California Bar Exam (July 2013) thread Forum

[vacations]

Ok time for some honesty...how do you guys feel right now?

Prepared? Good to go? Or deifnitely some (a lot) more brushing up to do while trying franctically not to freak out...

[Emma.]

Ok time for some honesty...how do you guys feel right now?

Prepared? Good to go? Or deifnitely some (a lot) more brushing up to do while trying franctically not to freak out...

The latter.

[Reinhardt]

The latter, especially with some of the BarBri stuff going on in here now that Themis didn't cover at all.

[adonai]

Just wanted to wish everyone good luck. I will be in your position next year and am not looking forward to it at all. I was wondering which California Bar Exam topic you guys thought was the easiest to learn on your own and doesn't require you to take it during school?

[Tangerine Gleam]

Just wanted to wish everyone good luck. I will be in your position next year and am not looking forward to it at all. I was wondering which California Bar Exam topic you guys thought was the easiest to learn on your own and doesn't require you to take it during school?

CA Community Property, I guess. But I'm still pretty scared of getting it on the exam.

I think it would be a big mistake to not at least take Evidence and Crim Pro in school. They are learnable in a summer, but I imagine that they would be some of the more difficult subjects to get a solid grasp of.

[a male human]

i'm tired and don't want to study my last subject--evidence and ca evidence

[spaacecdt]

Any of you mathematically/statistically inclined?

If so, how accurate do you think these bad boys are:

http://www.lawprism.com/resources.php

[Old Gregg]

Right now I'm hopefully prepared enough to pass. I'm just using tonight and tomorrow to build some cushion. The bar exam is all about failsafes.

[Reinhardt]

The Cal Bar releases its formula to calculate the scores for each administration, so the Law Prism stuff is accurate. Each administration's curve is a bit different though.

[Tangerine Gleam]

Damn, just did Crossover Essay 5. Highly recc it. Corps/PR Essay and I def missed 25% of the issues

Yikes. This one was tough. Never a good feeling to read BarEssays answers that got 55s and think "hmm, I couldn't have written that right now."

[a male human]

To be clear, is a 60 a "failing" grade and 65 a "passing"? I think I also heard 62.5 supposed to be the average? Not really sure how good a 65 should be...

[Old Gregg]

Although states can't enact laws that conflict w/ federal laws, can states create laws that are more restrictive? One of the MBE Qs confused me on that...

[Shaggier1]

Although states can't enact laws that conflict w/ federal laws, can states create laws that are more restrictive? One of the MBE Qs confused me on that...

As I understand it, the answer is yes unless the pre-emption is express, in which case states cannot make laws in the field even if they are consistent with the federal law.

[Old Gregg]

Thanks broseph.

[Shaggier1]

Np. For any other questions, you might be better off going to Uncle Phil. He's a judge.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

Damn, just did Crossover Essay 5. Highly recc it. Corps/PR Essay and I def missed 25% of the issues

Yikes. This one was tough. Never a good feeling to read BarEssays answers that got 55s and think "hmm, I couldn't have written that right now."

Doubt that anyone could write about all those PR issues in one hour tho. Barbri's answer had like 8-10 issues just on PR. Insanity

[Reinhardt]

The good news is that a good faith effort that isn't 1 page or completely wrong gets at least a 50. If you have a decent MBE and PTs you can absorb even one or two 50s if you make it up on other essays.

[Old Gregg]

For sexually-oriented speech, is the reasonableness standard national or local community? I have the former, but saw one of the answers on NCBEX say the latter was sufficient.

[Reinhardt]

Obscenity?
1) appeals to prurient interest (local standard)
2) offensive to the average person (local standard)
3) lacking in serious scientific, literary, artistic, or political merit (national standard)

[jmhendri]

Although states can't enact laws that conflict w/ federal laws, can states create laws that are more restrictive? One of the MBE Qs confused me on that...

As I understand it, the answer is yes unless the pre-emption is express, in which case states cannot make laws in the field even if they are consistent with the federal law.

Or in the case of field preemption.

[Mick Haller]

Although states can't enact laws that conflict w/ federal laws, can states create laws that are more restrictive? One of the MBE Qs confused me on that...

Federal laws are a floor. States can "ratchet up" constitutional protections but they can't "ratchet them down"

Unless preemption, as others already said

[Old Gregg]

Thanks guys. 11th hour question about CP: For putative marriage, if one of the "spouses" knows that the marriage is false and can be shown to know, he/she forfeits his half of CP, right?

[Reinhardt]

Thanks guys. 11th hour question about CP: For putative marriage, if one of the "spouses" knows that the marriage is false and can be shown to know, he/she forfeits his half of CP, right?

If he (probably he) is knowingly maintaining one regular marriage and one quasi-marriage, then the two innocent spouses split the CP, but not sure about other situations.

For instance, if one putative spouse tells the other that he filed their marriage papers, but didn't actually do it, I'm not sure courts are going to go so far as to take away his half of the CP.

[Mick Haller]

Just saw a cargo truck unloading what appeared to be boxes of your exams. At the Oakland convention center. Hope they have enough power outlets this year

[Emma.]

Thanks guys. 11th hour question about CP: For putative marriage, if one of the "spouses" knows that the marriage is false and can be shown to know, he/she forfeits his half of CP, right?

If he (probably he) is knowingly maintaining one regular marriage and one quasi-marriage, then the two innocent spouses split the CP, but not sure about other situations.

For instance, if one putative spouse tells the other that he filed their marriage papers, but didn't actually do it, I'm not sure courts are going to go so far as to take away his half of the CP.

IIRC some courts only have held that the innocent spouse gets 1/2 of the QMP, the other spouse gets his or her contributions to the QMP up to 1/2 of the QMP to but gets nothing from the innocent spouse. Some just divide the QMP 50-50

So if at the start of the "marriage" neither spouse had any assets, and then for the entire marriage both the innocent H and the wrongdoer W were earning, the innocent H would get 1/2 of the W's earnings and keep ALL of his earnings. The W keeps 1/2 of her earnings but gets nothing from the spouse.

In other news, fog has fucked up my flight and I might not make it to CA to take the exam at all.