Gerald Burke, M.D., Esq. says:

I wanted to let you know that I did pass both the PA and NJ Bar Exams in February.  I am already sworn into the Bar in PA and I am in the process of submitting my materials for New Jersey.

I also wanted to let you know how valuable I found your course, your instruction, and your approach to preparing for and taking the exams.  By gleaning the issues out of the previous 6 years of exams, then preparing outlines emphasizing those issues to focus my study efforts, it really maximized my study time.  This helped to reduce what initially appeared to be an overwhelming volume of material to a semi-manageable quantity.

Your emphasis on spending 45 minutes and no more on each question was also invaluable to me.  I often found myself running well beyond this time when I was working on the February back exams writing my own essay answers to those questions.  I made sure that I modified my techniques for reading the questions and then outlining and writing the answers to fit within these strict 45 minute parameters.

Finally, recognizing that, in NJ, each tested subject was tested in only one of the seven questions, proved invaluable to me.  I felt that Constitutional Law and Civil Procedure were my two weakest areas.  The Constitutional Law question was asked before lunch.  That meant that the Civ Pro question would be one of the three after lunch questions.  I had the ability to go out at lunch time and review Civ Pro in my car one last time.  Fortunately, much of the question was answerable based on the materials in that brief review.

You had so well prepared me for the NJ essay exam that, by the time I finished reading the 7th and final question, the first thought that popped into my mind was, "If I don't pass this time, I never will because they could never again ask seven questions that I know this much about."  I really felt that, after I finished the NJ essays, that passage of the exam for me would hinge on doing well enough in the MBE.

Regarding the MBE, as I may have alluded to you, I was generally getting 65 to 80% of the Bar Bri questions right and I never really had the time to do as many questions or consult other question books as you had recommended.  I think that my final, scaled score was around 140, which seems to have been adequate to pass.

Finally, let me just thank you again for all of your efforts.  I found them important and really appreciated it.  Even though I took the Bar Bri course the summer of 2008, I feel that your weekend NJ Essay course was really the key to my passing the Bar Exams.  I am proud to call you my Professor, friend and colleague.