BARBRI Reviews 378

I did the SQE1 prep course with Barbri, and I passed on my first sitting! I had not studied law before and I do not work in a firm.

Barbri offers so much support, and the teaching style helped me overcome my fears. The language is very accessible. This is the "law for dummies" reassurance I was looking for!

A huge thank you to Barbri for providing me with all of the knowledge and support I needed to pass the SQE1, and a shout out to my learning coach Joanne White who was always there to help me when I needed it! I am so grateful for our regular catch ups through what can be a very daunting process.

I did the 20 week course with BARBRI for SQE1 and passed on my first attempt.

Would highly recommend the course for anyone! It is online so is also very suitable for anyone working or anyone who wants to study for the SQE but needs to be flexible with their time and study at their own pace.

It is a combination of online lectures, readings, many many practice tests, mocks and tutor support (there are lots of resources to use). All of this is available on their personalised platform and you can schedule your study time around your timetable.

The tutors are very friendly, engaging, responsive and offer really excellent support ahead of a very difficult exam :)

My experience with BARBRI's SQE1 coaching exceeded all my expectations. The spaced learning MCQs, mixed practice questions and the topic-wise lectures make the course really accessible and easy to follow. The best thing about the whole experience was the Personal Study Plan (PSP) which broke down the tasks for me to do each day and each week. This helped push me to constantly achieve my goals week by week, which helped keep anxiety at bay. The PSP made sure that I had learnt everything and completed all my mocks right in time for my exams! I am pleased to report that I passed in the first quintile at my first attempt- so the course really works. Would 10/10 recommend BARBRI to anyone doing their SQE1.

I joined the 40wk SQE1 Prep courses by BARBRI in order to maintain balance with my full-time job and studying for SQE1.

The courses contain a variety of study materials with alternating methods of interacting with them: video lectures, mock MCQs, a full-text study guide, mock exams, revision MCQs and a revision textbook. The study materials contain sufficiently detailed information in order to prepare you for the SQE1 exam (although I feel land law/property practice materials could use a little more detail). They are also written in easy-to-understand English, which was particularly important for me as I am not a native English speaker. The best part of the whole learning experience was that I never had to take any notes throughout the course (except for the final revision stage, but that's just my style for dealing with any gaps in my knowledge).

The supplemental materials to account for changes in law were published regularly. The substantive study questions were answered within the promised turnaround times (though the quality of the responses varied from 'very helpful with detailed explanations' to 'referring you back to the study materials you based your questions on').

In the end, the courses helped me pass SQE1 in the first quintile for both FLK1 and FLK2 assessments.

With the 40-week prep course, I was able to pass the exam on my first attempt. Coming from a non-legal background, SQE is my first legal exam. All the knowledge required was new to me. I like BARBRI's approach to answering the question and the learning materials. I submitted many substantive questions and I appreciate BARBRI answering all of them in detail. AGAIN, THANK YOU!

Excellent preparation for the SQE 1 exam!

I cannot express enough gratitude to BARBRI for their exceptional SQE Prep courses that paved the way for my success in passing both exams on my first attempts. From the comprehensive study materials to the invaluable guidance provided by my learning coach, Joanne White, every aspect of my preparation journey was amazing.

I wholeheartedly recommend the BARBRI SQE Prep Courses to anyone looking to embark on their SQE journey, confident that they will receive the best possible support and resources to succeed.

BARBRI focuses only on what is necessary for the exam and does not waste your time on extraneous details. Hyper efficient, excellent quality, ample test practice. Excellent exam provider!

Barbri provide short but engaging lectures on the materials covered in SQE 1. My learning coach was so helpful and I could book an appointment with her at any time she was available however many times you need. You get physical as well as online books which is great and you can search and highlight in the online books. They have lots of multiple choice questions and a few mocks that you can practice before the exams. The PSP guided you with how much time you need to study each week to stay on top and the progress reports tell you which subjects you need to work on.

I did feel after sitting the exams the questions were a little easier than the actual exams and I think the fact patterns in Barbris sample questions could be more detailed and longer.
The updates document was helpful but I did feel like updates came a little late and the document was unorganised.

I would recommend students to study with Barbri based on my experience.

i am taking the sqe exam in Jan 2024. What if i dont pass this time and need to resit. Is the course materials still open for access online until my resit?

