What did John F. Kennedy, Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ed Koch, Richard Daley and Jerry Brown have in common other than politics? The answer is, at one time or another, all failed the Bar Exam. But there’s a New York small business owner who wants to help future exam-takers avoid that same fate.
Trained as a lawyer at Harvard University and as a linguist at the University of Illinois, Dr. Mary Campbell Gallagher has put her training to work to devise what she touts as unique preparation processes for the bar exam.
Founding BarWrite® and BarWrite Press 20 years ago, Gallagher and her staff offer large-group courses and coaching to prepare students for bar examination essays— the Multistate Performance Test and Multistate Bar Exam parts of the exam. She also makes her system for the essays available in her Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays book and CDs.
Slowing growing her company and its reputation, Gallagher added bar-preparation materials to the classes and began to write bar-preparation books for national distribution. Successful with that strategy, Gallagher is quick to point out that the company's growth didn’t happen overnight. "The advertising that worked best for us was word-of-mouth and aiming for excellence," said Gallagher. "You have to be so good that people can’t ignore you."
Despite that success, Gallagher wanted to grow her publishing business. So two years ago she contacted SCORE, Counselors to America's Small Business. A resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration, SCORE provides free business management counseling. "My SCORE counselor, Howard Geltzer, was my mentor," said Gallagher. "Howard taught me the principles of public relations, such as which day of the week I should put out a press release."
Gallagher is currently working on a new bar-preparation book to help students prepare for the MPT portion of the exam. And she’s turned once again to Geltzer and his advice to help launch it. "Based upon my experience, I would advise all entrepreneurs to find their own guardian angels at SCORE," said Gallagher.
More information about BarWrite can be found at: www.barwrite.com.