California Bar Exam (July 2013) thread Forum

[Emma.]

Anyone taking in Santa Clara? I don't know if I'll have the energy to head up to the city on Thursday, but no idea where to drown my sorrows down on the peninsula.

[a male human]

Anyone taking in Santa Clara? I don't know if I'll have the energy to head up to the city on Thursday, but no idea where to drown my sorrows down on the peninsula.

I am. Just go home after. I've already prepared a bottle of Captain Morgan's Long Island Iced Tea.

[Emma.]

Anyone taking in Santa Clara? I don't know if I'll have the energy to head up to the city on Thursday, but no idea where to drown my sorrows down on the peninsula.

I am. Just go home after. I've already prepared a bottle of Captain Morgan's Long Island Iced Tea.

Home is 1000 miles away. Drinking alone in my hotel room sounds kind of sad.

[Old Gregg]

I'm taking it in Santa Clara. I'd be down for doing something immediately after, but will have to catch the Caltrain back to SF.

[huckabees]

CA takers,

I'm not anywhere near a law school or any of my friends who are taking the CA bar and I haven't really been able to run questions/hypos/etc. by any law students, so I just set up a chat room for CA bar takers that might be helpful to keep running in the background to pop in and out of occasionally with questions. I found a site that's pretty simple and no registration or anything like that required. I'll keep it up and going until the bar.

If you're interested, go to http://chat.parachat.com/chat/login.html and the room is "California Bar," password = bar.

I really hope this didn't just give me a virus. Warning to others: I tried to enter the room and it seemed spammy.

Did anyone take Estate of Keefe yet? Or attempt to outline it? Does anyone know if Exam Soft allows you to do a double column format like what they're asking in Section III? This part of the PT threw me off, and I don't want to spend the PT time trying to figure stuff like this out.

How do you do a double column? And would they expect you to do that, or can we just label sections "Column 1" and "Column 2"? Anyone with access to baressays can confirm? Thanks!

Edit: For those who did Estate of Keefe, did you guys do the facts first? Barbri says to usually save the fact statements for last, but seems like we needed to do a pretty thorough job with the fact statement beforehand, or risk having to renumber a bunch of stuff in the later portions of the memo. Anyone have a strategy for dealing with that? I disliked having to refer to numbered paragraph citations in Farley v Dunn as well, as that slowed me down quite a bit.

[huckabees]

As to the 52.5, another problem with it was it didn't IRAC. The assigning memo didn't specify any particular format, but the person adopted this one.

X. Rule Violation X

Facts

(half page recital of facts for each violation)

Issue

(state the law? weak or nonexistent analysis, along with whether there was a violation)

Recommendations for Client

As for finishing on time, at a glance they all did. But if the petered out in the later sections, that probably didn't help. Still, if you write something reasonable for the later sections, even if it isn't as fleshed out as the beginning, you can definitely get into 60+.

So let's say there's a 7 factor test, if you follow the directions, write 5+ pages, and cover all 7 factors with IRAC, that's almost certainly going to be 60+. The one I just checked to confirm this had nearly a page to cover each of the first few factors and then only a paragraph to cover the later the ones. And of course the California Bar sample answer had a page of analysis for each factor.

Score distributions, you have to keep in mind that these are only essays from people who've failed the bar, and even then only those people BarEssays chose to purchase from. With that in mind however, the 65 and up category in the PTs is the biggest one (vs 57.5 and below, 60-62.5), which isn't so for the regular essays.

Thanks for the PT info!

Did you see anything that we could dispense with and still score decently on PTs? For instance, Barbri often tends to have an introduction and conclusion that summarize all the points (especially in client letters, but elsewhere as well). Wondering if we can do just a line or two for that and focus more on the stuff under each argument or sub-header that the Task Memo recommends.

Or perhaps what I should ask is - what did you notice we could dispense with that are usually included anyway in the model answers? Really need to find a method to finish in time, and wondering what I should selectively skimp on. Thanks again.

[Foosters Galore]

So I was trying to learn Community property last night and looked into the Convisor Mini Review for some clarification. Realized that there's tons of stuff in there that's not covered at all in the lecture. Even more puzzling, there was some stuff covered in depth in the lecture that's not even mentioned in the CMR. What gives?

Furthermore, I've noticed a trend that certain essay answers have in depth discussions of concepts I've never heard of.

