Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[always_raining]

Does anyone else hate doing property MBE questions because they are so long? Every time I see the giant paragraph of text I sigh.

[soj]

.

[kateebee]

In Maryland and I still haven't gotten this mysterious zip file with final review outlines for non-MBE subjects.

Same. I didn't realize what everyone was talking about until just now. That would be pretty helpful. I'm pretty disappointed with the Md. advisers overall. I was sold a much higher level of service both with Themis's product and the adviser interaction. Oh well. Just a few weeks to go and I will hopefully pass and be thankful I saved like $1,000.

[smalogna]

This is ridiculous. It's been a week since my last graded essay and no review. I contact Themis and they NOW tell me there was an issue with my grader and they are reassigning me a new one. Unreal.

[misterjames]

oh no, the NY professional responsibility guy is the same guy who did the MPRE...

[paulshortys10]

I'm not one to care much about %, but .02% for reading the 70+page prof resp outline is just ridiculous.

[zot1]

Took my first MBE set after 7 days of no practice and . . .

[Confused7]

Fudge, I messed up royally on the graded essay for today. Halp.

[+] Spoiler

I totally did not see how the oral agreement was modified contemporaneously with the written agreement. I said that since it was done after the signing of the written agreement that it was a subsequent modification and therefore PER did not apply. Also why is new consideration not necessary for the modification?

[henry flower]

In Maryland and I still haven't gotten this mysterious zip file with final review outlines for non-MBE subjects.

Same. I didn't realize what everyone was talking about until just now. That would be pretty helpful. I'm pretty disappointed with the Md. advisers overall. I was sold a much higher level of service both with Themis's product and the adviser interaction. Oh well. Just a few weeks to go and I will hopefully pass and be thankful I saved like $1,000.

I got a private message with from another candidate, who asked Themis about this. Apparently Themis doesn't "do" final review outlines for Maryland's non-MBE subjects, even though they do so for other jurisdictions.

I have been disappointed as well, but I think it is to be expected. Why would any highly qualified lawyer choose to be a "personal adviser" for Themis? As far as my experience goes, my personal adviser is personable and timely when it comes to returning my graded essays, but his feedback has been really general and less than helpful. Plus, the SBLE provides great feedback for every essay question they've given in recent memory. The combo of the "Bar Examiner's Analysis" and the two "Sample Answers" has been way more useful than any Themis feedback, and it's all available for free from the SBLE website, although it's not organized topically.

On the other hand, I think the substantive MBE lecturers (NOT the "MBE Workshop" stuff, which was utterly useless) have generally been great, in my opinion. Property is the only one that really missed a major area of focus (mortgages and the foreclosure process, as everyone on this board has noted many, many times) and I still liked the professor's lecture style and sense of humor. The Evidence guy creeped me the fuck out, but admittedly he covered most of the important stuff in a relatively memorable way.

Although I feel like they could do some small things with their interface/application to make their service 1000x better, Themis has generally been a decent value for me, especially since I really didn't want to deal with attending any kind of "class." I might not feel that way, however, if I was really struggling with a specific topic, or if the MBE didn't click with me pretty quickly. One-on-one attention just isn't the same when it's via email.

[zot1]

Agency question:

[+] Spoiler

I had an agency essay regarding this restaurant deal where the agent was not supposed to order supplies from this place. She did anyway because otherwise there would be no essay. When the dude found out, he refused to pay, but there's also no mention that he returned the supplies. The model answer goes into collateral estoppel to hold the dude liable.

My question is, why not ratified authority? After all, he learned of the material benefits of the contract and made no attempt to return the supplies thereby keeping the benefit of the contract. Is it because the principal must know about the contract before or when it happens?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Side note: I wish my facebook would stop showing messages of people celebrating the three-day weekend

Bump.

[gr8scOtt!]

Agency question:

[+] Spoiler

I had an agency essay regarding this restaurant deal where the agent was not supposed to order supplies from this place. She did anyway because otherwise there would be no essay. When the dude found out, he refused to pay, but there's also no mention that he returned the supplies. The model answer goes into collateral estoppel to hold the dude liable.

My question is, why not ratified authority? After all, he learned of the material benefits of the contract and made no attempt to return the supplies thereby keeping the benefit of the contract. Is it because the principal must know about the contract before or when it happens?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Side note: I wish my facebook would stop showing messages of people celebrating the three-day weekend

Bump.

[+] Spoiler

My best guess (probably wrong) is that it's because he's not ratified the entire act/contract because he refused to pay? So you have to look to estoppel since he's kept the supplies.

