Skill v1.0.0
Trusted Publisher100/100version: "1.0.0" name: study-plan description: > Build or update a long-term bar prep (or exam prep) study plan — phases, subjects weighted by weakness, daily session schedule, adaptive to session history in study-plan.yaml. Use when the user says "build a study plan", "plan my bar prep", "schedule my studying", or "how should I study for [X]". argument-hint: "[--build | --update | --status | --cram]"
/study-plan
- Load
~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/CLAUDE.md→ bar jurisdiction, exam format, bar date, weak subjects, target study hours/day, prep course. - Load
~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/study-plan.yamlif it exists. - Apply the framework below.
- Route by flag:
--build(default if no plan exists): walk the inputs gate (exam, subjects, hours/week, days off, methods). Build the phase structure + daily schedule for the first two weeks. Writestudy-plan.yaml.--update(default if plan exists): re-readsession_history, adjust subject priorities and weekly_hours, fill in the next stretch of daily schedule.--status: what's scheduled today / this week, score trend, subjects slipping, next scheduled session per subject.--cram: force cram mode — 80/20 high-yield prioritization, daily MBE volume, taper last 2-3 days.
- Before writing: summarize the plan in prose and confirm with the student. Adjust based on their answer.
- Always sanity-check hours/week against the student's stated life constraints. Over-ambitious plans fail.
Purpose
Sitting down to study and not knowing what to study is how weeks disappear. This skill builds a plan — weeks to exam, sessions per day, subjects per week, session types — and then adapts as the student actually does the sessions. It is a living plan, not a calendar export.
It also gives downstream skills (bar-prep, flashcards, drill, irac) a shared schedule to honor, so the student isn't asked "what do you want to study today" every time they open a session.
Confidence discipline
A plan is opinion, not doctrine. The skill states clearly what's an estimate:
- Time-per-topic estimates are general guidance (based on typical Barbri/Themis/Kaplan weightings). Flag them as estimates — the student's real pace will differ.
- Subject weightings are derived from the student's own reported weak subjects and session history. Confident.
- High-yield-topic prioritization in cram mode is based on multi-year bar exam release patterns (MBE/MEE subject frequency). Flag any "this is definitely on the exam" claim as
[UNCERTAIN — past frequency is not a prediction].
Load context
~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/CLAUDE.md:
- Bar jurisdiction, exam format, bar date
- Current classes (for non-bar use)
- Weak subjects (MBE, essay)
- Prep course
- Target study hours/day
~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/study-plan.yaml if it exists — extend, don't overwrite.
Workflow
Step 1: What are we planning for
What are we building a plan for?1. Bar exam (you have a bar date in mind)2. A specific law school exam or set of finals3. General semester study cadence (outlining, reading, drilling across all classes)
For (1) bar: read bar date from practice profile, confirm. If no bar date captured, ask. For (2) law school exam: ask which class, what date, what format. For (3) semester: ask for the term-end date as the anchor.
Step 2: Inputs — one at a time, wait for each
Ask and wait. Do not bulk all questions into one prompt and move on.
- Exam date: confirmed? (If bar: ask for jurisdiction if not in practice profile — study content depends on it.)
- Subjects to cover: for bar, read from NCBE subject outline for the exam format (NextGen / traditional UBE / state-specific). For a class, the syllabus. Confirm with student — "any subject I should add or drop?"
- Strongest subjects: least priority. Still reviewed, not drilled heavily.
- Weakest subjects: most priority. Get more sessions.
- Hours per week available: realistic, not aspirational. "I can do 20 hours" is different from "I will do 20 hours for 8 weeks." Ask what they can actually sustain.
- Life-context sanity check — force it. After the student gives a number, ask (one question at a time — do not skip):
> You said [N] hours per week. Before I build this, tell me what else is in your week — job (hours/week), family (kids, caregiving), commute, workout, therapy, clinic, anything meaningful. The plan should fit your life, not the other way around. A plan you can't follow is worse than a lighter plan you can.