[AntiHuman]

Just finished PR last night. I have 3 days left to study 6 non mbe subjects.

community prop
corporations
agency/partnership
civ pro
trusts wills
remedies

I'm guessing I should put trusts wills, remedies, and community prop as priorities?

[TaipeiMort]

So I was trying to learn Community property last night and looked into the Convisor Mini Review for some clarification. Realized that there's tons of stuff in there that's not covered at all in the lecture. Even more puzzling, there was some stuff covered in depth in the lecture that's not even mentioned in the CMR. What gives?

Furthermore, I've noticed a trend that certain essay answers have in depth discussions of concepts I've never heard of.

I think in general, the prep courses are approaching each of the CA topics as a 80/20 rule type thing. They know what has generally been tested, and know of your 3 or 3.5 CA topics on the bar exam, you will probably be hit with 80+% of the same old stuff, and another 10 or 20% of stuff that comes kind of out of left field, or was just a minor topic in the outlines and lectures. They know that if you learn the 80% of stuff well, you will be just fine on the bar, can pull some of the other stuff out of your hat, and it would be a huge time waste to try to memorize the rest.

[Foosters Galore]

Just finished PR last night. I have 3 days left to study 6 non mbe subjects.

community prop
corporations
agency/partnership
civ pro
trusts wills
remedies

I'm guessing I should put trusts wills, remedies, and community prop as priorities?

That's what I would do. On a related note, I spent about 15 minutes on CA civ pro yesterday before giving up. I'm screwed if that's on there.

[Reinhardt]

I sucked at Civ Pro in law school, and the outlines and stuff made no sense to me when I tried to read them, so I'm just rewatching the lectures at 2x

[TaipeiMort]

Just finished PR last night. I have 3 days left to study 6 non mbe subjects.

community prop
corporations
agency/partnership
civ pro
trusts wills
remedies

I'm guessing I should put trusts wills, remedies, and community prop as priorities?

And CA evidence distinctions. I am calling the topics on the bar as follows:

Con Law
Property
Evidence (with CA distinctions)
Trusts or Wills
Remedies
Community Property

and one of the topics will definitely have Professional responsibility mixed in. Most likely Trusts/Wills or Remedies

[AMCD]

I add contracts.

On a happier note, just got an email from a law school friend who took and passed in February. Only completed 32 % of her bar prep course and left out an entire section in the PT and passed. And those pass rates were horrible for February. And, in case you are wondering, she was not anything close to a good student in terms of grades.

[Reinhardt]

Wish I knew I could do that. I want my June back.

Here's hoping we don't get a bunch of questions on Abuse of Process, Interpleader, and Exchange Act Rule 10b-5 violations

[Foosters Galore]

Speaking of contracts....

Can someone explain how an "accommodation" fits in with the perfect tender rule? If the buyer rejects the accommodation do you then move on to perfect tender analysis (cure, installments, etc.)?

[Reinhardt]

Speaking of contracts....

Can someone explain how an "accommodation" fits in with the perfect tender rule? If the buyer rejects the accommodation do you then move on to perfect tender analysis (cure, installments, etc.)?

Accommodation is not an acceptance of the contract. I guess it's an offer, which may be accepted or rejected by the buyer?

[Shaggier1]

Just finished PR last night. I have 3 days left to study 6 non mbe subjects.

community prop
corporations
agency/partnership
civ pro
trusts wills
remedies

I'm guessing I should put trusts wills, remedies, and community prop as priorities?

That's definitely my plan. I just don't think BA or Civ Pro are very likely. And even if one of them, or both, is on the test, I am trying to plan for bombing 2, maybe even 3 essays. I will pick up my points elsewhere – the big payoff comes from MBE subjects.

[a male human]

I sucked at Civ Pro in law school, and the outlines and stuff made no sense to me when I tried to read them, so I'm just rewatching the lectures at 2x

XD that sounds like it would confuse you even more.

Differences I gleaned from CA civ pro in this quick outline:
Permissive and compulsory counterclaims have switched requirements (FRCP: same transaction or occurrence for compulsory, same subject matter for permissive, vice versa for CA cross-complaints)
Counter-claims, cross-claims, etc. are all called cross-complaints in CA
Motion to dismiss is called demurrer in CA

Fact pleading (statement of facts constituting COA) vs. allege facts "plausibly" in fed
Anti-SLAPP motions for constitutionally protected speech by defendant (public interest or public forum) -- burden from D to P
Venue -- distinguish local/transitory actions: local involves property; venue is where property is; transitory actions could occur anywhere; venue is where D is
Venue transfer rules seem similar. Forum non conveniens where court technically has jx but may be more fairly and conveniently litigated in a different venue

Personal jurisdiction analysis is the same! C/D/P, gen contacts, minimum contacts arising from the long dick of the law

[vacations]

I add contracts.

