ProfessorTommy.Tips

From ABA Law Student Division's Student Lawyer , November 10, 2025: If you’ve stepped into my office, you’ve probably noticed the LEGO displays. Some may question my love of LEGO. They may wonder, “Aren’t these toys meant for kids?” But to me, LEGO is much more than plastic bricks. It’s a way of thinking, a method of problem-solving, and a metaphor for what we do as lawyers and, especially, what you are doing as law students preparing for classes and eventually the bar exam.

President Trump recently issued broad, unconditional pardons to dozens of allies tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election , including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and several alleged “fake electors,” for any federal offenses arising from those events. The proclamation, posted by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, explicitly states that the pardon does not apply to Trump himself. Set the politics aside for a moment. For bar examinees, this is

I can’t run a blog called ProfessorTommy.tips with the tagline, “Serious About Success, Fun About the Process," and not talk about one of the most visible bar examinees on the planet. So, yes, I'm going there: Kim Kardashian did not pass the July 2025 California bar exam . And I'm going to treat that not as supermarket tabloid fodder, but as a case study. In her Instagram post (as quoted in the People ), she writes: “Six years into this law journey and I’m still all in until

College basketball tips off today, and that includes the University of Dayton's men's team hosting Canisius University at 7 p.m. in the Epicenter of College Basketball, UD Arena . Source: https://daytonflyers.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster The start of college basketball season also means the annual conversation about " one-and-done " stars is back. Think Carmelo Anthony, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and Zion Williamson—players who spent a single

I went to my first Indiana Pacers game of the season last night. After five straight losses to open the season, the Pacers, who came up just short of winning the NBA Finals last season, finally got a win —and not a soft one. It came against the 4-and-2 Golden State Warriors in a game where the Pacers were a heavy 12-point underdog. All signs before tipoff pointed to a sixth straight loss: the injuries, the record, the matchup, the momentum, the odds. And then, for one night,

The National Conference of Bar Examiners' news release yesterday frames the Jan. 8-10, 2026 “Beta Test” of the upcoming NextGen Uniform Bar Exam as the ultimate readiness test—a capstone proving that the July 2026 exam is good to go. For clarity, a beta test, according to Merriam-Webster , is “a field test of the beta version of a product (such as software) especially by testers outside the company developing it that is conducted prior to commercial release.” Software daevel

If you’ve heard Generation Alpha chanting “six–seven,” which Dictionary.com recently named its 2025 Word of the Year , then congratulations: You’re now holding the perfect icebreaker for explaining bar‑exam scoring to anyone. On the written portion of the Uniform Bar Exam (the six Multistate Essay Exam essays and the two Multistate Performance Test questions), jurisdictions don’t all use the same raw scale. Although a majority of UBE jurisdictions grade your answers on six

Right now, I’m ranked first in my pickleball league. But a lat strain on Monday has me benched. With the matches I’ll miss due to injury, my ranking will slide—likely enough that this season effectively ends. It’s a sharp reminder: rankings are history, but readiness is now. A ranking is a snapshot of past results. It compresses a run of performances into a neat number or place on a list. That can be motivating and validating, but it’s backward‑looking. A leaderboard reflects

Arby’s recently launched Steak Nuggets —hand‑cut, bite‑size pieces of smoked steak seasoned with garlic and pepper—sold like chicken nuggets. You can order them as a 5‑ or 9‑piece with Hickory BBQ sauce, in a sandwich with Havarti and crispy onions, or over white‑cheddar mac and cheese. In the commercial, the narrator actually asks, “How has no‑one done this before?” My answer, after trying them: Because it’s not a great idea. And that's my bar‑prep lesson. When you catch you

You’ve might have heard it by now. The viral mashup of Taylor Swift’s “Elizabeth Taylor” and the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” has taken over social media. It’s a nostalgic, unexpected blend of pop eras that somehow works. And believe it or not, it’s a pretty good preview of what’s coming your way with the NextGen Bar Exam. The Mashup Analogy A mashup works only when two songs—often with very different rhythms, keys, and eras—are artfully combined to sound