Jason Tolerico helped me prep for my bar exam nearly 10 years ago, and I have not had to think about the bar exam since then, so I was surprised to see his lecture video pop up on my tiktok for you page this morning. It brought back a lot of memories.

To be fair, Jason Tolerico did help me pass the bar exam after having failed previously. I would like to preface this by saying that I have never taken a full bar review course by Jason, and he and I probably spent no more than an hour over the phone reviewing for the bar, so my experience with him is very limited.

I noticed a few people feeling concerned about whether he is an effective bar exam review instructor, so I wanted to add my two cents, whatever that’s worth. He was recommended to me by a friend who was taking his course at the time. I couldn’t afford his course, so I reached out to him to see if he could help me figure out how I could improve on my essays. He offered to personally review my essays on a per essay fee. I could only afford to pay for two essays, so he selected two essays on topics that he felt would likely be on the exam— Torts-products liability, and I don’t remember the other. (Products liability was in fact on the exam.) My problem with essays was that I had too much to say and not enough time to put it all down. I knew the material, but I never had enough time to get it all down on paper. I was irac-ing almost everything and Barbri and Themis all looked at my previous essays and told me I was doing great. Jason looked at my essays and was the only person who was able to tell me with confidence where I needed to spend time discussing the issue in depth and where I could get away with a simple one sentence paraphrased irac and move on to discuss what the graders really wanted to see in more detail; where my strongest arguments and time would really be appreciated, and knowing when i had enough down to move on. After understanding that, I did not have difficulty finishing the essays on time— and I even felt confident getting a little creative and out-of-the-barbri-outlines-box on a civil procedure essay— suggesting a final alternative ruling for the court that was not on any bar outline I had reviewed (it was from personal work experience redacting endless discovery)— that ended up getting published as an example by the bar! I know that there is no way to prove it, but I waited for the examples to come out just to see if my answer made it and I know it was mine because I felt good about taking that out of the box risk on the exam and I know what I wrote and how i wrote it all. I do have Jason to thank for that.

I remember briefly discussing with him recommended tools to study for the mbe and we seemed to be on the same page on preferred study materials. I previously failed the bar exam literally by 1 point, so was it possible that I would have passed without Jason’s help? It’s possible, but honestly, the advice he gave me really helped me with my approach to the essays, which was my main area of concern, and until then, I was consistently struggling to finish all of the essays on time, so I feel that I have Jason to thank for passing the exam and being kind enough to charge me an affordable rate.

As for his personality, my interaction with him was brief, and occurred a long time ago, but he never offended me and was not inappropriate. I saw the TikTok clip and I would have felt offended if I was called the R word. I can only say that he was professional when he interacted with me and he did help me pass the bar exam.