CALIFORNIA BAR EXAM - read if you need any encouragement (from a July 2025 first time passer)
I thought I failed the California Bar after accidentally deleting an entire essay. I still passed.
I wanted to post this because when I was waiting for my results, stories like this were the only thing that made me feel even a little better.
I started studying in late April/early May using Themis. From day one, I was convinced I wasn't going to pass. I still remember my first set of Contracts multiple-choice questions—I got around a 35%. I remember thinking, How is everyone else doing this? There's no way I'm going to pass.
That feeling never really went away.
I completed about 70% of Themis. I studied as much as my brain would let me. I also tried a bunch of study methods that everyone recommended but that honestly weren't "me." I made giant Post-it notes and covered my room with them. I wrote things down constantly. The problem was...I never studied that way in law school. I'm someone who learns by rereading material over and over again, not by making outlines or rewriting notes.
Eventually I stopped trying to study like everyone else and went back to what had always worked for me. I mostly used Themis attack outlines and reread them repeatedly. Looking back, I wish I had trusted my own study habits sooner instead of trying to copy everyone else's.
About two weeks before the exam, I started looking at the subjects that had been tested in previous years and tried to predict what might show up.
I barely studied Community Property. Honestly, I accepted that if it showed up, then it showed up. I memorized the one issue that seems to appear all the time and left the rest up to fate.
Trusts and Wills also made me nervous. For whatever reason, I had a gut feeling it would be tested, so I crammed it during the last two days before the exam.
Sure enough...it was.
Then came exam day.
The first essay was Torts, and I actually felt great about it.
The second essay was Trusts and Wills. I finished it right around the one-hour mark and was ready to move on to Business Associations.
Then my entire Trusts and Wills answer disappeared.
I still don't know exactly what happened. I somehow deleted the entire thing, and I couldn't get it back.
At that point I had one hour left to complete what was essentially two essays.
I completely panicked.
I rewrote the Trusts and Wills essay as a bare-bones outline—one sentence for the issue, one sentence for the rule, one sentence of analysis, and a conclusion for each issue I could think of.
Then I moved to Business Associations and only got about halfway through before time was called.
Walking out of that first session, I was absolutely convinced I had failed.
In my mind, I had:
- One essay I felt really good about (Torts).
- One essay that was basically an outline because I had deleted my answer.
- One half-finished Business Associations essay.
For the afternoon essays, Constitutional Law was just okay. I even left part of one question unanswered. Ethics felt decent, but definitely not amazing.
The only thing I felt truly confident about was the Performance Test. I walked out of that thinking I absolutely crushed it.
Then came the MBE.
It felt harder than anything I had seen during practice. I honestly felt like I was guessing on every other question.
For reference, I was never an amazing MBE scorer. During prep I usually scored somewhere around 60–65%. On the graded essays, I wasn't consistently passing either.
After the exam, I was certain there was no way I had done enough.
I spent months replaying everything in my head. I asked ChatGPT if there was any realistic chance I had passed after bombing the essays, and even those conversations convinced me I probably hadn't.
I had accepted that I was going to have to take the exam again.
Then November 7 came.
I passed.
If you're reading this because you just had a horrible exam experience, please don't count yourself out.
One disastrous essay doesn't automatically mean you failed. Feeling like you guessed on the MBE doesn't automatically mean you failed. Walking out convinced you're doomed doesn't mean you're right.
You don't have to feel good to pass.
You just have to earn enough points.
If someone had told me after that first essay session that I was going to pass the California Bar, I would have laughed.
I was wrong.
I hope this gives someone who's spiraling a little bit of hope.
