Bar course day 1 Forum

[NewHere]

Good luck to everyone starting today.

Is BarBri right that this thing really requires 5-8 hours per day of studying (on top of 3-4 hours of class!), plus 10-12 hours per weekend? This is going to be a long summer.

[DelDad]

Long summer indeed. I'm in my second week, managing about 7-8 hours a day including lecture, and wishing I'd taken a UCC class in law school. Good luck

[TTT-LS]

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[Matthies]

It does not need to take that much time, but it can.

Some advice based on hindsight:

Many of you will want to wait to take MBEs/essays until you have covered the subject in BarBri: DON"T. Yes your score will suck at first, but start taking practice questions now, it really is the BEST way to learn the materials, far better than reviewing your outlines. Depending on how many questions you have access to, do 10-30 MBE a day (just make sure you don't run out before the exam) maybe 1 essay a day at this point. Don't even bother to look at your score, but read all the answers, even the wrong ones. This is the best way to study for the MBE.

Unless you really need to use scantron and paper I would recommend doing the online questions. They are faster and take your strong/weak areas.
Barbri, even the big book, won't cover a good 30-40% of what the MBE/Essay questions will ask, so don't be surprised when you read an answer and say WTF we never talked about that in class/LS. The bar tests you on the exception to the exception to the exception.

Also on or about July 4th, you will freakout and finally relize you have to start putting in 10+ hour days till exam. Unless you like I said abouve. Watch July 4th, people freak the fuck out in your class.

[NewHere]

As for the 5-8 per day + 10-12 per weekend, I think that's mostly puffery on Bar Bri's part. Sure, some serious work is required outside of class, but likely not as much as they say. Consider the incentives: Bar Bri brags on its pass rate and will push you to work as long as possible to keep that rate high. Plus, I think there's some psychology built in to the numbers as well: if they say 8, most people might do 4. But if they say 4, people would do 2.

That's probably right. Also, if they tell you you need to do 5-8 per day + 10-12 per weekend, if you fail and you come complaining, they can ask you whether you did all that they told you to do, and there's nobody out there who will be able to say "yes".

Matthies, thanks for the advice.

This exam screws with your mind: I'm vacillating between confidence ("there's still plenty of time;" "almost 90% passes;" "well, this is not so hard;" ) to utter panic ("This is one day's worth of material?! How am I going to memorize 40 times this amount?")

[Matthies]

This exam screws with your mind: I'm vacillating between confidence ("there's still plenty of time;" "almost 90% passes;" "well, this is not so hard;" ) to utter panic ("This is one day's worth of material?! How am I going to memorize 40 times this amount?")

You can't, and you should not try to. This seems counteriutative, but don't try and memorize it. I can't really explain what I mean, which is of course no help to you all, but you gotta sort of internalize it more than memorize it. Break it down to its simplistic parts, the key here is its NOT A LAW SCHOOL EXAM. Its a test of minimum competency. You're not going for an A, you won't have time for great intellectual arguments, you just need to get the BLL out as fast as you can and be able to catch the one word in the hypo or answer choice that makes 3 of the 4 answers not quite right.

For example on a LS exam, or in your barbri books a rule statement for Personal Jurisdiction might look like this from law nerds website:

Personal (in personam) jurisdiction is imposed over a defendant when both statutory and constitutional issues are met. From statutory point of view, one of four situations must occur to impose in personam jurisdiction. The defendant must 1) be present in the forum when served, 2) domiciled there, 3) consents to jurisdiction or 4) the state's long arm statute provides for jurisdiction. Constitutionally, the court has jurisdiction over D only if brining D into the forum state comports with the Due Process Clause. The Due Process Clause is satisfied if the defendant meet the minimum contacts test (International Shoe, Burger King) in order that the defendant has "such minimum contacts with the forum so that exercise of jurisdiction does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Minimum contact has been interpreted by the courts as including two elements 1) actual contact and 2) fairness. Under the actual contact prong, the factors considered are purposeful availment and foreseeability.

That's not so bad trying to memorize it for a civ pro exam, and four other courses. And we can remember most of that rule. But add in another 16 subjects with equally as long rules and trust me there is not enough room in your head for rules that long. Since we are not trying for an A on the bar, or trying to impress our professor, what we need is something short that we CAN memorize that just has the key words that will get us points.