Super disappointed. I work full time and wanted to start early so I prepaid for the entire course and only then did they tell me they would not mail the materials for almost two months. When i did receive the materials they are so riddled with errors, five sections have digital notes because the printed versions were not updated prior to printing. There are even typos in the chapter headings. The printing quality sucks you can hardly read the graphs and charts. And the answers for the essays that you use for self grading actually misquote the facts from the fact pattern. The time log is constantly inaccurate, requiring me to go back and once again mark as complete assignments I have already completed. I am unbelievably frustrated. I am so sorry I went with Barbri. It is way too expensive to have all of these errors and distractions.

While I appreciate that the laws change, the books should be updated more regularly. I started the course Aug 2023, while my book was published in 2022 (No month published). There were 11 pages of supplementary notes with 25 days of updates and more than 50 amendments across different subjects. I am aware of at least one law change (9 months ago) that is not present in the supplementary information.
While tests were helpful, some of the questions and answers were incorrect due to the above information. Questions and answers need to be updated in real-time.
Response time to questions was good.
The system did not always work. Sometimes, being locked out of course entirely and constant errors in loading tests.
Lectures were sometimes very difficult to hear; the volume was too low.
I will be looking elsewhere for SQE2 which is disappointing as BARBRI is supposed to be a 'Global leader in legal education'.

I have chosen to study for the SQE1 using Barbri's 40 week prep course. After 3 months of studying with Barbri, I am starting to see the limitations of their SQE1 course. I will list my impressions below.

Pros:
- The SQE1 course has a good structure which is relatively easy to follow and keeps you on track on your studying journey.
- The learning method Barbri is proposing through the Personal Study Plan is pretty good and research-based which provides a bit of comfort
- The repetition of materials helps memorising the information
- The Study Guides are pretty good and easy to follow and contain lots of examples throughout.

Cons:
- The timeline that Barbri provides for studying is unrealistic; every task on the personal study plan takes a lot longer than Barbri says it will take, so you will always be behind. They say that your study commitment will be 10-12 hours per week, but that is not true. For example, my personal study plan for this week involves 18+ hours of studying which are difficult to fit around my full time job.
- The online personal study plan is glitchy for most students. Mine says that I haven't completed any assignments, even though I'm 3 months into the course. I emailed Barbri and they said they would try fixing it but nothing happened. If you manually amend your schedule, it also changes the study days oddly whereby some study weeks are longer than others.
- Some of the lecturers in the video lectures are terrible, they are like robots reading from a screen so the lectures are not engaging at all (to add insult to injury, they also force the lecturers to make cringe comments or jokes throughout the lectures which I found unnecessary)
- The Barbri materials provided to me for the exam year 2023/2024 seem to be produced and printed around 2021 so some rules and legislation are out of date. I found myself having to Google every section of the study guide to see if the law is still like it says in the book or whether it has changed. This is time consuming!
- The Barbri materials are NOT enough to study or prep for the SQE1 exam. I've had to buy additional books and subscriptions from other providers to ensure all the material is covered for the exam and for me to feel ready for my exam. I would not feel comfortable to rely solely on the Barbri study guides.
- The personal study plan is designed in a way which does not factor in you writing notes. Every study task is either reading, watching a lecture or doing quizzes/questions. Nowhere in the personal study plan allows time for writing down notes. Even the learning coaches are encouraging students to NOT make notes until revision time which I find outrageous.
- Revision time on my study plan for each topic is set to1 hour. Barbri thinks that you can revise a 300-page long subject in 1 hour - again, laughable.
- Barbri will charge you over £300+ if you cannot get an exam slot because of SRA, not because of your own fault. When you select your SQE1 prep course, you also must choose an exam month and year. If you try booking that specific exam and the SRA no longer have spaces, Barbri will ask you for money - this should be illegal!

With over 2,500 MCQs on the platform and concise lectures, I feel confident for my January exam.

The course is structured, logical and easy to study - thank you for that. However, the mobile app is hell - it never works properly.

Excellent and properly constructed preparation programme. Was extremely helpful and clear to follow when preparing for SQE

The course is perfectly design to achieve best results in exam. Support of learning couch is of great importance.

Barbri was extremely helpful to me for bar preparation. All of the instructors were insightful and engaging. As a martial artist and martial arts film aficionado, Professor Moll's references to Bloodsport helped me remain engaged and focused. The course materials were quite readable, and I did not find myself getting bored easily. Preparing for the bar was tough, but the Barbri experience made studying for the bar as pleasant an experience as possible.