Wait for the answer. Then sanity-check the stated hours against their reported load:
> That's ~[X] hours/day across [N] study days, on top of [job + family + commute + other]. In my experience that's [realistic / tight / unsustainable]. Want to adjust the hours/week target before I build, or keep them and see how week 1 goes?
Do not skip this step even if the practice profile's target hours number was already captured at cold-start. The profile captures what the student said; the life-context check captures whether it's sustainable. If the check produces a lower number, use the lower number for the plan and note the adjustment in the confidence_flags block.
If the student declines to share life context ("just build it"), respect that — but add a confidence_flags entry: "Life-context check declined; plan assumes [N] hours/week is sustainable. Revisit at end of week 2 if adherence is below [X]%."
- Preferred study methods: multi-select. MBE practice / essays / flashcards / outlining / drilling / re-reading. Weight the schedule toward the methods they say they'll actually do.
- Days off per week: rest days matter. Plans that schedule 7/7 days fail in week 3.
Step 2.5: Supplement vs. replace (prep-course users)
If ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/CLAUDE.md → Prep course is Barbri, Themis, Kaplan, or any other structured prep course (i.e., NOT self or N/A), the student already has a prep-course calendar. This skill's plan must choose one of two roles — it cannot run a full parallel curriculum alongside the prep course without burning the student out.
Ask, one question, wait:
Your profile says you're on [Barbri / Themis / Kaplan]. They publish a day-by-day calendar with every subject and task scheduled. Two ways this plan can work — pick one:1. Supplement. The prep course is your primary curriculum. This plan fills gaps: extra MBE drilling on your weak subjects, targeted essay practice, flashcard loops on the topics you're missing. I won't rebuild the prep-course calendar; I'll layer on top of it.2. Replace. You're not following the prep-course calendar (maybe because its pacing doesn't work for your life). I'll build the whole plan — subjects, hours, phases, schedule — and you drop the prep-course calendar.Don't pick both. Running two full curricula against each other is how students blow up in week 4.
Wait for the answer. Record it in the yaml as prep_course_mode: supplement | replace.
If supplement: the plan's daily schedule is lighter — it only adds weak-subject drilling and targeted practice, does not duplicate prep-course coverage. Flag in confidence_flags: "Supplement mode — this plan assumes you're on track with [prep course] for primary coverage. If you fall behind on the prep course, tell me and we'll re-plan."
If replace: build the full plan as specified below.
If the student's prep course is self or N/A, skip this step — there's nothing to supplement.
Step 3: Build the schedule
Calculate weeks-to-exam from today's date. Then:
Normal mode (4+ weeks out):
- Split weeks into phases:
- Learning phase (first ~60% of time): one subject per ~3-5 days, mixing outlining/reading with flashcards and a few MBE/essay questions on fresh material.
- Drilling phase (next ~30%): more MBE volume, more essay practice, simulated conditions, all subjects in rotation.
- Review phase (last ~10%): focused on weakest subtopics from session_history, full practice exams, light review of strong areas.
- Weight subjects by weakness: weak subjects get ~2x the hours of strong subjects.
- Schedule day-by-day: which subject, which method, how long. Leave slack for the student's actual life.
Cram mode (< 4 weeks out):
- Flag it: "You're less than four weeks out. This is cram mode — the plan prioritizes high-yield topics over full coverage. You will leave gaps. That's the tradeoff at this point."
- 80/20 prioritization: the MBE subjects that historically appear most (Civ Pro, Evidence, Con Law, Contracts) get the lion's share. Narrower subjects get minimum viable coverage.
- Daily schedule: MBE blocks every day (volume matters now), essay practice every other day, one simulated exam per week.
- Sleep and taper the last 2-3 days. Do not schedule hard drilling the day before the exam. This is real — students who cram through the night before score worse.
