CA July 2015 - Themis Study Buddies Forum

[paulshortys10]

I'm on evidence today. Are we ONLY supposed to read the evidence distinction section in the California specific book? I don't see anything telling me to read what is on the MBE section.

[Pleasye]

I'm on evidence today. Are we ONLY supposed to read the evidence distinction section in the California specific book? I don't see anything telling me to read what is on the MBE section.

Yeah, the one in tha CA book has both FRE (which is what's on the MBE) and CA information.

[paulshortys10]

I'm on evidence today. Are we ONLY supposed to read the evidence distinction section in the California specific book? I don't see anything telling me to read what is on the MBE section.

Yeah, the one in tha CA book has both FRE (which is what's on the MBE) and CA information.

Sweet, thanks!

[californiabarprep]

Hi guys! Hope everyone's studying is going well.
Wanted to touch base and see how everyone is prepping these days.

Other than *trying* to keep up with the Themis schedule...here is what I do differently so far:

(1) I've set aside the practice essays for now since I don't have time. Once I'm more comfortable w/ the law and MBE, I'll start cracking the essays day and night ... repeatedly. I plan to follow this guy's advice here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=248756.

(2) I try to do as many MBE question sets as I can on Themis. I do them open book and try to list the things I get wrong. I review afterwards.

(3) I skip the lectures and go directly to carefully studying the outlines. But since I have to do the "assessment" questions to keep going up the "Status %" for Themis, I'll try to do the assessment questions.

I'm currently on Evidence and hope to start Con Law tomorrow.

Anyone else want to contribute, or give some advice as to what I can do?

[paulshortys10]

How long does it take you guys to read the outlines? I remember the initial video saying it shouldn't take too long and to just skim, but I find it takes me at least 5-6 hours to read it. Especially since a lot of the questions I get wrong are from the Outline and not the lecture.

[TheLegalOne]

How long does it take you guys to read the outlines? I remember the initial video saying it shouldn't take too long and to just skim, but I find it takes me at least 5-6 hours to read it. Especially since a lot of the questions I get wrong are from the Outline and not the lecture.

When I do read the outlines, it takes me about 2 - 2.5 hours. I am terrible at skimming, which hurts me with PTs too. I'm working on it, though.

[paulshortys10]

Anyone know if Milestone exam 2 include Civ pro questions?

[Pleasye]

Anyone know if Milestone exam 2 include Civ pro questions?

Yup it does. It has crim, crim pro, con law, civ pro, and evidence.

[paulshortys10]

Anyone know if Milestone exam 2 include Civ pro questions?

Yup it does. It has crim, crim pro, con law, civ pro, and evidence.

Fuck. I'm pretty behind then. Might barely start civ pro tomorrow

[sopranorleone]

Fuck this, going to Disneyland tomorrow

[hopefulIPgirl]

Does anyone feel like they still don't know anything? I'm allegedly 65% of the way through the course but feel very underprepared.

In other news, <sarcasm> looking forward to mock bar days tomorrow and the day after! </sarcasm>

[paulshortys10]

Does anyone feel like they still don't know anything? I'm allegedly 65% of the way through the course but feel very underprepared.

In other news, <sarcasm> looking forward to mock bar days tomorrow and the day after! </sarcasm>

-I feel like I can get away with passing the MBE portion right now (let's see how i do tomorrow on simulation). Although I do not know the law cold, i know it well enough where I can spot right and wrong answers at a good rate.
-I need to do more work with Essays. Like i said, i do not know the law cold yet, so I have to work on this. I plan on looking and doing a lot of sample essays, making sample opening paragraphs, and then just memorizing this over and over. I feel I have enough time to do so, even though I still have 2 subjects to learn.
-PTs i do not feel too comfortable with yet. I would probably fail these if I did them now.

[Pleasye]

Does anyone feel like they still don't know anything? I'm allegedly 65% of the way through the course but feel very underprepared.

In other news, <sarcasm> looking forward to mock bar days tomorrow and the day after! </sarcasm>

-I feel like I can get away with passing the MBE portion right now (let's see how i do tomorrow on simulation). Although I do not know the law cold, i know it well enough where I can spot right and wrong answers at a good rate.
-I need to do more work with Essays. Like i said, i do not know the law cold yet, so I have to work on this. I plan on looking and doing a lot of sample essays, making sample opening paragraphs, and then just memorizing this over and over. I feel I have enough time to do so, even though I still have 2 subjects to learn.
-PTs i do not feel too comfortable with yet. I would probably fail these if I did them now.

Yeah I'm pretty much the same. I feel like I can pass the MBE right now, but essays and PTs are a crap shoot.

[paulshortys10]

To anyone that has done the second Trusts essay: SPOILER ALERT











I have read 3 answers already, and I have seen 3 different responses for how the money should be distributed. I am really confused as to whether intestacy laws work here and do they trump the trust? Does the mom get 150k no matter what? how does abatement work?

