Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2014 Exam Forum

[iLoveFruits&Veggies]

Crim Law/Crim Pro professor has had one hell of a career.

For most of the subjects, at some point in the lectures, I would google the lecturer just for the hell of it. She is the only one I didn't look up because she lets you know all the cases she's worked on.

She sure has!! I thought she was good! As for flex or directed, I, too, am 100% flex now. Not sure if it's due to wisdom, or sheer panic, but I'm trying to wean myself away from outlines and videos and focus on active learning via writing out essays and MBE questions as much as possible. I've been pretty good about doing my daily dose of Adaptibar questions, just need to get better about writing out all those essays. I'm also reviewing old CA Bar exam questions/answers. Kinda doin' my own thing now...

Scared

[SilverE2]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

[iLoveFruits&Veggies]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

I got a 60% as well. Up from 58% on the 1st Milestone Exam. Thought I would do better than that since I'm getting above that on practice MBE questions I'm doing outside of Themis, but honestly, I'm WAY more scared about the essays at this point. I think I'll be ok on the MBE's by the time of the exam. It's the essays that are going to be my doom.

btw, you shouldn't think you haven't "improved" since they were 3 different subjects - so I think 60% with a month to go is good!

[Genuine4ps]

I'm a little confused by Themis's instruction of mistake of law.

The handout and MBE workshop both say that ignorance of the law is not a defense. So what's the difference being ignorance and mistake of law?

Is this defense available for both specific AND general intent crimes?

[TooManyLoans]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

I got a 60% as well. Up from 58% on the 1st Milestone Exam. Thought I would do better than that since I'm getting above that on practice MBE questions I'm doing outside of Themis, but honestly, I'm WAY more scared about the essays at this point. I think I'll be ok on the MBE's by the time of the exam. It's the essays that are going to be my doom.

btw, you shouldn't think you haven't "improved" since they were 3 different subjects - so I think 60% with a month to go is good!

64% but with no rhyme or reason. Contracts has been my strongest out of the three so far, yet on this exam I got 7/16 on contracts questions and did much better on crim. and evidence. But at least its better than that 56% on the first.

[iLoveFruits&Veggies]

I'm a little confused by Themis's instruction of mistake of law.

The handout and MBE workshop both say that ignorance of the law is not a defense. So what's the difference being ignorance and mistake of law?

Is this defense available for both specific AND general intent crimes?

It's my understanding that "ignorance of law" and "mistake of law" are the same thing. I guess you could say ignorance means you don't know the law and mistake might mean you thought the law was you can't do A, but it's really you can't do B. Either way, it's ignorance and it's not a defense for either specific intent or general intent crimes - even if your belief was reasonable and based on the advice of an attorney.

Saw this noted in my Conviser though for exceptions:
1. D has a defense if: the statute proscribing her conduct was not published or made reasonably available prior to the conduct
2. There was reasonable reliance on a statute or judicial decision
3. In some jurisdictions, there was reasonable reliance on official interpretation or advice.

It can also affect a collateral legal matter... the mistake must involve the elements of the crime, not the existence of a statue making the act criminal. i.e. a defendant cannot be found guilty of selling a gun to a known felon if she thought that the crime the buyer had been found guilty of was only a misdemeanor.




Someone else should verify though since I'm not smartest cookie here

[colonial108]

I was around 58-62% on contracts and I think like 63% on property when I finished the course. All of the others I was between 67-71%. The thing is to get through all of the MBE questions and read the explanations. I spent the VAST majority of my bar exam study time doing that. I didn't do any practice essays except for the graded ones (I only read the questions and model answers for all the other ones). The practice MBE questions from Themis will get you prepared for the real thing. I know mortgages suck, but almost every mortgage question revolves around who has priority to some claim. Just make sure you have a good grip on that and you will survive most of the mortgage questions. I struggled for a long time with contracts, too, but it all came together by the end of the course.

Hang in there, you will all survive. Trust me, if I can do it, any of you can.

i'm interested in the fact that you didn't do any practice essays except for the graded ones. i'm pretty much doing that, too. i've just been studying the model answers, which i find to be useful, but i'm not really trying to write anything out.

is that a risky proposition?

