Hi guys,
Just to give you a little bit of background, I’m a JD graduate from the class of 2021 from a then-Top 30 school, and English is my second language. I passed the CA bar in Feb 2026. To be honest, I’m still ashamed of my failures, so I thought I was never gonna share this part of my history with anybody else, but I want to share my story as a way to give back to this community and encourage other students who are starting like I did around this time. Also, I think I owe this to Ed Aruffo and his bar prep course, No Bull Bar Prep, for having saved me from the hell of repeating the bar.
I took the UBE five times and failed. On my last try, I did get a passing UBE score that was transferable to states that require the lowest score, but I didn’t know the state that I chose to be licensed in had a residency requirement. I’m a foreigner living outside the US, so there was no way I could satisfy that part. But I realized it too late in the process, and even worse, the bar association lost my file and didn’t inform me about it for so long that I missed the deadline to transfer my score to other jurisdictions. I (kind of) passed the UBE in the end but ended up not becoming an attorney thanks to this stupid situation. How ridiculous is that?
But I had to give it another try, and this time I did it for the CA bar for a family-related reason. I gave birth to my son in July last year, and I found Ed Aruffo’s name on Reddit during my research about the CA bar because of its notorious difficulty. I usually just pass on random recommendations, thinking they’re mere advertisements, but somehow I looked into him this time. I saw his posts here and there on Facebook, and I made my plan around his recommendations. I knew that with a newborn baby, it would be very hard to do as many practice questions as he said were necessary, so I started earlier. I did a minimum of 20–30 questions on Adaptibar beginning in late August and completed around 3,000 questions by the exam date. I signed up for his free early-start program, and I just loved his humor and how confident he was, and how clear and simple he was about his guidelines. My confidence level was at its lowest, so I had to borrow it from someone else, and I needed to simplify my methods so that I could fully use my scarce time and energy efficiently without bullshitting around — like Steve Jobs only wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans so as not to waste any headspace elsewhere. Also, I knew I had done enough of the big-box programs during my attempts at the UBE. I studied alone, of course, in a foreign country for the bar, so joining a community also helped me a lot mentally.
I loved his methods for essays; they made a lot of sense to me. His PT strategy was epic. I had never heard of such a thing before, but I passed without even using other cases for comparisons and contrasts due to lack of time. (He said we could skip it if we didn’t have enough time and that he’d seen tons of students pass without it.) I just used the rules and applied the facts like he said, and it was apparently enough. As for essays, well, I started practicing them a little late because of another exam scheduled in December that I was preparing for, so I couldn’t practice essays as much as I was supposed to. I practiced only 55 essays. As I was living outside the US, because of the time difference, I only took his classes through recordings, but I could still get feedback from my essay mentors (shoutout to Bertha, Sarah, and Antonio), which helped me a lot. Without No Bull Bar Prep, I genuinely don’t believe that I could have made it. I encourage you to take his free early-start program at least, because he really explains everything in detail. I still signed up for the program because I needed it to keep going. Like I said, I didn’t have enough confidence or willpower to make it by myself. And I was also physically at my weakest due to the delivery. I almost forgot, but I should highlight that his last class preparing us for all the complex issues right before the exam was genius. Sorry, I can’t remember which essay subjects they were, but that class saved me from writing some nonsense on two essays.
Other than No Bull Bar Prep, I tried Adaptibar’s essay program too, just out of curiosity, but I ended up not using it much. I just used it for issue spotting without typing out full answers because it was quick to practice issue spotting thanks to the issue list provided instantly.
My mom genuinely thought that I was never gonna make it because I graduated too long ago, I live in a country where English is not widely used, I had already failed a supposedly easier one, so how could I succeed in one of the most difficult bar exams in the States, and I was a mom to a newborn without any help around. It was me all alone. But thanks to Ed’s brilliant and highly efficient method, constant encouragement, and amazing team, I could finally put an end to my misery.
If my story could help even one person in this community, I’d be very honored. I sincerely hope everyone in this community succeeds.
