studying

(28:54):
when it comes to the bar exam.

Yeah.
So, what advice would you giveto a bar taker who is frustrated
with the process and gets stuck?
So, this happens toalmost every bar taker.
Mine was over the 4th of July weekend,we call it the "July freakout".
It happens to most people over the summer.
We're recording this at the end ofJanuary, it happens around now for
people who are taking the February exam.

(29:18):
So, what are your recommendations ofhow they can best utilize the tools to
get past this point of feeling stuck andthat they're not going to be prepared?

Yeah.
The biggest thing is, just take adeep breath for a moment and recognize
that everybody goes through a plateau.
When we are starting with our barreview process, a lot of us are
starting with our first-year subjects.
When I was studying for the bar exam,I hadn't thought about real property
and future interests in three years.
It's at the beginning of bar prep andI'm refreshing my memory, then certainly

(29:51):
I'm going to see my performance onmultiple-choice questions, which is what
we typically start with in bar prep,start pretty low and then quickly grow as
my memory is refreshed on these conceptsthat I'm trying to wipe the cobwebs off.
It's normal when we hit July, or lateJanuary for February takers, to hit a

(30:11):
plateau to where we've gotten rid of allof those cobwebs, and so now we're not
seeing as big of gains in our performance.
That plateau is totally normal.
So if that's what's happeningto you, don't freak out.
That's exactly what should be happening.
And now what you're really doing isfiguring out how you can get just small
gains as you're focusing on the areasthat aren't coming as quickly to you

(30:33):
and that are a little bit more tricky.
So, first thing, deep breath,recognize this as normal.
But also, there mightactually be an issue, so think
critically about that as well.
If you're seeing a dramatic decline,for example, in your practice
question percentages and things likethat, then you have to take a step
back and think about, why is that?

(30:55):
So, to use weightlifting to moveaway from our marathon training
metaphor that we always use.
If you're lifting weights, and you'retrying to learn how to squat and get
a 200-pound squat, let's say, it'sreally normal for people to plateau
when they hit 150 pounds, let's pretend.
And so, you can look at your nutrition.

(31:16):
Maybe what you need to do is to drop theweight that you've been lifting and do it
in higher reps. Maybe it's that you needto do less reps with a higher weight, and
that's how you're going to move past it.
Maybe you need to try a differentexercise - not just doing
squats, but try doing lunges.
Those are different strategies that youcan use to kind of get over that plateau.
And it's an analogy that'sapplicable to bar prep too.

(31:40):
I had my schlump and I think forme, it just ended up being burnout.
And really what I was doing is I wasso focused on answering questions
nonstop and constantly studying thatmy brain just went into a complete fog.
And so, for me, what I actually neededto do was just sit down and say, "Okay,

(32:01):
you cannot study for 16 hours a day.
It is not healthy for you to be onyour app answering multiple-choice
questions up until 2:00 AM.
You're just burnt out." And so, what Ineeded to do was kind of rein back on my
studying and make sure that I was givingmyself some space to invest in my mental
health, to exercise, for example, to takea break to eat lunch, so that my brain

(32:26):
could continue to be actively engaged.
I think, to give some more practicaladvice to our listeners, if you're going
through the plateau, take a deep breath.
If you are identifying that there'sa problem, then this is a great
time to start thinking about how youmight change some of your strategies.
Talk to some friends and get adviceon what they might be doing and
things that might resonate foryou and your practice a bit more.

Yeah.
I think the only thing I'd add tothat is to be very careful when
you're in that plateau or in thatfreakout space of comparing how you're
prepping to everybody else, becausethat game can get really messy.
When you talk to somebody who may beoverconfident and is studying wild

(33:10):
hours, that may not be what you need.
I think burnout's a huge issue,so that's something that everybody
needs to check in with themselves.
But then go back to your assessments,like we were talking about earlier,
and say, "Okay, I'm plateauing,but am I seeing things dip?
Are the gain slowing, or am I not ableto answer these questions?" And I think

(33:31):
that if the answer is, "I'm not ableto answer the questions", it's not just
that I've plateaued, then it's timeto put on the brakes and triage and
come up with a different plan, becauseyou may not be retaining information,
or your flashcards may not be workingfor you, or whatever it might be.
So, it's a great time to say, "Okay,let's take some honest looks at

(33:52):
what's going well and what's not goingwell." And if you need to pivot, you
still have time usually to pivot.
But if you're just saying, "Oh, I'mplateauing and everyone else is at the
library for 14 hours"... It's possibleI had this conversation with my now
husband when I said, "But everybody'sdoing this", and he's like, "You
didn't study that way in law school.

