ProfessorTommy.Tips

California is officially in “pick a path” mode for what comes after the Multistate Bar Examination (the current NCBE-licensed multiple-choice portion of the bar exam) is eliminated with the July 2028 bar exam. State bar leaders recently advanced two different routes for deeper study. Option 1: Go National (NextGen UBE, no California add-on) One track is to adopt the NCBE’s NextGen Uniform Bar Exam without a California-specific component. Supporters point to the benefits you’d

Yesterday, climber Alex Honnold completed a ropeless (“free solo”) ascent of Taipei 101 as part of a Netflix-produced event —an undeniably high‑risk feat that instantly sparked the same reaction most people have when watching extreme stunts: “That is dangerous.” I don’t know what the contractual negotiations looked like behind the scenes (permits, insurance, releases, waivers, safety protocols, etc.), including how risk and responsibility may have been allocated among the pr

Some pop-culture moments don’t happen because a studio planned a crossover. They happen because the calendar accidentally creates one. And people can’t resist treating it like an event. We saw that in Summer 2023 with “ Barbenheimer ”: Barbie and Oppenheimer opened on the same day (July 21, 2023) and audiences turned it into an unlikely double-feature phenomenon. Two completely different vibes. One shared release date. Suddenly, “which one are you seeing?” became “are you d

I recently broke my pinky toe. It’s the kind of injury that feels almost comical to even say out loud. A pinky toe? That’s barely a toe. It’s the bar prep equivalent of thinking, “It’s just one small issue. Surely it won’t matter.” So I did what a lot of smart, capable people do with small problems: I ignored it. I broke it on Dec. 21, 2025. At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal. I could still walk. I could still function. I told myself it would “work itself out.” I didn't

January 15 is National Hat Day. It's a fun excuse to break out your favorite cap, beanie, fedora, or “good luck” hamburger hat. But on bar exam day, headgear is one of those “seems harmless, becomes a problem” items. Here’s the big picture: State boards of bar examiners' and the National Conference of Bar Examiners' NCBE test-day policies generally require your head (and often ears) to be uncovered for exam security. And many jurisdictions expressly prohibit hats/caps/hoods i

For years, the Uniform Bar Examination portability pitch was simple: take the exam in one UBE jurisdiction place, transfer an eligible score to another UBE jurisdiction. The NextGen UBE transition is turning that simple idea into a more complicated planning problem, especially during the July 2026 through February 2028 window when some jurisdictions will be administering the NextGen UBE and others will still be offering the Legacy UBE. Recently, the landscape has started to c

Mike Tomlin is the longtime head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers , and he’s famous for delivering short, memorable one-liners in press conferences. (Steelers fans call them “ Tomlinisms .”) After the Steelers and Ravens played a chaotic, down-to-the-wire game that ended on a missed last-second field goal that sent the Steelers into the playoffs and ended the Ravens' season, a reporter asked Tomlin to put into words how razor-thin the margin was between season over and kee

I was scrolling today and saw a CNN Underscored headline about down jackets. It was clearly supposed to say something like, "We tested 13 down jackets to find the warmest winners." But the headline said "warmest winers." Source: www.cnn.com Yes, I know what they meant. Winner . Not winer . Still, that one missing letter changed how I read the entire piece. Because here’s what immediately happened in my brain: If something as simple as a headline wasn’t proofread, what else in

As we say farewell to 2025, let's take a look at the Top 10 most visited blog posts over the past year: 1. Early Signals from July 2025 Bar Exam Results (Sept. 9, 2025) Excerpt: “The National Conference of Bar Examiners has begun releasing first-time bar passage rates for jurisdictions that have reported July 2025 results, and the early numbers provide an interesting—if incomplete—snapshot. We now have data from seven jurisdictions, and the picture is ... mixed .” 2. Moonw

The holiday season means binge-watching a few TV series and movies with the kids. That means a lot of Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 , there’s a short exchange where Nova Corps officer Rhomann Dey tries to send the new “heroes” off with a warning: "Your criminal records have also been expunged. However, I have to warn you against breaking any laws in the future." Rocket and Drax the Destroyer immediately do what law students, bar ex