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California Bar Exam Strategy
Real strategies used by repeat takers, foreign attorneys, and high-performers to pass the California Bar Exam.
February 2026 Exam Breakdown
Detailed breakdowns of the February 2026 California Bar Exam essays, focusing on issue prioritization, structure, and how top-scoring answers are written.


Community Property Essay Breakdown (California)
👉 Book Free Strategy Call This is a classic Community Property essay, straight and to the point. It tests whether you can apply the basic presumptions, trace separate property, and properly allocate interests across multiple assets. Community Property typically does not test obscure rules and in fact the answers are quite formulaic. Also, the conclusions are not going to dictate your score. Of course you want to apply the rule properly and come to a reasonable decision, but
Daniel Garrett
9 hours ago6 min read


BarWinners Breakdown Civil Procedure
This is a straightforward Civil Procedure essay and probably the most digestible essay of the five from this exam. It tests whether you can stay organized and not overwork issues that are relatively clean. The exam is really about four buckets: subject matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, service of process, and discovery. You also get a big structural clue here. There are four calls and about five paragraphs. That is not random. These essays are usually written in ord
Daniel Garrett
Apr 78 min read


Professional Responsibility Essay Breakdown (CA + ABA)
👉 Book a free strategy call I had been waiting for misleading advertising/specialization/solicitation to be tested on a PR fact pattern for quite some time, and we finally got it. Along with those issues, we had our standard array of duties, unauthorized practice of law, and a few medium/minor issues here and there. A tricky part of PR essays are the duties . They are ubiquitous. You almost can’t go wrong stating a duty, and the same fact can easily go under multiple duties
Daniel Garrett
Mar 3111 min read


BarWinners Breakdown — Contracts/ Remedies (February 2026)
Essay 2 Contracts/Remedies Breakdown The February 2026 California Bar Exam essays are out. If you have not reviewed them yet, you can find them here . I also broke down the Real Property essay from the February 2026 California Bar Exam, which you can read here. This post will focus on the second essay testing Contracts (UCC) and Remedies. In typical Contracts/Remedies fashion, this essay was not only dense with issues, but many of these issues were major and required efficie
Daniel Garrett
Mar 288 min read


BarWinners Breakdown — Real Property (February 2026)
If you're struggling with essay structure or timing: 👉 Book a free strategy call Essay 1 Real Property Breakdown The February 2026 California Bar Exam essays (just not sample answers) are out. If you have not seen them yet, you can find them here. Here is what Essay 1, Real Property, was actually testing and what separated a 55 from a 65 and a 75. This was a difficult fact pattern. It was dense, and tested waste pretty heavily, which is rare. There were three calls: Reed ve
Daniel Garrett
Mar 257 min read
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