(34:12):
Why would you study that way now?" AndI was like, "Oh, that's a very good
point." It's wise to have people who arenot lawyers or have not studied for this
test in your life to call you on sillycomments that you may make out of anxiety.
But I do think that going back tothose assessments and asking yourself,
"I am putting in this study time.
Do I have a recall of thisinformation?" One of the things I

(34:35):
talk about with students a lot islike, "Let's just talk about evidence.
Can you list off all the hearsayexceptions and give me a simple
rule statement for all of them?" Ifthe answer is "no", then you need
to look at how you're studying.
That's kind of a baseline knowledge.
It's heavily tested, everybodyshould have those skills.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but youpretty much have to know that stuff.

(34:55):
And so, if you're not able to dothat, then you need to put "Pause"
on and say, "Okay, now what do I do?
Because I need to start learning thelaw in a different way and applying
it to fact patterns to make surethat I can do the job and not just
passively let the information wash overme." Which feels great in the moment,
because you're like, "Oh, I'm so smart.

(35:16):
I'm watching these videos and I've learnedso much." Until I ask a very pointed
question and somebody can't answer it.

Yeah.
I love you bringing up the flashcardthing, because I think flashcards can
be a really wonderful resource, or theycan be an aggressively misused resource.
And I hear this a lot in our industry asflashcards being an exercise of active
learning, which is absolutely true.
When you are in the process of creatingflashcards and engaging with your

(35:45):
learning materials - yes, active learning.
But if then what you do withthose flashcards is just read
the front and flip and read theback - well, that's passive learning.
That's not an effectiveuse of the flashcards.
So just to go back to this example, ifyou're reflecting on your studying and
you're going, "Well, I've made theseoutlines and I've made these flashcards,
but I'm just not retaining the knowledge"- then check and see and think, how are you

(36:09):
actually engaging with those materials?
If it's purely just reading, then thinkabout talking about it out loud, and
getting a friend to quiz you on theflashcards, so that you're not just
flipping it over and passively reading it.
Or I'm a whiteboard fan, and so thankyou, California, for implementing that.
But for me with flashcards, Iwould write out the answer on a

(36:31):
whiteboard, because just somethingabout the mechanics of writing just
helped with my memory retention.
And so, that was an effectiveway to utilize flashcards for me.
I love when we can have a positiveenvironment of information sharing and
different study practices and thingslike that, so that you can think of,
"Okay, well, maybe I'm not actuallyutilizing a flashcard in a meaningful

(36:54):
way and maybe somebody else has a betterway of learning how to use that tool."

Yeah, and I think with flashcards, you also run the
risk of the legal trivia, which canwork a little bit better on an MBE
question than it does on an essay.
Because let's go back to my hearsayexamples, my favorite example.
But if I go back to hearsay, if Isay, "What's a dying declaration?",
I'm not going to test you - and youcan - unless you want to - rattle
off the rule for that, right?

(37:19):
And the California exception,even though I don't think
you're licensed in California.
I won't do that to you.
But the idea is, that'sgreat legal trivia.
You get an MBE question that'son a dying declaration and
it's great to just know that.
But I think so often in the essays,you also need to know how the law
is structured and fits together.
You do need to be able to make a wholelist of those hearsay exceptions, because

(37:41):
you might get a fact pattern where you inyour head need to be like, "Is it this,
is it this, is it this, is it this?"That's the attack plan or checklist,
everybody's got a different name for it.
But you don't want to losethe forest through the trees.
You need to understand how the law fitstogether, so you can thoughtfully think
through the law as you're issue spotting.

(38:02):
And so I think that's another thingthat often gets lost in the flashcard
discussion, is that legal trivia isgreat, but you also need to understand
how all that law fits together.

Yeah, for sure.
And we've seen that with just howstudents go through the MBE QBank,
and now even in looking at someof the visuals in our lectures.
I'm a flowchart person, and so for me,if we're using your hearsay example
- yes, the dying declaration is but onehearsay exception, but it's really
wonderful when you can use an imageto just pull out and scope, right?

(38:37):
And look at all of the hearsay exceptions.
And even though California calls these"hearsay exceptions", I'm going to
use hearsay exclusions or non-hearsay.
It's fine, no judgment.

I'm I
know I'm licensed in California, so.

Hey, they test the federal rules too.

They do, they do.
We to do it all.
We've got to keep it fun over here.
ha ha
ha

So, when I'm thinking of, "Okay, well, what is hearsay and how
do I want to teach hearsay to one of ourusers?" It's yes, I want to teach them
all of those individual exceptions, but Ialso absolutely want to present them with
this information in a way that shows howall of these pieces of the puzzle relate.
So, how do you identifywhen hearsay is an issue?