[zot1]

Agency question:

[+] Spoiler

I had an agency essay regarding this restaurant deal where the agent was not supposed to order supplies from this place. She did anyway because otherwise there would be no essay. When the dude found out, he refused to pay, but there's also no mention that he returned the supplies. The model answer goes into collateral estoppel to hold the dude liable.

My question is, why not ratified authority? After all, he learned of the material benefits of the contract and made no attempt to return the supplies thereby keeping the benefit of the contract. Is it because the principal must know about the contract before or when it happens?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Side note: I wish my facebook would stop showing messages of people celebrating the three-day weekend

Bump.

[+] Spoiler

My best guess (probably wrong) is that it's because he's not ratified the entire act/contract because he refused to pay? So you have to look to estoppel since he's kept the supplies.

But isn't that the whole point of agency? Whether we can hold the principal liable? I'm not sure payment goes into ratification but I could be wrong too--after all I did get the question wrong haha!

[chipperjones]

Milestone II was a clusterfuck. Three questions that stood out to me as particularly loathsome (all of which I missed):

[+] Spoiler

There is a past recollection recorded question when you get no information and then, "after the witness testifies," the attorney seeks to read into the record parts of a document witness prepared at the time of the accident. The right answer is that it's admitted if the witness "is unable to remember." This requires the rather heroic assumption that the doc was handed to the witness in an attempt to refresh the witness's memory BEFORE her testimony but it also assumes that you should just ignore the present tense verb in the "correct" answer choice ("is unable to remember" as opposed to "was unable at the time of the attempted refreshing").

[+] Spoiler

Class action question about aggregation of class members' claims that don't meet the AIC requirement, where one class member's does. Uh, really? The answer explanation all but admits that the "correct" answer is only correct because of a highly technical matter of how courts treat these claims.

[+] Spoiler

Class action notice: we're supposed to know not only that "impairing interest" = 23(b)(1),but also that 23(b)(1) doesn't require notice. And, in the answer explanation, it rules out an answer choice by saying the notice comported with the Rules WHEN IT DIDN'T: although it specified the manner for exclusion, it did not specify the TIME for when a class member seeking to opt out had to appear with attorney for an exclusion. See FRCP 23, Themis.

GRRRRR.

[sd5289]

Question to the NY'ers on the essays.

The workshop person (who I've found *far* more helpful than Ms. "5 tips" person) says in the last workshop that when it comes to corporations, NY is only going to test us on close corporations, not publicly traded corporations.

Is that true? Why did we spend 11 lectures dedicated largely to publicly traded corporations if NY is only testing us on close corporations?

I'm just a bit skeptical of this claim and don't want to be caught off guard on exam day. I haven't done today's graded exam yet (at least partially on corporations), so I don't know if that is going to confirm this claim or not.

[soj]

.

[Confused7]

Question to the NY'ers on the essays.

The workshop person (who I've found *far* more helpful than Ms. "5 tips" person) says in the last workshop that when it comes to corporations, NY is only going to test us on close corporations, not publicly traded corporations.

Is that true? Why did we spend 11 lectures dedicated largely to publicly traded corporations if NY is only testing us on close corporations?

I'm just a bit skeptical of this claim and don't want to be caught off guard on exam day. I haven't done today's graded exam yet (at least partially on corporations), so I don't know if that is going to confirm this claim or not.

I found the essay Qs involving corporations to be relevant to the lectures. I think most of the rules the lectures went over also apply to close corporations. In fact, weren't there areas where the lectures specifically noted that some things don't apply to publicly traded corporations? I think it's assumed that they were teaching us mostly on closed corporations.

[sd5289]

Question to the NY'ers on the essays.

The workshop person (who I've found *far* more helpful than Ms. "5 tips" person) says in the last workshop that when it comes to corporations, NY is only going to test us on close corporations, not publicly traded corporations.

Is that true? Why did we spend 11 lectures dedicated largely to publicly traded corporations if NY is only testing us on close corporations?

I'm just a bit skeptical of this claim and don't want to be caught off guard on exam day. I haven't done today's graded exam yet (at least partially on corporations), so I don't know if that is going to confirm this claim or not.

I found the essay Qs involving corporations to be relevant to the lectures. I think most of the rules the lectures went over also apply to close corporations. In fact, weren't there areas where the lectures specifically noted that some things don't apply to publicly traded corporations? I think it's assumed that they were teaching us mostly on closed corporations.

