Our story
One co-founder sat the FE-1 and passed. The other builds the AI marker. We built this platform because every prep resource we could find was either too expensive, too generic, or not anchored to what the examiner actually marks. So we built the one we wished existed.
The problem
The Law Society's examiner reports tell you exactly what a passing answer looks like, the cases they expected, and the IRAC failures that sank the cohort. They are published after each sitting, never before. By the time you read the October report, the spring exam is six weeks away.
The pass mark is 50% in every paper, scored independently. A strong subject cannot rescue a weak one. The Law Society's 2024 figures show per-subject pass rates ranging from 57% in Equity to 82% in EU Law across 8,598 paper-sittings, a 25-point spread that tells you which subjects most candidates underestimate. The eight papers can be spread across a seven-year window, so the room beside you mixes first-time sitters with returners on a fifth attempt at one subject. Knowing which past-paper patterns repeat and which examiner red flags to avoid is half the work.
Grind schools charge from €250 per subject and run on a fixed timetable. Private tutors charge €50 to €150 per hour. Self-study candidates and those sitting from abroad work from materials of unknown quality and learn whether their answers would pass only after they fail.
FE-1 Made Simple gives every candidate the answer a grind school gives, on demand, anchored to the same examiner reports the Law Society publishes.
Pass mark required in every paper, every sitting
Core subjects, all individually examined
Grind school cost, per subject
Per hour for a private tutor
Sources: Law Society of Ireland (FE-1 examination rules); Legal Services Regulatory Authority, Annual Report on Admission Policies of the Legal Professions 2024.
The trust layer
If the AI cited a case that does not exist, we catch it. If it cited a real case for the wrong jurisdiction, we catch that too. No competitor does this.
Generic AI study tools cite cases that look real because the words sound like cases. Half the time they are not real. We have benchmarked them. Our validator extracts every case-shaped string from the marker output and cross-references it against our curated corpus of Irish authorities before the band ever reaches you.
Proof of the validator at work
We sat our AI engine through the real October 2023 Tort paper. It passed at mean 69%, three distinctions. The validator processed 50 case citations across five essays. 49 were verified real; 1 was flagged as doctrinally inappropriate for an Irish exam. That flag is the entire reason the validator exists.
Read the full case studyA small team. Irish legal expertise on one side, machine learning and AI engineering on the other. Every part of the platform sits on both.
Co-founder · Product Manager
Sat the FE-1 and passed. Sets product direction across the platform, writes the per-question answer guides the marker is anchored to, and hosts the FE-1 Made Simple podcast on Spotify (100+ episodes, 4.9 stars).
LinkedIn
Co-founder · ML / AI Engineer
Builds and tunes the AI marker. Leads the examiner-report grounding, the prompt architecture, and the citation validator that cross-checks every cited authority against our Irish case-law corpus before a mark reaches a candidate.
LinkedInOne re-sit across four subjects costs €448. A full year on Pro costs €399. If the platform helps you pass one subject you would otherwise re-sit, it has paid for itself.
| Feature | FE-1 Made Simple | Grind school | Private tutor | Friends' PDFs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Irish-specific content | Varies | Varies | ||
| Examiner-grade AI marking | ||||
| Citation validator (no fabricated cases) | ||||
| Per-question answer guides (16 years) | Limited | Varies | ||
| Three-hour mock exam simulations | Limited | |||
| Recall MCQ quizzes | ||||
| Case law library | Limited | Varies | ||
| Subject podcasts | ||||
| Progress tracking | ||||
| Available 24/7 | ||||
| Affordability | 7-day trial, then subscription | €250+ / subject | €50-150 / hour | Quality varies |
Accessibility was the constraint we chose. Quality was never negotiable.
English case law is not Irish case law. Every lesson starts from Irish authorities, because that is what the examiner expects.
The pricing, the structure, the availability. All of it designed for someone studying in fragments around a full-time life.
Every cited authority in your mark is verified against our Irish case-law database. Anything the validator does not recognise is flagged inline so you know what to trust. We do not pretend the AI is infallible; we make it auditable.
No card until day 8. Cancel any time before then.
