fundamentLR
Fundamentals of Logical Reasoning
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Equitable, elementary, individually tailored LSAT Logical Reasoning tutoring
Mickey knows this test so well, better than anyone I’ve ever worked with. He knows the problems better than anyone I’ve ever studied with, better than people who’ve taken it and scored higher, and better than any other tutor I’ve had. The way he explains things makes it so easy to understand.
Ashley, current student
Equitable: $25 per hour with LSAC fee waiver / $35 otherwise
The law school application process can be expensive, but it should not be prohibitively so. A significant part of this expense can be contributed to by LSAT preparation— as much as standardized testing claims to induce a meritocracy, it is not necessarily the case. Individuals may or may not be privileged with the ability to take time off work to study or to spend boatloads of money on tutors and courses, and test scores do not reflect this difference in access to resources. I am very thankful to have had the means to take time off work to study for the LSAT, and now I want to do everything I can to help those who aren't afforded such luxuries.
What does this look like? I leverage the LSAC fee waiver system to allow for demonstration of need, but if you think your situation is not adequately conveyed by your inability to qualify for a fee waiver, we can discuss something fair! For students without a fee waiver, I charge $35, and the higher price allows me to subsidize the cost of tutoring those who can't afford more expensive tutoring. I hope you understand!
We'll start with a free consultation/introduction to get to know each other, after which your first session will be free of charge if you decide not to continue, so you can get an idea if I am a good fit for your learning style risk-free. I am also available around the clock to answer one-off questions via text or email.
Elementary: the basics are enough to succeed
The tutoring I am offering is for students whose immediate goal is to score in the 160s or below. If your goal score is higher, I can also be helpful, but my intention is to focus on helping people master the fundamental stuff. In other words: if you are already consistently scoring in the 160s, my services may not be for you. I am looking for students who are passionate about pursuing law but for whom logical reasoning does not necessarily come as easily, as is and will be the case for many brilliant lawyers. I am here to help it come more easily and do my best to remove it as your barrier to entry into the field of law. It is a necessary barrier, but one that can be toppled with enough practice! There are plenty of really, really hard questions on the LSAT, and that is why it is so difficult to score 180. But that's ok. Mastery of fundamentals will make 160 feel like a breeze and the majority of questions in an LR section feel like something you could do in your sleep!
Individually tailored: there's no single path to mastery
Truthfully, I don't have an overarching, one-size-fits-all tutoring philosophy that I will indoctrinate you with. Everyone learns differently and everyone takes a unique path towards understanding a given concept. My role is to help figure what your path will be and help you achieve understanding step-by-step.
Often, what most students tend to enjoy is my usual approach of manually creating problem sets that pertain to a certain area that a student is struggling in. I pick from questions that I correctly answered very quickly & on which I can recall exactly my thought process, so that I can offer you an explanation and tips that go beyond the explanation offered by LSAT prep websites. I find that these explanations often lack attention to the quirks of a particular answer choice that ensure something similarly worded is never correct on a given type of problem, which I try to help the student see and apply to future scenarios. With each problem, I help guide the student to break down the stimulus into its conclusion, support, and logical gaps. The logical gap may be defined as: "why might the premises be true but the conclusion not necessarily follow from them?" It is my goal to show that this is jointly sufficient, along with an adequate understanding of answer choice language, for arriving at the correct answer.
However...
I do have a philosophy for the best way to self-study. Studying is all about making mistakes, learning from them, and not making them again. The goal is to make new mistakes, and as you master more concepts, there are less and less mistakes to make. Eventually, there are no new mistakes to make!
The key to optimally learning from your mistakes is to maximize your chances of running into the opportunity to make a similar mistake as soon as possible once you make one, and then not making it! This is because as the mistake becomes less and less fresh in your mind, you run the risk of not remembering it, and then you miss a chance to change your thought process to the correct one. This means you made the same mistake twice, which is not ideal.
What does avoiding this problem look like? Drilling. More specifically, drilling specific problems: by type of question, by type of logic used in the stimulus, by type of flaw in the stimulus, or some combination of all of these. I recommend using a study platform that allows you to drill by types of stimuli beyond just by question type, which I appreciate 7Sage for offering.
Here are my three pillars of how to approach drilling as you build your fundamentals:
Untimed
When building your fundamentals, there is negative value in forcing yourself to be fast when you don't know what you're doing. I would rather you spend 10 minutes on a problem trying to recall all the rules you've learned and how to apply them in the problem you're facing, ultimately confidently selecting an answer choice, than committing to a guess within two minutes and getting lucky because you know you'll have only two minutes on the test. Studying is not the test, so don't treat it like it is (there is benefit to simulating test conditions closer to when you are ready, but that is outside the scope of the stage of studying I am describing).