Step 4: Write it
Write to ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/study-plan.yaml:
plan_type: bar # or law-school-exam or semesterexam_date: 2026-07-28jurisdiction: CAexam_format: state-specific # or NextGen / UBEcreated: 2026-05-08last_updated: 2026-05-08weeks_to_exam: 12hours_per_week: 25days_per_week: 6mode: normal # or cramphases:- name: learningstart: 2026-05-08end: 2026-06-20focus: outlining, flashcards, introductory MBE- name: drillingstart: 2026-06-21end: 2026-07-18focus: MBE volume, essay practice, simulated conditions- name: reviewstart: 2026-07-19end: 2026-07-27focus: weak-subtopic review, full practice examssubjects:evidence:priority: high # weakweekly_hours: 5methods: [mbe, flashcards, essay]con-law:priority: mediumweekly_hours: 3methods: [mbe, outline-review]# etc.schedule:- date: 2026-05-08day: Thursdaysessions:- subject: Evidencemethod: outline-reviewduration_min: 90- subject: Evidencemethod: mbeduration_min: 60n_questions: 25- date: 2026-05-09day: Fridaysessions:- subject: Contractsmethod: flashcardsduration_min: 45- subject: Contractsmethod: essayduration_min: 60# etc.session_history: [] # appended by bar-prep, flashcards, drill, irac as sessions complete
Step 5: Confirm with the student
Header — required on every in-chat presentation and on any separate prose-format plan document written alongside the YAML. The first line of the summary (and the first line of any study-plan.md companion file) must be the verbatim header from plugin config ## Outputs:
STUDY NOTES — NOT LEGAL ADVICE
The header does not go inside the YAML itself (it's a data file), but it belongs on the prose summary you show the student and on any human-readable plan document you save next to the YAML. This is not a disclaimer afterthought — it is the output's identity. Do not omit, rephrase, or relocate it.
Summarize the plan in prose (not raw YAML) before saving, with the header on top:
STUDY NOTES — NOT LEGAL ADVICEHere's what I built. [X] weeks to the [exam]. [Y] hours/week across [Z] days. Weak subjects (Evidence, Contracts) get 2x the hours. Three phases: learning through [date], drilling through [date], review the last [N] days. I've scheduled the first two weeks day-by-day. Beyond that it's allocated by week — I'll fill in the daily schedule as you complete sessions, so the plan adapts to where you actually are.Does this feel right? Too ambitious? Too light? Missing a subject?
Adjust based on the answer. Then write.
Adapting the plan
After each session (via bar-prep-questions, flashcards, drill, irac), the corresponding skill appends to session_history:
session_history:- date: 2026-05-08subject: Evidencetype: bar-prep-mben_questions: 10score: 6weak_subtopics: [hearsay-exceptions, character-evidence]
On the next /law-student:study-plan --update run (or when any skill detects the plan is stale):
- Subjects with consistently low scores get promoted in
priorityandweekly_hours. - Weak subtopics within a subject get flagged for the next scheduled session on that subject.
- If the student is falling behind (scheduled sessions not appearing in history), adjust: either compress coverage or note the gap and ask.
- If the student is ahead, open up time for deeper weak-subject drilling.
Modes
--build (default) — fresh plan --update — re-read session_history and adjust weightings, fill in upcoming daily schedule --status — what's on deck today / this week, what's the score trend, what's slipping --cram — force cram mode even if more than 4 weeks out (user override)
Integration
/law-student:session <subject> <n>writes results to this plan'ssession_history./law-student:bar-prep-questionsreads the plan to know which subject is scheduled for today./law-student:flashcardscan--session <n>and results land in the plan./law-student:socratic-drilland/law-student:irac-practicesession completions also append.
What this skill does not do
- Guarantee you pass. The plan is a scaffold. The work is on you.
- Predict the exam. Cram mode uses historical subject frequency; high-yield ≠ guaranteed-tested.
- Replace your prep course schedule. If you're on Barbri/Themis/Kaplan, this plan can supplement — don't run two full curricula against each other. Use one as primary.
- Schedule your life. Hours available is what you tell me. If you overstate, the plan will break in week 2. Be honest.