Yeah, I probably should have just waited until I did a practice essay before asking. I just did one practice Corps essay before doing the graded one,

[+] Spoiler

and it was very much testing all the rules on shareholder voting, including record date, voting by proxy, revocation of a proxy, treasury shares, and certificate of incorporation v. bylaws.

So yes, I feel a little better about that advice now that I've seen one of the Corps essays.

[MrBriggs360]

I have a gift for you guys in about 45 minutes. I reduced every crucial concept in the entire 62 page Criminal Law MBE outline to an 11 page Excel document in this format:

http://imgur.com/4yMZW2h

Will post as soon as it's completed, just finishing defenses

[somuchbooty]

I have a gift for you guys in about 45 minutes. I reduced every crucial concept in the entire 62 page Criminal Law MBE outline to an 11 page excell document in this format:

http://imgur.com/4yMZW2h

Will post as soon as it's completed, just finishing defenses

thank you sir, please provide a schedule that accurately details when the other subjects will be available for distribution.

[MrBriggs360]

I have a gift for you guys in about 45 minutes. I reduced every crucial concept in the entire 62 page Criminal Law MBE outline to an 11 page excell document in this format:

http://imgur.com/4yMZW2h

Will post as soon as it's completed, just finishing defenses

thank you sir, please provide a schedule that accurately details when the other subjects will be available for distribution.

To be honest, I have learned way more from putting together this Excel sheet than I have from anything else. Today I decided not to worry about any % values and to just complete this, and if it pays dividends I'm going to switch up my entire strategy. So it is conceivable that I might put together another subject or two, I have a ton of them started but none complete.

I'm contemplating shooting for 80% of the course plus all MBE topics outlined instead of shooting for 100% of the course. We'll see.

[lacrossebrother]

This seems smart. I'd actually be interested in even getting your incomplete starter files and completing them myself. Looking forward to your crim thang!

[sd5289]

I have a gift for you guys in about 45 minutes. I reduced every crucial concept in the entire 62 page Criminal Law MBE outline to an 11 page excell document in this format:

http://imgur.com/4yMZW2h

Will post as soon as it's completed, just finishing defenses

thank you sir, please provide a schedule that accurately details when the other subjects will be available for distribution.

To be honest, I have learned way more from putting together this Excel sheet than I have from anything else. Today I decided not to worry about any % values and to just complete this, and if it pays dividends I'm going to switch up my entire strategy. So it is conceivable that I might put together another subject or two, I have a ton of them started but none complete.

I'm contemplating shooting for 80% of the course plus all MBE topics outlined instead of shooting for 100% of the course. We'll see.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Though I definitely agree that I learn the most by putting these kinds of things together.

I also highly suggest (for everyone) creating these kinds of charts for Real Property with both future interests and estates, specifically with the type of language you need to see in order to indicate which one it is, as well as in Civ Pro with Erie (though that hasn't come up much on my practice MBE questions?).

But bravo good sir!

[2014]

So I pretty much get 55-65% on the MBE sets like clockwork. I have gotten below 50 (47%) and above 70 (74%) exactly once each. At what point do I stop relying on Themis patting me on the back for getting >half right and start worrying?

[sd5289]

So I pretty much get 55-65% on the MBE sets like clockwork. I have gotten below 50 (47%) and above 70 (74%) exactly once each. At what point do I stop relying on Themis patting me on the back for getting >half right and start worrying?

I'm pretty similar to you (maybe a little higher on the average with mine being about 60-70), but it's totally subject specific. I got under 50 once on one of my first Real Property sets, which was a disaster (think it was 47), and the only time I get above 70-75 is in subjects I was already strong on. Otherwise I'm hovering around 62-65. My understanding is that's good enough?

One tactic I've taken is I've stopped blindly diving into practice questions or essays on new subjects that I've just barely watched the lectures and skimmed the outline on, and I've taken a little more time to actually understand the material. My performance has shot up dramatically since I started doing that about 1-2 weeks ago, so maybe try that? I mean, I've learned plenty from the PQ explanations, but I feel like I'm wasting practice time by blindly going through a question I had no hope of answering correctly absent a lucky guess in the first place.

ETA: for me, taking a little more time to understand means outlining. I was an outliner in LS, and it was *the* way I would understand and remember material. Takes a little more time, but it's what works for me. I jumped into a Wills essay having just done the lectures and outline, and reviewing, and totally bombed that shit. Outlined it, and nailed the second one. I think you've just gotta do what you did in LS, and spend the time necessary to do it.

[MrBriggs360]

Where should I upload this?