About Us

Meet Steven

Steven Perez Harris, Esq., was preparing to be an exceptional bar exam tutor for most of his life. He just didn’t know it.

He met President Clinton. Vice President Gore talked about his work on the White House lawn. He was the note-taker at a meeting at the House of Lords about the Americans with Disabilities Act and briefed Lord Ashley of Stoke about his casework while working as an investigator at the United States Department of Justice… and helped some law school graduates obtain accommodations for their bar exams. He learned how to be independent and resourceful and develop national policy at the age of 23… and helped investigate Boards of Law Examiners regarding Character and Fitness Inquiries and their compliance under Title II of the ADA.

Steven went to law school at UC Hastings and was the top Oral Advocate at Hastings in its Snodgrass Intercollegiate Moot Court Competition, and went on to compete on Hastings’ top Moot Court Team at the National Moot Court Competition.

And then he failed the Cal Bar exam. But every other person fails the Cal Bar at least once. That wouldn’t have stopped Steven from his goal to become an Assistant US Attorney in DC and then move back to the Bay Area and become a US Attorney someday.

But fate intervened and he failed the Cal Bar a second time. And then he learned who he really was. Because that kind of failure will do that to a person. He learned the Psychology of Failure. After failing the first 16 essays in his bar prep class, he invented the Essay Review Program, passed the final essay… and saw it again on the Cal Bar Exam three weeks later. He re-crafted a memorization program that he learned. And passed the February 2000 Cal Bar Exam!

But he… Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

No. He crafted a new writing structure and had to see if the sample answers to his bar exam wrote like he did.

They didn’t.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

No. He just had to find out why he passed the bar but the sample answers didn’t write like he did.

The other 99% of the people who passed the Bar Exam? THEY moved on with the rest of their lives.

Steven didn’t.

He looked at sample answer after sample answer. Even after he passed the Bar Exam. And he discovered what the sample answers did most frequently.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Steven was a Presidential Management Intern at the United States Department of Labor. Then he moved on to become a Senior Staff Attorney at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But… he began teaching Legal Writing and Moot Court (and eventually Critical Studies I, II, and III) at UC Hastings.

And he began grading essays and PTs for Bar/Bri Bar Review. On the side.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Then Bar/Bri offered Steven the chance to talk with students who called in and asked for tutoring. If you lived anywhere from Fresno to the Oregon border, and you asked about tutoring for the Cal Bar Exam, you were referred to one person: Steven Perez Harris, Esq.

And so the tutoring program began.

New classes came: Steven started teaching pre-bar classes at schools like Santa Clara, USF, Cal Northern, and Davis. He started teaching a PT Class for Bar/Bri and used the tools he learned as a History major at Berkeley to chronicle the tricks the Cal Bar used on PTs. Students wound up reading 1/3 of the material they were used to reading and PTs got a whole lot more manageable.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

And on June 28, 2003, a watershed moment occurred: he invented the Evidence Boilerplate. Eighteen years later, still hasn’t been replicated, and students have Am Jur’d Evidence classes and crushed Bar Exams as a result.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

In December 2003, Steven embarked on a journey that no other tutor has even contemplated: analyzing sample answers from a past bar exam by comparing the sample answers to each other and comparing them to student answers with scores ranging from 50 (even 45 sometimes) all the way up to 75 (and sometimes 80 and 85!). The Cal Bar Exam Spreadsheets were born. No, he wasn’t a Bar Exam grader. Didn’t need to be. Because Steven dug deeper than any Bar Exam grader ever did and found where the bodies were buried. On every essay. And every PT. For every Bar Exam. And as of now, for 17-1/2 years. 35 spreadsheets. And the rest of the Bar Exam community, combined (including the graders): zero.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Steven realized where his passion was: his expanding tutoring program. And in 2004, after leaving his last job, he realized he had to make a decision. Was this tutoring thing just a hobby, a scratch to itch once in a while? Or was this thing, that he Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go., going to be his full-time job?

The History major from Cal Berkeley was going to run his own business? Really?

Really.

And so the program expanded. More students. More classes. More essays and PTs to grade.

The PR Boilerplate arrived in 2006. The subject guaranteed to be on the Bar Exam. Deconstructed and analyzed so students could defeat it.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

New opportunities surfaced. Helping students with learning disabilities since the DOJ days helped Steven help students with 1.25, 1.33, 1.5, and 2x time accommodations succeed on the test.

