You won't need both honestly. Not even the classes are that beneficial - I never got much out of them anyway, so stopped taking them after the very first Bar I ever took long ago. Get the Bar/Bri books and study those, run through those practice exams, and you'll be fine. Has worked for me for numerous state bars in which I have been admitted, always passing with ease the first go around.
Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that. I figure if the firm is gonna pay for it, I'll take any edge I can get to pass, especially my first time around. Hopefully if I ever need to be admitted to another bar I'll either get reciprocity (which I hear most states don't have) or be in a more confident position for the exam.
It comes down to a matter of overkill. You'll find that you will be better served by reading the materials, going through the drills and so on. You'll have more than enough to work through with one review program, regardless of who's footing the expense.
As for reciprocity, I've gotten into a few state Bars that way, but have taken far more Bars than reciprocity provides. By the way, Pennsylvania shares reciprocity with Texas - a good thing to acquire regardless of whether you need it; at a minimum, it also looks good on letterhead.
Thanks for the Penn. tip - definitely agree on acquiring it, even if just for looks. I'll probably get the DC one as well - from my understanding if you graduated from an ABA accredited school and got whatever minimum scores on the MBE and MPRE you're admitted to the DC bar.
You're probably right on the overkill. Once everything gets going I'll probably scale back, but hey, I just want to pass! The main reason I signed up for PMBR was the MBE questions, so hopefully I'll be able to combine those with BarBri materials and be fine.
