Hi, I’m Lee Burgess, co-founder of the Bar Exam Toolbox and a highly-experienced bar exam tutor. If you’d like help passing the UBE, you’ve come to the right place! We are currently accepting students for February 2024 and beyond.
Most first-time bar takers are taking one of the big commercial bar review courses where you may find yourself listening to hours and hours of lectures. After those lectures, you might be doing exercises or other “busy work” to help yourself study. It is important to remember that if you are taking a commercial bar review course — it is one course designed to help thousands of people at a time. Not everything may work for you! And if you need different or additional support, you should ask for help before it’s too late.
When it comes time to actually doing practice questions — writing out that essay, executing the MPT, or doing MBE questions — if you find that you are feeling frustrated and not sure where you are going wrong, we get it. You feel like you are putting in hours of work, but find yourself worried you are going to be unprepared as the exam approaches.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help!
Our experienced bar exam tutors can help guide you through your bar prep and figure out the best way to spend your time as the exam gets much closer.
- Not sure if your writing is up to snuff? We can tell you!
- Not sure how to do better on the MBE? We have suggestions for that too.
- Can’t do the performance test in 90 minutes? We have time management tips!
Our programming is customized for you so when crunch time comes, you can figure out the best way for you to spend your time to give you the best chance at success.
Want to discuss the best option for you? Drop us a line.
Curious what our students think? Please see our Testimonials for student comments about working with our tutors.
Many students who have disappointing bar experiences know that things aren’t going well during their first bar preparation period (trust us, we talk to a lot of people who fail the bar). If that is you, we can help you work on your exam-taking skills and give you the much-needed feedback that many people feel is missing from a commercial bar review experience.
Our job isn’t just to tell you how to do it — it is to give you the tools to succeed!
We cannot be in the exam room with you. You are the only one who can produce winning results on exam day. We see our role as empowering you by giving you the skills necessary to be the best exam-taker you can be.
- You will feel confident that you know what a good essay looks like.
- You will be confident you know what a good performance test looks like.
- You will have your plan of how to attack an essay or performance test.
- You will even have a plan if you don’t remember the law!
You will have a set of tools that you can draw upon to make this bar experience your last one!
Want to talk about what might be helpful? Just fill out our Tutoring Contact Form with some basic information, and we’d be happy to set up a call.
We make sure that your study techniques match your learning style
One of the great things about working with us is that we use different approaches to match your learning style. This process really is about getting you ready for the bar exam, not just some imaginary student.
- Do you learn best from flash cards? Outlining? Flow charts?
- Do you struggle with time management?
- Does your writing style need work?
- Is organization a problem?
The key is to use the study skills you already have and build on them based on the needs of the bar exam.
Want to learn more?
Here’s a bit more about how our programs work.
Studying for the bar exam is tedious enough without searching your email looking for feedback or to figure out what you’re supposed to be working on. You’ll have a personal assignment schedule, developed in consultation with your tutor to focus on your needs. To make things easy, we’ll set up a personal Asana board for you to use for uploads, feedback, and much more.
Here’s what it looks like:
If you have any questions on how things work, just ask!
What do our students have to say about us?
With Doretta’s help I was able to increase my score from 257 to a score of 322. I needed a 260 to pass. I passed the bar exam by 62 points! I never thought that was possible. Thank You. – H
I just got my bar results back today: I passed!
I want to say thanks. It had been six years since I graduated law school and I had been away from the legal world long enough that I had to look up the word “preclude” when I first started studying. When I connected with you and BarExamToolbox this last Spring, I was still a little nervous about my ability to engage the test.
The bar is like any other training I’ve ever done: one must prepare for more than what is needed. You never know what’s going to happen and the only way to be ready is to be more than ready. A week out from the exam, I found out that I had failed to clarify the registration information in Minnesota and had failed to properly register my laptop. My only option was to handwrite the exam. This was a bit stressful, to say the least. While the last-minute change might be easy for someone who regularly handwrites, I had only prepared by typing. Still, I had done a lot of prep work with the WOW program early on – and I had an awesome tutor (Denise). Had I not done all of that prep or had Denise for advice and guidance, I may not have done as well or passed.
Your program doesn’t cut corners or give out magic pills. It promotes steady results by efficientstudy and hard work. I had confidence because I put in the work. The WOW and Denise were an essential part of that. – J
I contacted Lee about getting a tutor for the UBE a few months before graduating law school and I am so glad I did. She paired me with Denise, and after an introductory phone call, Denise and I had a plan for how I was going to attack the Bar exam. Denise was so willing and able to answer all of my subject-related questions, however, she was so much more to me than someone to explain the issues – Denise offered me complete peace of mind. We created a study schedule together, which helped me decide which activities from my bar prep class were most important and what I should be doing in my spare time. She also always answered my “freak out” emails, and always with a calm response, reminding me that I didn’t have to study 12 hours a day to pass the test. And of course, she helped me alter my study schedule when my strengths and weaknesses became apparent. While so many of my classmates were hoping they were studying the right materials and studying correctly, I knew I was because Denise had helped me recognize my own personal study strengths. Most importantly, on test day I was confident that I could pass, and I know Denise helped me get to that point. – Kaylyn
After failing the bar exam for the first time using only a commercial bar exam course, I knew I wanted to try something different. I stumbled upon the Bar Exam Toolbox website after doing a random Google search. After my initial phone call with Lee Burgess, I was assigned a tutor and I can honestly tell you that she made all the difference. My tutor, Doretta, set up calendar for me to follow over the two-month period prior to the bar. Each week, I had bar exam subjects to review and essays/ MPTs to write. Then, I would spend time critiquing my own work prior to my weekly phone call with Doretta, which I really looked forward to each week. I enjoyed being able to connect with her each week and get critical feedback from an experienced tutor. She was great at explaining the areas that I needed to work on and she was also great at just checking in on how I was doing outside of bar prep. At the time, I was balancing my full-time judicial clerkship along with bar prep. While family and friends are supportive, they don’t really understand the amount of pressure and stress associated with a bar exam failure. Whereas your tutor, can help put things in perspective for you.
In addition to having such an awesome tutor, I think the best thing I learned from Bar Exam Toolbox was to write at least one essay every single day. I know it sounds crazy. Who has the time? What about all those MBE questions? What about just outlining? I told myself that I can do anything for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is as long as your favorite sitcom and it’s much shorter than the amount of time most of us spend flipping through photos on our favorite social media platforms. I am 100% sure that the repetition of writing on topics that scared me, i.e. Secured Transactions or Corporations, helped me succeed on test day. For example, there’s a difference in knowing the elements for negligence and writing about it in such a way that would allow the graders to know that you truly understand the law.
Finally, I really liked that Bar Exam Toolbox recommended Adaptibar. Adaptibar allowed me to practice with real MBE questions. I was able to track my progress and my improvements. This may sound similar to the commercial courses, but I found Adaptibar’s process of using ONLY real MBE questions to be much more beneficial. On test day, I found the questions on the exam to be very similar if not identical to Adaptibar’s questions. I kid you not, I took a sigh of relief when I sat down and read the MBE questions.
I can honestly say that I am an Attorney today because of my work with Bar Exam Toolbox. I cannot thank them enough! – A
Wondering what’s right for you? Contact us and we will get right back to you.
We look forward to helping you find bar exam success!