Students began asking for help from far-flung locales. First from LA, San Diego, and Sacramento. Then Texas, Boston, Pittsburgh and Florida.

Then the program went international. England, France.

And through it all, unlike some programs, Steven didn’t turn down anyone. As long as he had space and they could afford the program, he took them in. ABA, Cal-accredited, unaccredited, judge’s chambers. Whatever. If he had space, and you had the tuition, you had a tutor.

And then something interesting happened. Programs began providing less and less help. But Steven never changed his program: there are three parts to the exam, and so there are three parts of Steven’s tutoring program. Essays? Check. PTs? Check. MBE too? Check.

Steven kept teaching at Hastings. And he kept listening to his students. Some said his writing structure couldn’t translate into rules for PR. So he drafted a PR outline according to his writing structure. Others said an Evidence outline couldn’t be drafted with his writing structure. So he drafted an Evidence outline within a week.

And so, for the attorney and professor who Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go., 2008 was a watershed year. A book of bluebook-ready outlines written according to one writing structure was born: WINNIN’ TIME! was born on April 1, 2008.

Five months later, or eight years after he invented the Essay Review Method and issue spotting via words and phrases, he published The Trigger List. Steven feared that if he listed triggers for each issue on each essay, students wouldn’t use the Essay Review Method and would instead use the Bar Exam Cliff’s Notes and cheat. He realized that we’re all adults here, and so the list of triggers got published. Hence, The Trigger List was born. Thirteen years later, there isn’t even a cheap alternative. It’s the only streamlined method to systematically issue spot on essays. What, you weren’t satisfied when your professor said, “Just look at enough essays and you’ll be fine?”

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Two years later, in 2010, after a 10-year journey, Steven finalized a context-based method to tutor the MBE 1-on-1. Years later he found out that there are only two other tutors that tutored the MBE 1-on-1: someone in the Midwest and someone in Florida, and neither of them knew anything about the Cal Bar Exam or cared to learn. But Steven did.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

In 2016, while teaching Critical Studies I at Hastings, Steven realized a major problem was coming. The Cal Bar was transforming to a 2-day exam, and the Performance Test was being truncated from a 3-hour exam to a 90-minute exam. Suddenly, all of the PT exams Steven used in his tutoring program became obsolescent. Straight out of the Cretaceous!

So what to do? You know what’s coming:

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Steven used the two PTs in his class as opportunities to help his students learn the new format. Ten months in advance. So he took his go-to PTs, and truncated the Library and File himself so students would have a realistic experience. And then he kept going and going and going. And he had 10 PTs truncated by the time the February 2017 Cal Bar Exam results were published in May 2017.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Some tutors don’t tutor the PT at all. Others used the vastly easier Multistate Performance Test. Steven chose the harder way out, used his truncated PTs to help students learn the old PT types, AND took the first 45 minutes of each PT from 2017 – present so he could learn the problems that students had on the prior exam. In real time.

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

And then the pandemic arrived. The Cal Bar got rescheduled once. Then twice. Steven could have panicked. Or charged his students more for working three additional months with every student.

He did neither.

Instead, when the California Supreme Court finalized its decision for the October 5-6 exam, all of his students’ bespoke tutoring calendars became obsolescent.

Panic? Or look straight into the tsunami and defiantly declare, “Bring It!”

You know the answer:

Just. Couldn’t. Let. It. Go.

Reimagined, fearless calendars. Brilliant new discoveries about how to outline essays efficiently on the computer without getting bogged down in Scrolling Hell. Even more fearless plans for how to enjoy Fourth Dimensional Chess and avoiding Scrolling Hell on the PTs.

From confronting the daily psychological demons of saying “Haven’t passed yet” 50 times a day as a multiple repeater, Steven conquered his fears and have helped hundreds of students cheat failure for over two decades. First timers to twelfth timers. Traditional-timed takers to double-time accommodations. Top of the class to bottom 5%. Yale to unaccredited school. Five points away to 300 points away. Anxiety. Autism. Tutoring at 8:30 pm Sunday for a 12:30 pm meeting on Monday… at the same time.

Who am I? Husband and Father. Attorney. Tutor (21 years of experience, 1-on-1, on the essays, PTs, and yes, 1-on-1 help on the MBE!). Professor (21 years of experience helping first-timers, repeaters, Attorney applicants). Author (five books). Emphatic Cheerleader. Badass Believer. Inventor. Disciple of Fate.