(39:19):
Think about, is this a statementthat's being made outside of court,
out of the current proceeding, right?
And then think about,who made the statement?
And under what circumstanceswas that statement made?
And if we're looking athearsay exceptions, then why
do these exceptions make sense?
So that maybe we're not just relyingon rote memorization, but also just

(39:40):
using our own legal intuition, right?
And so, these hearsay exceptions areoften turning around circumstances in
which we should inherently be able totrust the truthfulness of the statement.
So if somebody is dying and muttering,"Lee is the one who stabbed me" - well,
chances are I'm telling the truthin the moment of my death that you

(40:01):
are the one who stabbed me, right?
So, it seems logical that even thoughI might not be able to go and testify
in court as to that statement,that perhaps that utterance should
still be admissible because of thecircumstances under which it was made.
And so, there're a lot of toolsthat we can use to think about how
we can present this information.
And those are the kinds of things that asa content developer, I'm trying to show

(40:24):
students not just the brick, but alsothe entire wall or the entire building
on how they can piece this together.

Yeah.
Well, we could talk about hearsay all day,but I'm going to have to move us along.
I do love talking about hearsay.
If you could go back to your bar self,the person you were when you were
studying for the bar, what advicewould you give yourself as a bar taker?

So, this is funny.
I knew you were goingto ask this question.
So I I don't know how.
But this perfectly touches on somethingthat you had talked about earlier, which
was to not get so caught up in what'sgoing on with your peers around you.
And so, for me in my bar prepexperience, it was really important

(41:09):
for me to understand that I could treatbar prep as a full-time job and not
something that was all-encompassingand completely consuming my life.
And when I was initially starting tostudy, what was really challenging for
me was hearing from my peers, "Well,why didn't you delete your social media?

(41:30):
What do you mean you've only gonethrough this percentage of the course?
Well, why didn't you go and buy all ofthese additional supplemental products?
We didn't see you in the library." Thosecriticisms were just not helpful for
me, and so I very quickly learned thatthat's not what I needed to listen to,
that I needed to surround myself witha positive peer group that was going

(41:53):
to lift me up and encourage me, and notcompare what they're doing to what I'm
doing, and to have a good support system.
But the biggest thing was making surethat I was staying in tune with my
own mental health and making surethat yes, I'm able to get through my
bar review materials, I'm staying ontrack with my course, but that I'm also

(42:17):
not just panic-answering questions.
My poor husband had to listen to thebar review lectures playing in my car
anytime we drive somewhere, because Iwas convinced that was wasted time and
I had to make it beneficial in some way.
Oh my goodness.
And you know what?
A 10-minute car ride to thegrocery store was not going

(42:38):
to make me fail the bar exam.
And so, give yourself permission.
Please give yourself permission totreat bar prep like a full-time job.
Do not let it consume your life.
And put reasonable parametersaround your studying.

Yeah, I think that's a great point to finish up on.
Well, we are unfortunately out of time.
Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing yourthoughts and your experience at UWorld
and Themis and talking about what'scoming down the pipe for the future.
If students want to know more aboutThemis or UWorld, how do they do that?

Yeah, so you can certainly go online.
We also like to give little snippets andsneak peeks about our resources on there.
And so I think that's really cool.
We have a free trial if you want totake a look at our MBE questions.
And then with Themis Bar Review, wealso have free law school essentials
resources, a free MPRE course, sothat you can dip your toes in the

(43:35):
water and see if our materials aresomething that resonates with you.

Awesome.
I really encourage people totest out these products, because
that's the way you're going tofeel confident investing in them.
So I think that is great advice.
Well, have a great rest of yourday, great rest of your bar season,
since we're still in the bar season.
And I appreciate your time.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me, Lee.
Great talking to you.
I would like to take a momentto thank Themis Bar Review

(44:02):
for sponsoring this podcast.
And remember, with our specialpromotion, you can access Themis'
resources at an unbelievable value.
Save $700 on any July 2025 ThemisBar Review course using the code
BAREXAMTB700 at checkout, nowvalid through April 1st, 2025.

(44:22):
If you enjoyed this episode of theBar Exam Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you're still in law school, youmight also like to check out our popular
Law School Toolbox podcast as well.
If you have any questions or comments,please don't hesitate to reach out to
myself or Alison at lee@barexamtoolbox.comor alison@barexamtoolbox.com.

(44:47):
Or you can always contactus via our website contact
form at BarExamToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!

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