Correct answers are not all the same. A problem you correctly answered with 50% confidence is not the same as one you answered with 90% confidence. Give yourself a confidence threshold, not a time threshold. Tell yourself the following: "don't move on from a problem until you're a certain % confident you are correct," rather than telling yourself "don't spend any longer than 1:30 no matter what." Speed follows accuracy. They are not built independently. Speed comes from realizing that you have become extremely accurate, so you start trusting your instinct as it is often correct. You stop checking to make sure the four incorrect answers are incorrect, you stop nitpicking the correct answer that you clicked 30 seconds ago, and you start moving on because you've seen your recent accuracy data and you trust that you are correct. It is these leaps of faith in your ability where speed naturally comes from.
Clustered by similarity
As I mentioned above, this is crucial for maximizing the chances of learning from your mistakes. For a given study session, sit down and commit to a certain type of question or stimulus logic.
Immediate feedback
Extremely important. Whatever platform you use, configure it such that you learn whether your answer was correct or incorrect before attempting any subsequent problems. There is negative benefit to waiting until the end to see all your answers. Say you are doing 10 questions, you wait until the end to see all your answers, and it turns out you got questions 2 and 8 incorrect. They were quite similar problems. If you had known that your answer to question 2 was incorrect, you would have avoided making a similar mistake on question 8. Question 8 is now a wasted opportunity, which is bad.
I would like to credit Ryan Viti for inspiring much of this philosophy.
About me!
My name is Mickey Claffey, and I started studying for the LSAT in summer of '25 after I became hooked on the type of problem solving presented in the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT. It scratched a certain itch in my brain and I fell in love with studying for it, and I always knew I wanted to teach the content one day. This past January, I quit my job in order to study full time and master the content.
I took the LSAT in June and I didn't get a score I was happy with. I was extremely stressed, which affected my ability to focus on the test. I left the test knowing I didn't do well enough to reflect my ability. While I believed it serves as evidence that mastery of the fundamentals of LR will guarantee a score comfortably in the 160s, I felt it didn't quite fully reflect my qualifications to teach the LR section. So, I took it again in August and focused on not stressing myself out leading up to it, and I scored a 174!
I think it would be helpful to mention the rest of my credentials, which I think paint a fuller picture than just a number does. I've completed thousands of logical reasoning questions with accuracy that gradually rose from around 80% across all questions when I started studying to > 95% on exclusively the most difficult questions in the weeks before my exam. I took five timed practice tests in the two weeks before my test averaging a score of 173. Feel free to reference my public profile on the platform I used for studying by clicking here.
My stats
How to get in touch!
Schedule an introductory call at this link
Or feel free to text me: +1 (773) 791-9362
Or email me: mickey.claffey@gmail.com
More testimonials
Mickey has a unique ability to slow down complex problems and break them down analytically to help his students understand how to deal with each problem set.
Colin, current student
The value you’re getting his knowledge for is fantastic.
Ryan, current student
I've been tutoring with Mickey for a month now and I have to say, I've seen progress in my studying and my understanding of the LSAT. He understands exactly what he's teaching on.
Tameka, current student
I have been tutoring with Mickey for about a month now, and I’m already seeing a gradual improvement in my understanding of Logical Reasoning .
What I really appreciate about Mickey is that he focuses on teaching the fundamentals rather than just showing you how to get through individual questions. If you struggle with LR, I genuinely believe you can benefit from his tutoring.
When I started a month ago, my scores were ranging between 130–136. After just one month of tutoring, I scored a 143. For some people, that may not seem like a huge jump, but for someone who has really struggled with LR, this is a significant improvement.
If you’re struggling with LR and feel like you need help building a stronger foundation, I highly recommend reaching out to Mickey. You won’t regret it!
Sharitah, current student
Mickey was a great study partner because of his interest in the problem itself—the wording, the traps, the style. He helped me break each problem down and iterate on similar pitfalls by offering analogies and encouragement. I know that any student of his will benefit from his help.
Emma, former study partner
I have been tutoring with Mickey for the past month and a half! He has been a great and amazing tutor. He's patient, explains things in a way that's easy to understand, and has shared a lot of helpful tips and tricks that I've actually been able to implement in my studying! I've already noticed myself approaching questions more strategically because of his guidance. I really appreciate all of his help and would highly recommend him to anyone looking for a tutor!
Hajra, current student
Mickey is a great tutor and is very knowledgeable and patient!
Kimberly, current student
When you think of LSAT tutors, you often think of someone helping you with organization, scheduling, and strategies to prepare for the LSAT. While some of that is true for Mickey, the thing I found interesting in his approach is a genuine interest in the learning process; he is interested in learning how people learn. Therefore, sessions with him entail talking through problems and filling in knowledge gaps where you may be lacking.
If you believe that learning is non-linear, meaning that learning things takes time and there will be ups and downs, then Mickey is the right tutor for you.
The LSAT is all about pattern recognition, with Mickey, you'll have someone who helps you identify those patterns, within the time structure of the LSAT.
Barry, current student
Mickey has helped me break from 150s to 160s! We organize and tailor lesson plans to material I should work on between meetings, emphasizing strong conditional reasoning. During sessions, we review wrong answers together and walk through similar untimed drills to process good testing habits real-time too. Breaking out of the 150s was a big struggle for me and I definitely feel like Mickey is pointing me in the right direction!
Arianna, current student
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