California Bar Exam (July 2013) thread

[a male human]

Seems possible if you destroy the MBE and PTs

HAve you seen the CPTs? Those monsters are impossible to destroy. How they expect us to get through 30 pages worth of shit and then follow the memo's directions to a T and then type out all of the rules and analysis in their respective sections in just 3 hours is just beyond me. I got a week to do work like that last summer. My performance on CPTs vary so much, its honestly a crapshoot. Hit everything from 55s to 75s (graded by an outside agency)

The only benefit I got from manually pulling out rules from every case assigned throughout all 3 years of law school is being a natural at case briefing.

[a male human]

BTW, do we get scratch paper for the any portion of the 3 days?

[prezidentv8]

Last summer we had a Cal evidence essay.

I vaguely recall derping that one.

[hiima3L]

Any advice?

I passed last year. Here are my two cents:

CPTs: don't waste your time on them. You simply can't study for them. If you're not able to write and organize quickly enough at this point, there's nothing you can do. (I spent exactly one hour studying for the CPTs last year and passed, btw.)

And for those of you who are worried, think of it this way: the OVERWHELMING majority of people who fail are those who a. went to a bad school and/or b. did not do too well in LS. If you went to a decent school and were in the top half (often times just the top 75%), statistically you have a 90%+ chance of studying. There is some Boalt blog where the Dean of Boalt wrote an email verifying this a few years ago, and a professor of mine told me it's true, and she has access to the direct evidence, apparently.

From here on out you should be memorizing everything you can. There is still plenty of time to memorize memorize memorize. If you know the rules, obviously you can write them on the essays (half the points right there) and apply them on the MBE.

And I know you've heard it plenty of times and you don't believe it (I didn't either), but really, the bar is much easier to pass than it seems. If you did decently in law school, I guarantee you will pass if you put in a good amount of work.

[Another]

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[hiima3L]

If we're doing decently on the CA Barbri essays that are graded by the Barbri folks (say, 60-70), should we be pretty assured that the way we're writing our essays and CPTs is good enough for the real bar?

Thanks for your advice.

Absolutely.

Barbri grading is absurd. The bar grading is nowhere near as harsh. Also, Barbri is full of shit. My friends and I would turn in the same ones to test them and would also copy and paste sample answers more or less, and the scores were all over the place. It's nonsense.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

Barbri gave you a 70 on an essay!?!?

[spaacecdt]

Barbri CA Remedies Practice Esasy 6: #$*#)Q*!

Just me?

[worldtraveler]

How do I fake an understanding of corporations/biz ass if I still don't understand it? I think I'm okay except for that one.

[Old Gregg]

How do I fake an understanding of corporations/biz ass if I still don't understand it? I think I'm okay except for that one.

Corporations was on the last administration. Probably won't even be on this one...

[DwightSchruteFarms]

How do I fake an understanding of corporations/biz ass if I still don't understand it? I think I'm okay except for that one.

Just talk about Duty of Care (prudent director in those shoes) and Duty of Loyalty to the Corp. That's like 80% of it

[DwightSchruteFarms]

Barbri CA Remedies Practice Esasy 6: #$*#)Q*!

Just me?

That was an insane question. But there is good news and bad news. Bad news is that purchase money mortgages was tested in the last exam in Feb, so it seems like the Bar Examiners are starting to like it. The good news is that since it was tested on the last exam, it prob wont be tested on ours.

[prezidentv8]

purchase money mortgages

I literally have no remembery of what that is.

I think I'm piecing it together based on common sense and some JC real estate classes I once took, but I cannot remember ever studying that for the bar.

[hlsperson1111]

FWIW, based on the charts Themis gave us, it looks pretty much guaranteed that Con Law, Real Property, and PR will be tested.

I am less inclined to guess what won't be tested, but I'd guess that Crimes and Civ Pro are unlikely, since they've appeared on the last two exams.

[Foosters Galore]

Barbri CA Remedies Practice Esasy 6: #$*#)Q*!

Just me?

Yeah, I would have gotten like a 45 on that thing. The words "purchase money" and "resulting trust" never appeared at any time in my outline that I did.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

FWIW, based on the charts Themis gave us, it looks pretty much guaranteed that Con Law, Real Property, and PR will be tested.

I am less inclined to guess what won't be tested, but I'd guess that Crimes and Civ Pro are unlikely, since they've appeared on the last two exams.

Ya, by the looks of it, I think def Conlaw, PR, and Remedies. I'm also thinking Evidence and Wills/Trusts

[Emma.]

Maybe this isn't the right place for a substantive question, but what do you guys think about how we should assess minimum contacts for personal jx for the exam? Are contacts assessed at the time of the event underlying the case, or at the time the case is filed (as with diversity jx)?

I'm imagining a scenario where someone is injured by a product in state X, and at the time the manufacturing company clearly doesn't have sufficient contacts for either general or specific jx in state X, but then 2 years later when the case is filed, the company has established a distributor for its product in state X and is clearly purposefully availing itself of the laws of the state.

[Kretzy]

FWIW, based on the charts Themis gave us, it looks pretty much guaranteed that Con Law, Real Property, and PR will be tested.