I don't think it is, but then again, it worked for me. I own three businesses and have four kids. I had limited time to study for the bar. I only watched lectures from bodies of law I didn't cover in law school or thought I needed for review (did not watch Property, Torts, Crim Law, Crim Pro or Evidence). Did not do any practice essays. I just totally focused on MBE. I did do all of the graded items.

The UBE essays were like mini law school essays but narrower. I can honestly say that I think doing a ton of practice essays would have been an epic waste of time. If you passed law school, you can write a bar exam essay...just know the rules (the best you can) and how to apply to the facts. After taking the bar, I really appreciated the Themis materials. They DID prepare me. If any of you are doing more than I did, you will be just fine. I can't speak for those who have more involved state bar essays though, as I didn't have to deal with that.

I'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have. Hell I'm a practicing lawyer now! (I started my own firm right after passing...yes, I'm nuts, but I really don't care.)

[Genuine4ps]

I'm a little confused by Themis's instruction of mistake of law.

The handout and MBE workshop both say that ignorance of the law is not a defense. So what's the difference being ignorance and mistake of law?

Is this defense available for both specific AND general intent crimes?

It's my understanding that "ignorance of law" and "mistake of law" are the same thing. I guess you could say ignorance means you don't know the law and mistake might mean you thought the law was you can't do A, but it's really you can't do B. Either way, it's ignorance and it's not a defense for either specific intent or general intent crimes - even if your belief was reasonable and based on the advice of an attorney.

Saw this noted in my Conviser though for exceptions:
1. D has a defense if: the statute proscribing her conduct was not published or made reasonably available prior to the conduct
2. There was reasonable reliance on a statute or judicial decision
3. In some jurisdictions, there was reasonable reliance on official interpretation or advice.

It can also affect a collateral legal matter... the mistake must involve the elements of the crime, not the existence of a statue making the act criminal. i.e. a defendant cannot be found guilty of selling a gun to a known felon if she thought that the crime the buyer had been found guilty of was only a misdemeanor.




Someone else should verify though since I'm not smartest cookie here

Thank you.

What's confusing is the handout. In one example of mistake of law, D drills holes in the wall of his apartment. He offers a VALID defense that he didn't know he wasn't allow to drill holes, and that he couldn't be guilty of destruction of property because he didn't knowingly deprive someone else of that other person's property.

Then, later on in the handout, under mistake of FACT, I guy accidentally grabs the wrong umbrella while leaving a restaurant. This guy can't be liable, because he didn't knowingly deprive someone else of their property.

What exactly is the difference between these two?

[northwood]

I'm a little confused by Themis's instruction of mistake of law.

The handout and MBE workshop both say that ignorance of the law is not a defense. So what's the difference being ignorance and mistake of law?

Is this defense available for both specific AND general intent crimes?

It's my understanding that "ignorance of law" and "mistake of law" are the same thing. I guess you could say ignorance means you don't know the law and mistake might mean you thought the law was you can't do A, but it's really you can't do B. Either way, it's ignorance and it's not a defense for either specific intent or general intent crimes - even if your belief was reasonable and based on the advice of an attorney.

Saw this noted in my Conviser though for exceptions:
1. D has a defense if: the statute proscribing her conduct was not published or made reasonably available prior to the conduct
2. There was reasonable reliance on a statute or judicial decision
3. In some jurisdictions, there was reasonable reliance on official interpretation or advice.

It can also affect a collateral legal matter... the mistake must involve the elements of the crime, not the existence of a statue making the act criminal. i.e. a defendant cannot be found guilty of selling a gun to a known felon if she thought that the crime the buyer had been found guilty of was only a misdemeanor.




Someone else should verify though since I'm not smartest cookie here

Thank you.

What's confusing is the handout. In one example of mistake of law, D drills holes in the wall of his apartment. He offers a VALID defense that he didn't know he wasn't allow to drill holes, and that he couldn't be guilty of destruction of property because he didn't knowingly deprive someone else of that other person's property.

Then, later on in the handout, under mistake of FACT, I guy accidentally grabs the wrong umbrella while leaving a restaurant. This guy can't be liable, because he didn't knowingly deprive someone else of their property.