In other words, make your own BLL, your own rule statements rather than trying to memorize the long as one from the outline or that you would for a law school exam: So my rule stamenet for PJ turns into:

Personal Jurisdiction over D's must comply with constitutional due process AND be authorized by state statue. For CDP D must have such minimum contacts (purposeful availment/foreseeable) with forum so that jurisdiction does not offend traditional notions of
fair play and substantial justice (relatedness, convience, fairness).

In other words drill the rule down to just what you need to memorize, the key words and elemnts that will get you points on the exam. Join like rules together rather than one rule for long arm, one riule for CDP, one for minimum cotancts and anouther for fair play and susbtain justuce. These rules allways go togther in a PJ hypo so make one short BLL rule stamate with the key words and elemnts then morrize that.

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

[orangeswarm]

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

That really isn't an abnormally low passage rate.

[Matthies]

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

Relatively speaking, that isn't a low passage rate.

The only states I know for sure with worse are CA and NY, and we a tiny state comapred to them, some states are as high as 90% pass rate

[orangeswarm]

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

Relatively speaking, that isn't a low passage rate.

The only states I know for sure with worse are CA and NY, and we a tiny state comapred to them, some states are as high as 90% pass rate

Scroll down to page 22 ("Ten-Year Summary of Bar Passage Rates, 2000–2009"): --LinkRemoved--

[NewHere]

Thanks again, Matthies.

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

Here (NY), it was similar: 65% overall last year, 72% for the July test only, but for first-time test takers who graduated with a JD from an ABA-approved school (i.e., excluding LLMs etc.), it's 88%. Source (LinkRemoved) (pdf).

[06072010]

Man, torts was enthralling today.

[cornell1L]

I plan on doing minimal work outside of class for the first couple of weeks, then gradually picking up the pace towards the end of June and then finally going all out after the 4th of July weekend (which I will take off and spend boozing w/ friends). If you put in a decent amount of time the main thing is to relax and not freak out.

[Matthies]

PS pass rate in my state was 70%

Relatively speaking, that isn't a low passage rate.

The only states I know for sure with worse are CA and NY, and we a tiny state comapred to them, some states are as high as 90% pass rate

Scroll down to page 22 ("Ten-Year Summary of Bar Passage Rates, 2000–2009"): --LinkRemoved--

Wow remind me not to take the bar in Palou. 10 year does not work for my state though. In 2009 we swicthed to MBE/MEE/MPT, before that we were MBE/state essays/MPT. Now we do MEE for essays, so no more one subject state law questions, but now we can have up to 2 subjects per essay and the essays can be on MBE topics as well. So 2009 was the first year of our new exam. They have use for 61% pass rate last feb, I took the bar this feb and the state said 70% overall passrate. Also go Orgegon with 100% bar passage rate for corrispondance school grads!

[DelDad]

Thanks for the advice, Matthies.

Today was mostly Contracts, with a question set each of ConLaw and Property thrown in. About to start on BarBri reading for tomorrow.

[Matthies]

are you guys classes live or video taped? Mine were video tapped, becuase all the states with MEE got the same lectures I guess.

[06072010]

NY video

[Matthies]

NY video

Man I hope you guys get the freaky guy for Agency/Partnership, he is funny in a creepy kind of way

[orangeswarm]

Mine is a mix of live and videotaped

[mikesterns]

Bar review was such a terrible experience at the time. Here's the thing, now that I'm working at a firm, bar review seems like a fleeting memory of a better life. My friends and I look back on it fondly. Think on that.

[06072010]

God this is brutal.

[Matthies]

God this is brutal.

At least you have internet acess

[SwollenMonkey]

Tagged! Thanks!

[TTT-LS]

,

[NewHere]

am I the only one semi-annoyed at what the bar tests?

No. And I'm also annoyed at the concept of the test as a closed-book memorization exercise. What lawyer is going to rely on memory when representing a client?

[Matthies]

am I the only one semi-annoyed at what the bar tests?

No. And I'm also annoyed at the concept of the test as a closed-book memorization exercise. What lawyer is going to rely on memory when representing a client?

The bar exam is outdated and outmoded. Its simply a hoop you have to jump through becuase lawyers hate change, they did it, so you have to do it.