Failed the bar exam? Download our free guide on what to do if you failed the bar exam !

We are excited to announce that our students had an on the July 2022 bar exam! — they are on sale for a limited time!

Looking to pass the bar exam? Sign up for our five-star today!

Michigan Bar Exam Assistance Options

in

Ashley-Heidemann-Profile-382x356Michigan bar exam results are not out yet at the time of the writing of this post but we have been receiving several inquiries about bar exam preparation options from both first-time takers and repeat takers. We are summarizing all of the options that we offer bar exam takers in this post.

If you have any specific questions or if you are wondering what our specific recommendation would be for you personally, please contact us by emailing us at your convenience at excellenceinlawschool@gmail.com or calling us at 248-228-5547. We are happy to answer any questions you have and provide personal recommendations for your situation.

Before we outline the Michigan bar exam assistance options, first, we will tell you about us and our company.

About Me: Ashley Heidemann

  • I was fortunate enough to graduate as the No. 1 student at WSU out of over 200 students in my class of 2011.
  • I received a score of 182 on the Michigan Bar exam in  February 2011 (which is in the top first percentile and likely the highest score that administration).
  • I have tutored for the past eleven bar exam administrations. I have a very high bar exam passage rate among my students. Many of my first time takers pass with very high scores and many of my repeat takers see their scores increase significantly – some time as much as 15-30 points.
  • I have very good feedback from my students. To read some testimonials of me, my staff, and our services, please click here.
  • Further, I recently published a book called How to Pass the Michigan Bar Exam. This book has received very high reviews and ratings.
  • Lastly, I love the bar exam. The Michigan bar exam is my passion and I do WHATEVER I can to help my students pass.
  • I have a team of dedicated tutors who I have personally trained to help students pass the bar exam.

Note that I also have very qualified tutors who tutor other state bar exams if you are an out of state student (New York, California, New Jersey, Alaska, to name a few!). We offer a few several sets of options to students. This post focuses on our Michigan bar exam assistance options.

Our Michigan Bar Exam Assistance Options:

Michigan Bar Exam Appeals:

If you were close to passing, you should consider appealing your Michigan bar exam essay score. We love writing Michigan bar exam appeals and have a high rate of success. Last administration, we wrote half of the passing Michigan bar exam appeals in the state. We only take on a very limited amount each administration.  If this is something you are seriously planning on considering and if you are considering using us, we highly recommend you sign up right away to be on our list so that your spot is saved if you choose to use it!. You can read more about Michigan bar exam appeals here.

Michigan Bar Exam Course:

The first option for students studying for the Michigan bar exam is an all-inclusive private bar exam course. Our course meets on most Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings. This includes approximately 23 small-group sessions, 1 private session, and 1 introductory one-on-one meeting to discuss your individual approach to the bar exam. We will cover all of the Michigan essay topics together as well as all of the MBE topics.

Specifically, if you sign up for the course you will receive:

  •  23 small-group sessions and two private sessions.  Further, we are administering one three-hour test for students to complete.
  • Outstanding easy-to-read, well-organized outlines for all Michigan topics and MBE topics. These are specifically-tailored to the Michigan bar exam and we will go over all of the important parts of each one together.
  • A copy of our recent book,  How to Pass the Michigan Bar Exam.
  • Predictions of what will be tested on the July 2016 Michigan bar exam. (We are usually correct in predicting approximately 1/3 of the issues)
  • Unlimited essay feedback.
  •  Unlimited access to me via e-mail, telephone, etc.
  •  Study schedules and homework assignments each week to ensure you are on track.

In the private tutoring sessions, we will go over your essay strategy in-depth, We will give you personal feedback on your essays, and we will talk about your bar exam study plan.  (Also note that we are always available, even outside of the small-group session, to answer any questions you have via e-mail, telephone, etc.).