What exactly is the difference between these two?

A mistake of fact is not a defense to a strict liability crime. It is however, a defense if the mistake negates the requisite mens rea to commit the cimre. It is not a defense when the defendant thinks he is committing a lesser crime since if a defendant would be guilty of the lesser crime, he has the requisite mental state to commit the lesser crime and the more serious crime.
A mistake of law can be a defense to a crime, but generally it is not a defense to a crime. However, if the defendant's underlying goal is in of itself not a crime, then even though he may have the requisite mens rea to successfully accomplish his goal, it is nevertheless not a crime because the underlying goal is not illegal.(i.e. to distinguish: mistake of law- the underlying action is legal to do, so it cannot be a crime; whereas mistake of fact may simply lessen the severity of the crime)

[j1987]

Anyone taking the NJ bar - what were your thoughts on the scores/comments for the 3rd graded essay (which was the first NJ graded essay I had to do)? I got a 4/6 total (Structure: 4/6; Legal Knowledge: 3/6; Analysis: 4/6) - but my grader said the essay I had was "excellent" and maybe had one or two very minor substantive comments. Are they just grading harshly??

My NJ essay was my worst graded one so far. I didn't make it look like a memo, so that was the first issue. I did it sort of how I do the NY essays, which I have done awesome on, but the NJ essay for some reason, I was told not to do it that way? I was really confused. I think I got like a 2 on that one.

[lsutiger1987]

Professor Charles P. Bubany who teaches Texas Criminal procedure is horrible. This guy is all over the place. Anyone taking the Texas bar had to suffer through this TX Crim Procedure lecture.

[071816]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

60% is good at this point. You have nothing to complain about. Just keep plugging away and don't get too caught up in the percentage. You're right around where you need to be.

[071816]

I just did the graded PT and I had no motivation. I barely finished and wrote a lot less than the model answers. Not feeling too good about this one...

[Genuine4ps]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

60% is good at this point. You have nothing to complain about. Just keep plugging away and don't get too caught up in the percentage. You're right around where you need to be.

Yeah, you're going to be fine.

I will say that I underestimated how difficult it's going to be to "auto-pass" with the MBE.

[champ33]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

60% is good at this point. You have nothing to complain about. Just keep plugging away and don't get too caught up in the percentage. You're right around where you need to be.

Yeah, you're going to be fine.

I will say that I underestimated how difficult it's going to be to "auto-pass" with the MBE.

I was curious about this "auto-pass" idea from the other thread. I guess there might not be any number that would make it impossible, but how many out of 190 would you need to... say... make it very very difficult to fail?

[kapital98]

Soooo how did everyone's Milestone 2 go?

I got another 60%. Same as the first milestone. I'm definitely not happy. Not sure if I should be unhappy though. The good part is I hit the goal. The bad part is...I don't seem to have improved at all.

60% is good at this point. You have nothing to complain about. Just keep plugging away and don't get too caught up in the percentage. You're right around where you need to be.

Yeah, you're going to be fine.

I will say that I underestimated how difficult it's going to be to "auto-pass" with the MBE.

I was curious about this "auto-pass" idea from the other thread. I guess there might not be any number that would make it impossible, but how many out of 190 would you need to... say... make it very very difficult to fail?

It depends on the state. If your state is 60% MBE then you need about 80% of the MBE questions correct.

For NY, you can use this calculator to toy around with percentages (NY has 40% MBE): http://www.seperac.com/calc-bar-f08.php

[TooManyLoans]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

[jigglypuffdreams]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

I did the same thing, the only thing I could do was send a message and ask them to unlock it. They were really snarky and gave me some line about how they'd only do this once, but hey, you're paying 1500 or whatever, they can fix their glitchy design and give you the questions you paid for. They unlocked it for me a few days later though.

[Tanicius]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

I did the same thing, the only thing I could do was send a message and ask them to unlock it. They were really snarky and gave me some line about how they'd only do this once, but hey, you're paying 1500 or whatever, they can fix their glitchy design and give you the questions you paid for. They unlocked it for me a few days later though.

LOL

I sometimes wonder if their code for the website is intentionally this bad. You could hire a CSCI intern from college over a summer who would fix their entire site for $10 an hour.