On a happier note, just got an email from a law school friend who took and passed in February. Only completed 32 % of her bar prep course and left out an entire section in the PT and passed. And those pass rates were horrible for February. And, in case you are wondering, she was not anything close to a good student in terms of grades.

...i envy your friend...big time.

[c3pO4]

LOGISTICAL QUESTIONS

1 - Do/can we leave our laptop in the exam room during lunch?

2 - No backpacks, right? Just carry your laptop in, a power cord, some pencils, and earplugs, analog watch, nothing else?


these questions are related. if we can't bring a backpack, and can't leave our laptops, wtf are we supposed to do jus twalk around town with a laptop under our arms getting lunch?

[Tangerine Gleam]

I always drink tons of water during exams, so I'm pretty bummed we can't bring in a water bottle. Hoping I can sit near enough to the door that I can go to (hopefully?) a water fountain.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

I sucked at Civ Pro in law school, and the outlines and stuff made no sense to me when I tried to read them, so I'm just rewatching the lectures at 2x

XD that sounds like it would confuse you even more.

Differences I gleaned from CA civ pro in this quick outline:
Permissive and compulsory counterclaims have switched requirements (FRCP: same transaction or occurrence for compulsory, same subject matter for permissive, vice versa for CA cross-complaints)
Counter-claims, cross-claims, etc. are all called cross-complaints in CA
Motion to dismiss is called demurrer in CA

Fact pleading (statement of facts constituting COA) vs. allege facts "plausibly" in fed
Anti-SLAPP motions for constitutionally protected speech by defendant (public interest or public forum) -- burden from D to P
Venue -- distinguish local/transitory actions: local involves property; venue is where property is; transitory actions could occur anywhere; venue is where D is
Venue transfer rules seem similar. Forum non conveniens where court technically has jx but may be more fairly and conveniently litigated in a different venue

Personal jurisdiction analysis is the same! C/D/P, gen contacts, minimum contacts arising from the long dick of the law

THank you! You saved me an hour of hellish boredom

[Mroberts3]

LOGISTICAL QUESTIONS

1 - Do/can we leave our laptop in the exam room during lunch?

2 - No backpacks, right? Just carry your laptop in, a power cord, some pencils, and earplugs, analog watch, nothing else?


these questions are related. if we can't bring a backpack, and can't leave our laptops, wtf are we supposed to do jus twalk around town with a laptop under our arms getting lunch?

I'm going to bring everything in a backpack and then leave that in the hallway. Odds are lots of people will do this too and its just an empty backpack so who cares if it gets stolen. I plan on taking my computer with me at lunch. Not chancing anything on that front.

[Reinhardt]

I recall reading that you're required to leave your computer in the room, but that might've happened in a dream.

[a male human]

I sucked at Civ Pro in law school, and the outlines and stuff made no sense to me when I tried to read them, so I'm just rewatching the lectures at 2x

XD that sounds like it would confuse you even more.

Differences I gleaned from CA civ pro in this quick outline:
Permissive and compulsory counterclaims have switched requirements (FRCP: same transaction or occurrence for compulsory, same subject matter for permissive, vice versa for CA cross-complaints)
Counter-claims, cross-claims, etc. are all called cross-complaints in CA
Motion to dismiss is called demurrer in CA

Fact pleading (statement of facts constituting COA) vs. allege facts "plausibly" in fed
Anti-SLAPP motions for constitutionally protected speech by defendant (public interest or public forum) -- burden from D to P
Venue -- distinguish local/transitory actions: local involves property; venue is where property is; transitory actions could occur anywhere; venue is where D is
Venue transfer rules seem similar. Forum non conveniens where court technically has jx but may be more fairly and conveniently litigated in a different venue

Personal jurisdiction analysis is the same! C/D/P, gen contacts, minimum contacts arising from the long dick of the law

THank you! You saved me an hour of hellish boredom

Cool, glad it helped!

Disclaimer: It's only a broad overview of what I thought were the major areas to look at. I literally banged it out impromptu to the quoted post (with some research). It's not complete, so you'll have to do further research on some of the specifics.