About Possue
The story behind building a better way to study for the California Bar Exam
What is Possue?
Possue.com is created by and maintained by a lawyer who failed the February 2020 California Bar Exam and nearly went insane. Like many law students, I usually succeed at things I pour my heart and soul into—but not this time.
Since you only fail when you quit trying, I knew that if I prepared the same way I'd get the same result. As a self-taught, although admittedly not that great of a programmer, I decided to build something to help me with the essay portion.
I wanted a better way to study essays other than sorting through PDFs and sample answers on the State Bar website. Why aren't essays sorted and easily accessible? Who cares? Let's build our own...
Want to see what the letter looks like when you fail?
View Failure LetterWhat is the problem?
The current problem of looking at past exams is two-fold: Published exams are 1) buried in PDF format & 2) the model answers are unrealistic.
PDF files on the State Bar Website can be well over 75 pages and are accompanied by two sample answers that vary in degrees of similarity.
Comparing the two sample answers doesn't lead to an obvious rubric, thus creating the problem of guessing what precise issues the bar examiners wanted. In addition, the naming conventions of the PDFs are inconsistent, which makes linking to them programmatically even more difficult.
Second, looking at model answers from traditional bar prep courses, they seem to be written by someone who had hours if not days to formulate a response resulting in an unrealistic answer. Comparing my timed answer had me feeling grossly inadequate, which fueled my anxiety and just made things worse.
I wanted a way to spot issues, write them down as if I were outlining, check my answers, and move on. That way I could quickly apply my rules and see where I needed work. Remember...
"The facts will always change but the issues stay the same."