[TooManyLoans]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

I did the same thing, the only thing I could do was send a message and ask them to unlock it. They were really snarky and gave me some line about how they'd only do this once, but hey, you're paying 1500 or whatever, they can fix their glitchy design and give you the questions you paid for. They unlocked it for me a few days later though.

Yea that's a little ridiculous. Why let people choose how many questions if they're going to lock out the full 34. Sucks I just had to send tech support a question yesterday as well because I input my answers wrong on the Milestone 2 and needed that reset. .

[bedefan]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

I did the same thing, the only thing I could do was send a message and ask them to unlock it. They were really snarky and gave me some line about how they'd only do this once, but hey, you're paying 1500 or whatever, they can fix their glitchy design and give you the questions you paid for. They unlocked it for me a few days later though.

Yea that's a little ridiculous. Why let people choose how many questions if they're going to lock out the full 34. Sucks I just had to send tech support a question yesterday as well because I input my answers wrong on the Milestone 2 and needed that reset. .

I get around this by always selecting the full # of questions. Then when I've done as many as I want to do, I just exit the browser (clicking "yes" to the "You have unsaved data on this page, are you sure you want to exit?" or whatever the pop-up warning is). Then when I re-launch the course the task is not listed as done, but it remembers the questions I've done and how much time I used. Then I just pick up where I left off.

Using a laptop with Firefox for this trick -- haven't tried it with anything else. Oh, and I haven't tried it in test mode, only interactive mode.

Annoying, but it works.

[bedefan]

I will say that I underestimated how difficult it's going to be to "auto-pass" with the MBE.

I was curious about this "auto-pass" idea from the other thread. I guess there might not be any number that would make it impossible, but how many out of 190 would you need to... say... make it very very difficult to fail?

It depends on the state. If your state is 60% MBE then you need about 80% of the MBE questions correct.

For NY, you can use this calculator to toy around with percentages (NY has 40% MBE): http://www.seperac.com/calc-bar-f08.php

It also depends on your state's minimum passing score. So for example, in Illinois it's 264 -- this means that, despite the fact that the MBE is only 50% of your score in IL, you still only need somewhere between 70-80% correct for an effective autopass.

[iLoveFruits&Veggies]

What happens if you do an MBE PQ session in flex mode, but instead of taking the full 34 assigned you choose 17. Is there a way to go back and do the other 17? When I click on it, it has a check mark and then just takes me to the results page for the 17 I did.

I did the same thing, the only thing I could do was send a message and ask them to unlock it. They were really snarky and gave me some line about how they'd only do this once, but hey, you're paying 1500 or whatever, they can fix their glitchy design and give you the questions you paid for. They unlocked it for me a few days later though.

Yea that's a little ridiculous. Why let people choose how many questions if they're going to lock out the full 34. Sucks I just had to send tech support a question yesterday as well because I input my answers wrong on the Milestone 2 and needed that reset. .

The same thing happened to me. Didn't realize if I did 17, I'd lose the other 17 practice questions. Doesn't make any sense. At the very least, they should add a sentence to the instructions letting you know that this will happen.

[Catleesi]

Hi 2014 kids-- I used Themis last year, and I remember how I felt at this point and wanted to drop by for brief encouragement. Using Themis, I passed the UBE with 55 points to spare.

You can do it!!! Having read a few recent posts, the only advice I have is *for the love of all that is holy do the practice essays.* Law school essays are NOT bar essays! D:

I'm sorry the bar exam is happening to you, but hang tight. You will pass, and all of this will be just a crappy summer.

Good luck!!

[Genuine4ps]

Hi 2014 kids-- I used Themis last year, and I remember how I felt at this point and wanted to drop by for brief encouragement. Using Themis, I passed the UBE with 55 points to spare.

You can do it!!! Having read a few recent posts, the only advice I have is *for the love of all that is holy do the practice essays.* Law school essays are NOT bar essays! D:

I'm sorry the bar exam is happening to you, but hang tight. You will pass, and all of this will be just a crappy summer.

Good luck!!

Thanks. It seems like you were very satisfied with Themis for the MBE? Did you think their MBE PQs accurately reflected the actual MBE questions?