Passing the Bar Board Game

I am an attorney and purchased this for my husband who is studying for the Illinois bar exam. He previously did not pass the exam, so we were looking for ways to learn the material differently. We have played 3 times so far, and he keeps saying it is fun and really helping him. Here is my thorough analysis of the instructions, pros, and cons of this game.INSTRUCTIONS:Basically, it is like monopoly, but the instructions are designed to be instructional, so the pace is slower and progress is based on answering questions correctly. You roll the dice and get a 1, 2, 3 (least likely), or Justice. If you get a number, you move that many spaces then you have to answer a question for the subject you land on. You cannot progress any further until you answer a question from that subject right, so you might sit there a few turns. If you get a Justice on the dice or land on a Justice space, you get a Justice card containing "fun" questions about outrageous verdicts, legal movie trivia, and celebrity legal drama. The Justice cards seem to be thrown in just to break up the monotony of MBE questions. You have to go all the way around the board moving slowly and answering enough questions to get to the center, where you must answer correctly 3 professional responsibility questions to win. For each question, there is an hourglass constituting a 2-minute timer.PROS:- My husband says this game is helping him learn to study for the bar exam. He has other similar products with sample MBE questions, so this is a fun way for him to go through practice questions.- The instructions require everything to be read out loud, so everyone playing gets to think through the question, reason their answer in their head, hear the correct answer and reasoning, and learn in the process. It's like double the learning! It also means that you are using multiple learning styles (reading, talking, and hearing) to get the information into the student's head. We have also both reasoned it out out loud together before checking the right answer.- The cards all contain sample MBE questions with short explanations of the right answer. So even if you get it wrong, you can learn why. My husband says the questions seem to be slightly easier than those from his Adaptibar program.- There are 350 different questions spanning all MBE and MPRE topics. We have gone through quite a bit during the 3 games so far, and I am planning to purchase the 450-card expansion deck since he has 2 months left to play before the exam.- The construction of the game is high quality. The board it sturdy and pretty, the cards are thick and glossy (although a couple were stuck together), the storage box keeps everything neat and tidy.- It is "fun" (relatively speaking). My husband keeps asking me to play again and again.- My order arrived promptly wrapped in brown paper in brand-spanking-new condition.CONS:- The game is LONG. It has taken us about 3 hours on average per game, because progress is slow. That was with only 2 players who are knowledgeable about law. I am thinking of modifying the rules to speed up the game, like avoiding the Justice cards.- This game can ONLY be played by lawyers, law students, or those studying for the bar. Ideally, it should be played ONLY by those studying for the bar. It was even difficult for me, a practicing attorney for many years, because the questions are geared toward the MBE. Don't try to play this with your non-lawyer friends, they won't enjoy it.- There are some typos, which were kind of annoying considering it is a lawyer's game. However, the typos were generally non-substantive.- My gameboard did not look exactly like the one in the picture, but the changes really don't affect gameplay at all.- The game only came with 350 questions and the option to separately purchase 450 more questions (NOT INCLUDED). I know that's a lot, but you can go through these pretty quickly when playing.- Some of the Justice cards are geared more to those born in the '70s (or earlier) who might remember some celebrity drama from the' 80s and '90s. I found it difficult to answer many of the Justice cards without additional prompting.Overall, definitely a great product for bar studiers and worth the price (I paid $40, current price is $65, the price keeps changing, presumably based on demand and availability). Especially great for those who need a bit extra help or to study in different ways using different learning tools.UPDATE 3/7/17: After owning this for a few months and playing many many times, I can honestly say that we did not run out of questions after adding in the 450 NCBE pack. However, we noticed that there were actually a number of questions from the NCBE pack of 450 which were WRONG. Meaning, the correct answer choice was totally incorrect, and either there was no explanation or the explanation proved it was incorrect. We have probably discarded 6 to 10 cards because of this. So just be careful!! While it was still very helpful for my husband to practice bar questions in a fun way, it would have been terrible had he relied on the wrong answers as correct. Thankfully, my husband looked up every answer he got "wrong" to review the material, and in a few cases, discovered the cards were wrong, not him! Note that this only happened once or twice with the regular 350-questions that came with the game.

Bought this as a Christmas present for my husband who is a third-year law student. If your law student enjoys trivia (mine does), legal challenges (mine does), and basically geeking out over law (mine does!) than they might just love this game.The questions are quality questions (though I found a lot of typos) and, if nothing else, was a great gift to present a soon-to-be lawyer.

Bought it for my newest niece-by-marriage as she is preparing for the LSAT and law school. I wanted to give her something fun to help her with her studies. Will update when we've played a round or two. ;)

Game was delivered in a timely manner. I bought this as a gift for a friend in law school. The game is easy to use and is a great way to study stress free.

Bought for my son in law school has a great time with friends breaking up stidy time with some dun, who would of thought law students are competitive.

It was a gift for a husband & wife both taking the bar. Seems expensive but I guess that is because it is for lawyers and everything about the law is expensive LOL

The fact patterns make a lot of assumptions and the players need to essentially mind-read which assumptions the game is looking for. You need to know the law to play, in part, because the questions and answers are either basic (without recognizing important nuances that are tested on the bar exam) or otherwise slightly off. It may be worth it as a gift for a brand new law student but is a complete waste of money if you've made it half-way to your third year. If you are studying for the bar, just stay away. It will frustrate you and feel like a waste of time.

Great game for anybody studying for the Bar. Just gave it to my son for Law School Graduation. He thought it was cool.