The course is $5,500 on its own. If you are just looking to sign up for the essay portion, the cost is $2,200; however, we generally recommend that students sign up for both. You can read more about the  course here as well as download a copy of the syllabus. The location will be Birmingham, Michigan.

We do not automatically accept students for the course. If you are interested, we will talk about your bar exam score, your approach to the bar exam, as well as whether the course will be a good fit for you. (Some students, such as students who fail by over twenty-five points, are not good candidates for the course and would benefit more from private tutoring).

It is a competitive course to get into so we recommend early application.

Michigan Bar Exam Essay Course: 

If you struggle especially with essay-writing, sign up for our Michigan bar exam essay course. It is a small-group course that is similar to the “full service” MBE course but only covers the essay portion of the Michigan bar exam.

It is composed of six sessions and is $2,200. To read more about the Michigan bar exam essay course, please see this link.

Private Tutoring for the Michigan Bar Exam:

If you are looking to also receive private tutoring, you can sign up for one of two options:

Option 1: The first option is a “full service” bar exam review course where you and a tutor would cover all of the major, highly-tested topics together one-on-one. This would require approximately 18-20 meetings (usually 1-2 two-hour meetings per week).  We create an individualized study plan for you as well as a weekly schedule and list of things to do. We will provide you with many of our own handouts and materials, read and grade practice essays that you write, and answer any and all questions you have via e-mail, telephone, etc. This would cost $7,200 – $8,500 but can be more depending on how much assistance you require.

We recommend this for students who have failed the bar exam in the past and have a lot of points to make up. We also recommend this to students who have obligations such as working full time or full-time familial obligations. Lastly, we recommend this to students who have the money to commit to bar preparation and want to ensure they do everything they can to never take the bar exam again! Only a very limited number of students are accepted for this full service private tutoring course.

Option 2: The other option is primarily for first time takers or for bar exam retakers who only failed their first bar exam by a few points. This would entail meeting with a tutor on occasion (you choose the number of sessions) and discussing specific areas that you want to cover.

Our most popular two-hour sessions are as follows:

  • We have students nationwide who retain us specifically for two hour sessions to review MBE strategies. Students find my MBE strategies session enormously helpful.
  • We also have several Michigan students each administration who retain us to review MBE topics they have difficulty with. For example, if they struggle with, say, Real Property, we will mail the student my Real Property outline ahead of our meeting, then we will go over the areas they struggle with for two hours in one or two sessions.
  • Many students hire us to cover Michigan topics that commercial courses do a poorer job of covering (Workers’ Compensation, Domestic Relations, Secured Transactions, Personal Property, Trusts/Wills). These are not necessarily all extremely difficult topics, but you have a huge advantage by learning the law that the Michigan Board of Law Examiner’s consistently tests. We make all of our outlines for the essay subjects from the model answers so that you literally have everything that has been tested in the past 25 years organized into an outline!

If you opt for this “a la carte” service, we will meet with you as many times or as few times as you want. We will still provide you with any handouts and materials I create for the topics we go over. We will still read any and all essays you send me to grade for the subjects we discuss and we still consider ourselves “on call” if you have any questions about the subjects we discuss. The main difference between this and the “full” service private tutoring is that we will not be keeping track of what you are doing each week or e-mailing you a weekly calendar. And you do not have any obligation to meet with us each week.  Note that in either case, we keep our tutoring schedules very flexible and offer tutoring during the day on weekdays, weekends, and at night.

Also note that we usually meet students for two-hour sessions at a time. We charge $400 per session. Note that we only charge you for the time we meet together – so there are no surprises! We expect to spend a lot of “outside time” (creating your individualized study plan if necessary, reviewing essays that you have practiced writing, answering questions via e-mail or telephone, etc). We do not charge for these services.  Nor do we charge anything for any supplements/handouts that we will be giving to you.

February 2016 Bar Exam Results Release Information by State – JD Advi...Which Jurisdictions Administer the UBE, MEE, and MPT?