I am less inclined to guess what won't be tested, but I'd guess that Crimes and Civ Pro are unlikely, since they've appeared on the last two exams.

This sounds right to me. I'm thinking Con Law, RP, and Evidence for MBE, and then Wills/Trusts, PR, and a Remedies/Ks question.

Evidence and RP sound awful, but if there's no Civ Pro or Business Associations I would be so happy.

[Reinhardt]

I'm worried that the selection of topics might simply be random. Meaning Civ Pro is just as likely to appear now as any other year.

[c3pO4]

FWIW, based on the charts Themis gave us, it looks pretty much guaranteed that Con Law, Real Property, and PR will be tested.

I am less inclined to guess what won't be tested, but I'd guess that Crimes and Civ Pro are unlikely, since they've appeared on the last two exams.

This sounds right to me. I'm thinking Con Law, RP, and Evidence for MBE, and then Wills/Trusts, PR, and a Remedies/Ks question.

Evidence and RP sound awful, but if there's no Civ Pro or Business Associations I would be so happy.

why not community property/torts/agencypart/contracts? how good are these predictions in years past. should we just stop studying the things not being predicted?

[DwightSchruteFarms]

FWIW, based on the charts Themis gave us, it looks pretty much guaranteed that Con Law, Real Property, and PR will be tested.

I am less inclined to guess what won't be tested, but I'd guess that Crimes and Civ Pro are unlikely, since they've appeared on the last two exams.

This sounds right to me. I'm thinking Con Law, RP, and Evidence for MBE, and then Wills/Trusts, PR, and a Remedies/Ks question.

Evidence and RP sound awful, but if there's no Civ Pro or Business Associations I would be so happy.

why not community property/torts/agencypart/contracts? how good are these predictions in years past. should we just stop studying the things not being predicted?

No, study everything. There are 4 pretty much guaranteed, but everything else is a wild card. I think we all can agree that ConLaw, Prof Res, Remedies will be tested and most likely Evidence. The other two are a toss up, but I'd def not spend too much time on CivPro, esp CA CivPro.

Damn, as soon as I typed that, we get a CA CivPro essay. I'd honestly flip my shit

[a male human]

I noticed biz ass has only been tested in February in the past several years. So I plan on not preparing as hard, but you never know if they'll break the pattern this year.

[TaipeiMort]

I actually like the fact that we have the PT tests. This, combined with the MBE is like a nice big safety net. It seems like if you got a good LSAT score (can read and analyze quickly) and did well in legal writing, then they are like gimme points. MBE is nice because you don't actually have to memorize.

If it makes you all feel better, I've basically just spent my time memorizing the MBE stuff, and haven't even read or reviewed two California topics yet. I don't even know what trusts and estates or remedies are about.

I plan to try to read and memorize them by test day, but I am banking on having high PT scores, three good MBE-based essays, and a good MBE score. This seems a more effective use of time than memorizing CA topics. I'll just cram for the CA essays last minute and hash out 50s or so.

[c3pO4]

I actually like the fact that we have the PT tests. This, combined with the MBE is like a nice big safety net. It seems like if you got a good LSAT score (can read and analyze quickly) and did well in legal writing, then they are like gimme points. MBE is nice because you don't actually have to memorize.

If it makes you all feel better, I've basically just spent my time memorizing the MBE stuff, and haven't even read or reviewed two California topics yet. I don't even know what trusts and estates or remedies are about.

I plan to try to read and memorize them by test day, but I am banking on having high PT scores, three good MBE-based essays, and a good MBE score. This seems a more effective use of time than memorizing CA topics. I'll just cram for the CA essays last minute and hash out 50s or so.

how many simulated PT's have you done? they are nto that easy, even if you are a super smart top law student they took an intense amount of focus combined with speed and efficiency. passing them is probably easier for the tpes of people you've described but getting that extra 5-10 point bump probably takes more practice doing them timed and adjusting on the fly than natural ability.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

I actually like the fact that we have the PT tests. This, combined with the MBE is like a nice big safety net. It seems like if you got a good LSAT score (can read and analyze quickly) and did well in legal writing, then they are like gimme points. MBE is nice because you don't actually have to memorize.

If it makes you all feel better, I've basically just spent my time memorizing the MBE stuff, and haven't even read or reviewed two California topics yet. I don't even know what trusts and estates or remedies are about.

I plan to try to read and memorize them by test day, but I am banking on having high PT scores, three good MBE-based essays, and a good MBE score. This seems a more effective use of time than memorizing CA topics. I'll just cram for the CA essays last minute and hash out 50s or so.

how many simulated PT's have you done? they are nto that easy, even if you are a super smart top law student they took an intense amount of focus combined with speed and efficiency. passing them is probably easier for the tpes of people you've described but getting that extra 5-10 point bump probably takes more practice doing them timed and adjusting on the fly than natural ability.

Completely agree with c3. I think they are prob my worst section of the test and I did well in Legal Writing. It's such a time grind to get through 30 pages of crap and then write about it correctly. Extracting the rules is not difficult. Organizing them into the appropriate structure is...for me at least.

Also, on another note, if anyone is looking for a sexy Products Liability q, id suggest July 2007, Q2. Figure thats a subject that might get tested that is kind of difficult to write out.