They came on campus yesterday to scare all the 3Ls into taking their course(s). Question: Is it worth it?
Now, they did a very good job explaining the importance of doing well on the MBE*. But doesn't BarBri take care of that? Is there anything to be gained by taking this too?
The pitch made the argument that PMBR materials varied somewhat from BarBri's. Its outlines and questions apparently are derived from treatises and horn books, which, they say, is where the real MBE questions come from. And they say their practice questions look more like actual MBE questions in terms of form and length.
Nonetheless I feel like the sales pitch is done in the same way companies sell worried parents expensive things they don't need. "Yes, it costs money... but isn't your CHILD worth it???" They gave the example of John Kennedy Jr. not passing the NY bar until he took the PMBR to get over the MBE hump. "Yes, our course costs money... but isn't it worth it to pass the BAR???"
The PMBR offers two classes (near as I can tell): a 6-day boot camp pre-BarBri, and a 3-day one either during it or after it. In one sense the 6-day one could be useful; by running everything past you that's you'll need to know during the 6 days, it may be more likely to stick when it comes at you again in BarBri. On the other hand, having taken courses covering many of the bar subjects already, there may already have been much of that preparation.
The other class is a 3-day one that comes after BarBri and serves as a refresher.
The 6-day course costs $795, or $695 with ABA membership. The 3-day costs $395/$325, or $195 if added to the 6-day. You can also buy materials separately.
I've heard conflicting opinions on whether it's worth doing the PMBR, but I'm open to more advice on the subject. Myself, I think the 6-day course is not worth it (if for no other reason than it interferes with the precious little bit of law school recovery time available prior to heading into all this). But I am giving serious thought to the 3-day. Still, more guidance on this would be appreciated.
In the meantime, the pitch did include an interesting mention: they told us that they've been sued for copyright infringement. I'm sure they did this preemptively in order to forestall the inevitable questions on the subject and to allow them to spin their own position. First they told us that they won two of the suits, but then they raised the question of how questions based on legal treatises could be copyrighted at all. But that's neither here nor there. What I found really interesting was how they said that as a result of doing discovery in the lawsuits they were able to find out more about how the exam is written in order to prepare a better course…
* Note for non-law people: the MBE is the Multi-state Bar Exam, an enormous multiple choice section of the bar taken by people in almost every state. It takes up one full day of the exam. (On the other day(s) of the exam you write essay questions on law more directly connected to that particular state.) BarBri is one of the major commercial bar review courses out there, that everyone ends up taking because we're all scared lemmings and possibly also because we don't have any choice...
Comments (8)
I just did BarBri and feel very comfortable with having taken that approach.
Posted by Mark | April 5, 2006 12:23 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 12:23
I suspect that a big part of the reason why PMBR mentions the copyright suit is because it is a "wink wink" signal to the audience that the PMBR questions must be really good (ie taken from actual exams) because otherwise why would the MBE folks have sued PMBR. Aside from what it needs to do to protect itself legally, PMBR does (or at least used to do) everything possible to imply to its clients that it is using actual bar questions (and that BarBri doesn't).
This is one situation where implying to your clients that you are using stolen intellectual property (rather than your own work) is a big plus.
Posted by Mark | April 5, 2006 12:32 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 12:32
Actually they specifically said that the copyright concerns were why the questions were not verbatim, but they used it to affirm that they were very close in style and substance.
Posted by Cathy | April 5, 2006 2:56 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 14:56
Exactly my point-- what they are doing is saying "we stole the questions" (which is what their clients want to hear) "but we're making the legally required miminum number of changes" (which is what they need to say to cover their butt in court.
By actual bar questions, I don't mean the exact words, which they admitly jumble, but the situations and substance of the questions (which they want folks to know are based on their survailance of past exams and acess to non-released questions).
I remember back when I was in high school, our driver's ed teacher was very proud of the fact that his class had a higher percentage pass rate on the written DMV test than any other class. Why was this the case? Well, two days before the DMV came to give us their test, he gave us our final. The day before the DMV came, he went over the right answers. For his final, he included paraphrases of each of the questions on each form of the DMV test (the test didn't change very often). That ensured a high pass rate on the DMV test (and a lot of happily suprised students when they started to read the DMV test).
I think PMBR wants people to think that they are playing this same game. Who knows whether they really are playing that game, and whether their questions are that much better than BarBri's? But in any case, they make money by convincing people that their questions are as close as legally possible to the bar's past questions, and by implying that the get that close by using knowledge of past questions which BarBri doesn't have (ie knowledge of unreleased questions).
This is exactly what their client base wants-- access to unreleased questions-- so it works well for them. Is it legal? Who knows-- its a question of fact-- and really, for the client, who cares...
Mark
Mark
Posted by Mark | April 5, 2006 6:12 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 18:12
You're putting words in their mouth unfairly. They did NOT say that they stole the questions. They said that they created the questions via the same methods that the test writers do. Assuming this to be true (they certainly did not publicly admit that it wasn't) that's perfectly legal.
(What I found interesting was the idea that by having sued them, the test writers ended up making it easier for them to do so.)
Posted by Cathy | April 5, 2006 9:07 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 21:07
Every person is obviously different and a lot depends on whether you are a good multiple choice test taker to begin with; however for my two cents, I say that if you want to do PMBR, which I think helps with the MBE a lot, just buy the red and blue books, do lots of questions, and review your answers. The class itself is a waste aside from the practice test they give you on the first day. (You can buy old MBEs for relatively modest amounts of money from the company who administers the MBE.) You might also consider purchasing "Strategies and Tactics for the MBE" ($50, new edition just came out in January). However, either PMBR OR Strategies and Tactics + Bar/Bri will be PLENTY. Doing the full 3-day class ON TOP of doing Bar/Bri is just overkill; so stick with the books. You'll be so busy while studying you won't have time to do everything, but fortunately, it's only a month and change out of your life!
Posted by Thinking Fool | April 8, 2006 1:12 PM
Posted on April 8, 2006 13:12
I have no idea if PMBR worked, just tooked Georgia Bar exam....nervous as hell.
Some of the questions were similiar but the answers varied so much that the guessing game started to occur with me...the essays and MPts were okay...but the MBE is just a piece of shit....narrowing it down to two helps...but makes you so nervous....sure enough...I did hit it and move on...in less than the 1.8 minutes they tell you...and some of my collegues struggled to even finish...
Posted by james | July 28, 2006 12:21 PM
Posted on July 28, 2006 12:21
pmbr sucks balls. nothing else, they just suck balls. don't waste your money
Posted by eric | August 7, 2008 10:10 AM
Posted on August 7, 2008 10:10