Study Groups Aren’t Just Accountability 🤝 — Here’s How Ours Helped Us Pass the Bar 💪📚

TL;DR: Don’t just study with someone — study through them! 🤝 Debate, explain, challenge, and teach each other the law. You’ll learn faster, remember more, and actually master the material 💪📚.

Accountability is great — but what really makes studying with a partner powerful is when you both do the work on your own *and* then come together to really dig in and wrestle with the material together.

Some of the best learning happens when you’re bouncing ideas off each other — breaking down *why* you think your answer is right, poking holes in each other’s reasoning, and connecting dots between subjects (like how something from Contracts might pop up in Torts or Property). That kind of back-and-forth helps you figure out what you actually know, what you don’t, what you *think* you know, and what you can confidently teach because you’ve really mastered the black-letter law and its exceptions.

From my experience, skipping those deeper conversations kind of wastes the opportunity. Talking things out — even when you’re both confused — helps you learn faster, remember more, and build real confidence.

For what it’s worth, I never even planned to sit for the bar until I found a study partner who wanted to get into the weeds and *really learn* the material, not just memorize it. We studied that way for months and took the **July 2025 DC Bar Exam** together (not seated near one another-- just to be clear). We both passed with scores high enough to practice in any UBE jurisdiction. Our overall UBE scores were only **six points apart** — roughly **10–12 raw MBE questions out of 200**, or about **5–8 scaled points out of 175** — and we even had the *exact same scaled written score.*

It just showed how much we both grew in unison by teaching and challenging each other. If you can find someone who’s open to that kind of collaboration — not just accountability, but real intellectual exchange — it can make all the difference. It’s honestly one of the best decisions I ever made...

Also, we did not use a commercial bar prep course, critical pass flash cards, Grossman vids, BarMD, or GOAT​ Prep (nothing against any of these powerhouse resources).

Finally, future low income bar examinees take heart because in the face of the corporate-capitalist bar-prep industrial complex, it is possible to pass this exam and any future bar exam using no to low cost (and recycled) resources in conjunction with a small study group (IF IT IS YOUR THING; not prescribing nor romanticizing a one size fits all aapproach). Okay, time to go... tangential rant incoming... 🤣😂🤣!