Dear Wormwood:

Yesterday was the last of the BarBri classes.

Barbri now joins the collection of things that "all law students do" that in hindsight I consider to be a mistake. For a couple of thousand dollars, I received seven books from which I've done all my studying, a "PaceProgram" schedule of repetitive tasks and a little purple membership card. The card in turn provided me with access to hours of taped lectures, the vast majority of which were less informative than simply reading the handouts.

That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the penchant of some Barbri lecturers to mistake their shiny blue podium for the stage of the Dave Chappelle show. Don't get me wrong, my dear Wormwood: the lecture by Prof. Torts caused much of the audience to split their sides with laughter. But he also turned four hours of material into three days of presentation. I would have been better off if Barbri provided me with a drier lecturer and a $200 rebate so that I could use the spare time and money at the Improv. On the other hand, Prof. Torts stood out as the best of a bad bunch: many of the other Jack Black wannabees succeeded in producing only groans. (A particular mental scar remains from the rendition of "It Wasn't Me" to illustrate a point of Property.) Out of the whole course, precisely one joke has stuck with me as a mnemonic. [1]

I've loathed the course. I'll freely admit I've skipped quite a few classes, gathering notes from prior years or other students and sitting at home calmly reading through them rather than sweating in a classroom. At least according to their mock MBE, it hasn't hurt me much. In the meantime, I've been following my own course of study for the last few months, having transformed their PaceProgram into a project plan, used the good ol' project management triage to figure out what was necessary, trimmed the fat and--more or less--stuck to it.

I'll have to agree with Ambimb, however: the StudySmart software is fun. But that just makes me wonder if I would have been better off with MicroMash.

In any event, maybe I'll fail the bar because I've failed to follow BarBri's prescriptions. We'll have to see, dear Wormwood. I do know, however, that it didn't have to be so painful to get to where I am now.

[1]: In evidence, a prior present recollection can be refreshed by anything, not just a writing. The joke involved refreshing Homer Simpson's memory while he was on the stand by giving him a beer. (Update: I guess the mnemonic didn't help all that much.)