<p>I recently saw a flyer from Bar/BRI, those sadists who ran our bar review study courses, advertising a 5 day course in the summer for students who will start law school in the fall. </p>
<p>It’s billed as giving students all the advance info, tricks, strategies, etc. they need to be successful in law school, since, according to their brochure, “employers only interview law students at the top of their classes”.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience with this, ah, baloney??? And BTW, it only costs $1495.</p>
<p>Why can’t these young whippersnappers suffer and stress out the way we did in the good old days before personal computers and computerized research!!?? </p>
<p>They should have to sit at a carrel in the library staring at the course book and thinking, “How in the he** do I ‘brief’ a ‘case’???”"</p>
<p>Yeah, WE had to suffer, so they should too! </p>
<p>I remember one of our first assignments involved reading some article in a book “On Reserve” at the Law Library. Some wonderful classmate of ours got to it first, and RAZOR-BLADED it out of the book so no one else could read it! I’m sure he’s a Congressman now!</p>
<p>This has been around for years. BarBri is such a giant scam that I refused to pay for their blasted bar course and bought a home study product instead. (Yes, I passed on the first try.)</p>
<p>Husband and I took the bar exam together; we only paid for one Bar/Bri course and cut up the study guides into sections (Evidence, Constitutional Law, Contracts, etc.) so we could study different things at the same time. Not about to pay them twice!</p>
<p>Was so tense toward the end that the only thing that helped us to go to sleep at night was a LARGE glass of wine apiece. So when we drove to Denver to take the exam, we brought our pillows, our study materials, and several bottles of wine.</p>
<p>We both passed on the first try, so it worked!!!</p>
<p>I went sans (store-bought) prep and overstudied. Made over a passing score. LOL. </p>
<p>That whole first quarter of law school was such a trip. Day one -sportcoat and khakis. (Can you say “geek”? ) Day two- cutoffs and sandals. And what about your first day case briefs? That dang case about the fox was one paragraph long and my “brief” was a page and a half. :eek:</p>
<p>Another codger lawyer and I were commenting on the differences today after he was asked to (and did) provide a recommendation for an applicant to our law school. She provided him with a binder full of information regarding what she needed for her application, data about herself (he’d never met her before, she’s the daughter of a friend) etc. Shades of CC! Back in the day we stumbled and bumbled our way through the application process and wandered into class the first day with nary a clue about what to expect.</p>
<p>This is a disturbing thread whose heading should be changed to Nostalgic Lawyers Pine for the Past. The ugly thought that popped in my head while reading these is that, because I have been using a computer, it has been over 10 years since I actually set foot in a real law library and I am sitting here hoping I can find one open just so I can try it again.</p>
<p>Well, I was one of those first-years whose stock answer in class was “Unprepared”…I remember that the president of the law students association, or whatever the equivalent of the student body was, gave us a one-hour lecture on this kind of thing, including all the abbreviations commonly used for notes, such as the characters for plaintiff and defendant, contract, etc. Seemed to be enough, now I’m wondering if maybe I missed something.</p>
<p>Most of us took the BAR/BRI course after school was over at the end of 3rd year. There wasn’t too much in the way of alternative as I recall. Very brave of you all to do it on your own. I decided to have a sane summer where I would run in the morning, swim at noon in between the morning and afternoon sessions, and play tennis in the evening. Everyone else seemed to be going without sleep. I didn’t dare say that I had a perfectly good summer until I had passed the bar exam (also on the first try), because I was afraid somehow I hadn’t worked hard enough. </p>
<p>Pass rates are really different in different states and the difficulty of the bar exam is different. California usually has one of the lowest pass rates. BTW, the exam is 18 hours spread over 3 days. I can’t imagine having the stamina to do something like that now…</p>
Made over a passing score. LOL. </p>