[Pleasye]

To anyone that has done the second Trusts essay: SPOILER ALERT

[+] Spoiler

I have read 3 answers already, and I have seen 3 different responses for how the money should be distributed. I am really confused as to whether intestacy laws work here and do they trump the trust? Does the mom get 150k no matter what? how does abatement work?

[+] Spoiler

The trust is non-probate so no it should not go through intestacy or probate and is not trumped by intestacy laws. However, in that essay there was an exception applied because of the omitted child who is entitled to an intestate share.

The child is entitled to 1/3 share of the estate (because there are 3 children all the same degree of kinship) so he gets 1/3 that is taken out of the other shares pro rata. So no the mom doesn't get 150k because her share is abated in order to cover C's share. They put it under the heading "abatement" but you aren't really applying the abatement rules as we learned them except that there are no other assets aside from the trust that you could take C's share from. If there were a will and other assets you would abate those before you took from the trust in the prescribed order of abatement.

I hope that was helpful rather than just confusing

[paulshortys10]

To anyone that has done the second Trusts essay: SPOILER ALERT

[+] Spoiler

I have read 3 answers already, and I have seen 3 different responses for how the money should be distributed. I am really confused as to whether intestacy laws work here and do they trump the trust? Does the mom get 150k no matter what? how does abatement work?

[+] Spoiler

The trust is non-probate so no it should not go through intestacy or probate and is not trumped by intestacy laws. However, in that essay there was an exception applied because of the omitted child who is entitled to an intestate share.

The child is entitled to 1/3 share of the estate (because there are 3 children all the same degree of kinship) so he gets 1/3 that is taken out of the other shares pro rata. So no the mom doesn't get 150k because her share is abated in order to cover C's share. They put it under the heading "abatement" but you aren't really applying the abatement rules as we learned them except that there are no other assets aside from the trust that you could take C's share from. If there were a will and other assets you would abate those before you took from the trust in the prescribed order of abatement.

I hope that was helpful rather than just confusing

Yea that was helpful, but I hope you can elaborate if you have the time. What my question is i guess, instead of following the directions of the trust, why didn't intestacy laws just apply to the other 2 remaining kids so that they get 100k each, and the mom would get 0? Also. Why are we analyzing it under "omitted child", which seems to be a will concept, when there is no will at all.?

[Pleasye]

To anyone that has done the second Trusts essay: SPOILER ALERT

[+] Spoiler

I have read 3 answers already, and I have seen 3 different responses for how the money should be distributed. I am really confused as to whether intestacy laws work here and do they trump the trust? Does the mom get 150k no matter what? how does abatement work?

[+] Spoiler

The trust is non-probate so no it should not go through intestacy or probate and is not trumped by intestacy laws. However, in that essay there was an exception applied because of the omitted child who is entitled to an intestate share.

The child is entitled to 1/3 share of the estate (because there are 3 children all the same degree of kinship) so he gets 1/3 that is taken out of the other shares pro rata. So no the mom doesn't get 150k because her share is abated in order to cover C's share. They put it under the heading "abatement" but you aren't really applying the abatement rules as we learned them except that there are no other assets aside from the trust that you could take C's share from. If there were a will and other assets you would abate those before you took from the trust in the prescribed order of abatement.

I hope that was helpful rather than just confusing

Yea that was helpful, but I hope you can elaborate if you have the time. What my question is i guess, instead of following the directions of the trust, why didn't intestacy laws just apply to the other 2 remaining kids so that they get 100k each, and the mom would get 0? Also. Why are we analyzing it under "omitted child", which seems to be a will concept, when there is no will at all.?

Because allowing the mom to get zero would defeat the grantor's intent in creating the trust - he wanted to provide for his mom and his kids, so we reduce everyone's shares according to the amounts they were supposed to get (I know this still kind of defeats his intent since C ends up with more than everyone else, but that's a product of the rule). FWIW when I wrote the essay I just basically said, C should get a 1/3 share because that would be his intestate share and left it at that - I didn't write the whole abatement part of the essay, but I understood why they wrote it the way they did when I reviewed the answer.

I thought it was weird to use the omitted child doctrine since I have only seen it applied to Wills as well, but it was clearly implicated by the fact pattern so I ended up discussing it and being right. I also looked at the probate code and it applies to "testamentary instruments" which can be trusts sometimes (although IIRC this was an inter vivos trust, but still...). Again, if there had been a will or any other assets we would have left the trust alone and given C his share from somewhere else, but here, the trust held ALL of the grantor's assets.

Edited to add: also for the question about why we don't leave the mom with zero, the abatement rules specify the order in which gifts should be abated and also that within each class, the gifts are abated pro rata - so you skim off each person's gift, you don't just abate 1 entire gift and leave the other's intact. Presumably so that people still get SOME of their gift and the executor/administrator is not trying to decide whether the mom or the kids were more important to the testator and whose gift he should obliterate.

[paulshortys10]

To anyone that has done the second Trusts essay: SPOILER ALERT

[+] Spoiler

I have read 3 answers already, and I have seen 3 different responses for how the money should be distributed. I am really confused as to whether intestacy laws work here and do they trump the trust? Does the mom get 150k no matter what? how does abatement work?

[+] Spoiler

The trust is non-probate so no it should not go through intestacy or probate and is not trumped by intestacy laws. However, in that essay there was an exception applied because of the omitted child who is entitled to an intestate share.

The child is entitled to 1/3 share of the estate (because there are 3 children all the same degree of kinship) so he gets 1/3 that is taken out of the other shares pro rata. So no the mom doesn't get 150k because her share is abated in order to cover C's share. They put it under the heading "abatement" but you aren't really applying the abatement rules as we learned them except that there are no other assets aside from the trust that you could take C's share from. If there were a will and other assets you would abate those before you took from the trust in the prescribed order of abatement.

I hope that was helpful rather than just confusing

Yea that was helpful, but I hope you can elaborate if you have the time. What my question is i guess, instead of following the directions of the trust, why didn't intestacy laws just apply to the other 2 remaining kids so that they get 100k each, and the mom would get 0? Also. Why are we analyzing it under "omitted child", which seems to be a will concept, when there is no will at all.?

Because allowing the mom to get zero would defeat the grantor's intent in creating the trust - he wanted to provide for his mom and his kids, so we reduce everyone's shares according to the amounts they were supposed to get (I know this still kind of defeats his intent since C ends up with more than everyone else, but that's a product of the rule). FWIW when I wrote the essay I just basically said, C should get a 1/3 share because that would be his intestate share and left it at that - I didn't write the whole abatement part of the essay, but I understood why they wrote it the way they did when I reviewed the answer.

I thought it was weird to use the omitted child doctrine since I have only seen it applied to Wills as well, but it was clearly implicated by the fact pattern so I ended up discussing it and being right. I also looked at the probate code and it applies to "testamentary instruments" which can be trusts sometimes (although IIRC this was an inter vivos trust, but still...). Again, if there had been a will or any other assets we would have left the trust alone and given C his share from somewhere else, but here, the trust held ALL of the grantor's assets.

Edited to add: also for the question about why we don't leave the mom with zero, the abatement rules specify the order in which gifts should be abated and also that within each class, the gifts are abated pro rata - so you skim off each person's gift, you don't just abate 1 entire gift and leave the other's intact. Presumably so that people still get SOME of their gift and the executor/administrator is not trying to decide whether the mom or the kids were more important to the testator and whose gift he should obliterate.

excellent. thank you so much for taking the time to explain that

[Pleasye]

excellent. thank you so much for taking the time to explain that

No prob! Anything I can do to help a fellow CA bar sufferer lol

[hopefulIPgirl]

I am kind of annoyed by the "Themis MBE Tips" lady. For evidence, she said that the best evidence rule is rarely the right answer. But it's the right answer so many times and I get psyched out of picking it because of her "tip." For Crim Pro, she said that the government almost always wins. That's not been my experience on the MBE questions either.

Going to purge the MBE tips from my brain starting now.

[paulshortys10]

I am kind of annoyed by the "Themis MBE Tips" lady. For evidence, she said that the best evidence rule is rarely the right answer. But it's the right answer so many times and I get psyched out of picking it because of her "tip." For Crim Pro, she said that the government almost always wins. That's not been my experience on the MBE questions either.

Going to purge the MBE tips from my brain starting now.

Yea the BER thing psyched me out too

[MarcZero]

So I read through the rules for the CA bar and it said that no wall clocks will be provided so we can bring in our own, but there are rules as to what you can bring in. I wanted to bring in a small clock instead of a watch. Has anyone started looking at what to get or have any recommendations as to what type of clock to buy?

[Pleasye]

So I read through the rules for the CA bar and it said that no wall clocks will be provided so we can bring in our own, but there are rules as to what you can bring in. I wanted to bring in a small clock instead of a watch. Has anyone started looking at what to get or have any recommendations as to what type of clock to buy?

Is this forreal.

[MarcZero]

So I read through the rules for the CA bar and it said that no wall clocks will be provided so we can bring in our own, but there are rules as to what you can bring in. I wanted to bring in a small clock instead of a watch. Has anyone started looking at what to get or have any recommendations as to what type of clock to buy?

Is this forreal.

For the 1st and 3rd days, yes. According to the rules at the link below, we can bring

"Silent analog watches, non-digital timers and clocks measuring 4" x 4" or smaller"

I'm not a big watch person so I was thinking of a small clock, but didn't know if anyone already found one/picked one.

I'm thinking of this one: http://www.amazon.com/White-Travel-Alar ... QZ29H1SPMY

Link to rules and what is and isn't allowed here:

http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals ... CIES_R.pdf

[Charger]

Consider how quiet or loud the clock is. Cause I use this little travel one and the ticking drives me so crazy that sometimes I can't even concentrate. I need to get another one.