Texas Saloon- Feb. 2016 Texas Bar Forum

[left shark]

YES! A couple of first time takers asked me about that question tonight and I was like ummmm, well, lemme seeeee.

I don't even remember reading it last July. So much of that exam was a blur.

BVest was kind enough to send me something from TexJur:

A defendant may urge the ineffective assistance of his or her counsel as a ground for a new trial. A defendant may raise ineffective assistance of counsel in a motion for a new trial even though it is not a ground specifically enumerated in the Rule of Appellate Procedure listing grounds on which the defendant must be granted a new trial. To prevail on this ground, a defendant seeking a new trial is required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that his or her counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and that the deficient performance prejudiced his or her defense. More specifically, a defendant must demonstrate that counsel's performance was so deficient that he or she was not functioning as acceptable counsel under the Sixth Amendment and that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's error, the result of the proceedings would have been different.

[BVest]

The key to remember in MNT for ineffective counsel is that you have to be able to show harmful error. If the outcome would have been the same whether you had Clarence Darrow or the lawyer from Idiocracy then you don't get a new trial.

[longhornlaw]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

[bluesplitter]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

[jaimeg314]

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

How easy/hard do you think it is to get to 12 points on an essay? I fear that the essays will be the death of me

In the event of a complete blank on a question, I wonder if stating the issue and making up a rule to apply will be enough for 12 points...

[mtyler19]

I should really know this by now, but Wills is my worst subject so I'm just going to blame it on that. But I'm doing the assigned essays for today, and I'm getting kind of confused. If an heir disclaims his interest, the disclaimed interest then passes as though the disclaiming party predeceased the decedent. Does the 120 hour rule not apply then? I thought you had to survive the decedent to take anything as an heir or have anything go to your descendants? #25 is a similar situation but it states that "if a will beneficiary predeceases the testator, the gift lapses," then it goes into discussing the anti lapse statute, while #20 doesn't. Thank you in advance!!

[bluesplitter]

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

How easy/hard do you think it is to get to 12 points on an essay? I fear that the essays will be the death of me

In the event of a complete blank on a question, I wonder if stating the issue and making up a rule to apply will be enough for 12 points...

Hard to say...but i think getting the result of the call of the question and ok analysis will get u 10 points.


Getting the call of the question wrong, and missing issue with ok analysis your looking at 7 pts.

Getting call of question right and getting the rules right, yet shallow analysis will get 12 pts.

[TXforeignlawyer]

Aside from Bar Prep Hero site, does anyone know of anywhere else to access free MBE questions?

[DueProcessDoWheelies]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

Good. I've focused almost exclusively on Essays and MBE and the P&E just feels like a nuisance, like another stupid topic I have to understand. I really may just study the answers in the Barbri books and let it be.

[KTnKT]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

What do you need to average on the P&E and score on the MPT to get 130 combined?

[bluesplitter]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

What do you need to average on the P&E and score on the MPT to get 130 combined?

I figure I need to have 3 pts average on the P&E questions, so there's 40 of those, so that's 120, then divide that by 2= 60
and then get 60 or so points on MPT = 120.

So yea i guess 120 range will be more accurate on my personal goals/approach.

[Aggie06]

I should really know this by now, but Wills is my worst subject so I'm just going to blame it on that. But I'm doing the assigned essays for today, and I'm getting kind of confused. If an heir disclaims his interest, the disclaimed interest then passes as though the disclaiming party predeceased the decedent. Does the 120 hour rule not apply then? I thought you had to survive the decedent to take anything as an heir or have anything go to your descendants? #25 is a similar situation but it states that "if a will beneficiary predeceases the testator, the gift lapses," then it goes into discussing the anti lapse statute, while #20 doesn't. Thank you in advance!!

If I understand your question correctly, I had the same question and I think (emphasis on think) in #20 the anti-lapse statute was moot because the grandson would have inherited with or without it. The only heirs were the son and grandson, so [without antilpase statute] when the son disclaimed, the gift lapsed and went into the residuary estate (became the entire residuary estate), the residuary estate all goes to grandson as the only remaining heir and [with anti-lapse statute] the son disclaimed, but the grandson was a descendant of the parent so the grandson got the gift anyway

[mtyler19]

I should really know this by now, but Wills is my worst subject so I'm just going to blame it on that. But I'm doing the assigned essays for today, and I'm getting kind of confused. If an heir disclaims his interest, the disclaimed interest then passes as though the disclaiming party predeceased the decedent. Does the 120 hour rule not apply then? I thought you had to survive the decedent to take anything as an heir or have anything go to your descendants? #25 is a similar situation but it states that "if a will beneficiary predeceases the testator, the gift lapses," then it goes into discussing the anti lapse statute, while #20 doesn't. Thank you in advance!!

If I understand your question correctly, I had the same question and I think (emphasis on think) in #20 the anti-lapse statute was moot because the grandson would have inherited with or without it. The only heirs were the son and grandson, so [without antilpase statute] when the son disclaimed, the gift lapsed and went into the residuary estate (became the entire residuary estate), the residuary estate all goes to grandson as the only remaining heir and [with anti-lapse statute] the son disclaimed, but the grandson was a descendant of the parent so the grandson got the gift anyway

Yessss ok thank you so much!!

[tealeaf23]

Ya'll. Is it normal to be doing better on Adaptibar questions than on the Barbri questions? I'm noticing that while my Barbri scores have been sort of stagnant the past few days, I'm getting higher percentages correct on Adaptibar. These mixed signals are too much for my stress-addled brain.

[KTnKT]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

What do you need to average on the P&E and score on the MPT to get 130 combined?

I figure I need to have 3 pts average on the P&E questions, so there's 40 of those, so that's 120, then divide that by 2= 60
and then get 60 or so points on MPT = 120.

So yea i guess 120 range will be more accurate on my personal goals/approach.

Out of 6 on the MPT to get 60 points, what would you need? 3 or 4?

[longhornlaw]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I hear ya.

Based on my "minimal points needed to pass" approach. I am thinking along similar lines.


Planning for MBE 140 scaled x 280
Hoping for 130 total on P&E Mpt 130
And hoping for atleast 12 points average on 12 essays =280 (not including scale)


Should be at passing range. i hope

What do you need to average on the P&E and score on the MPT to get 130 combined?

I figure I need to have 3 pts average on the P&E questions, so there's 40 of those, so that's 120, then divide that by 2= 60
and then get 60 or so points on MPT = 120.

So yea i guess 120 range will be more accurate on my personal goals/approach.

Out of 6 on the MPT to get 60 points, what would you need? 3 or 4?

A 4 puts you at 133.33, a 3 puts you at a 100. Then the BLE chops it in half. So really, you need a 4.

[bluesplitter]

Anybody else entering freakout mode?

[jaimeg314]

Anybody else entering freakout mode?

YES

[Lemon Lyman]

Yes.

[jamescastle]

Did anyone get a physical ticket mailed to them? Or is it just "go online and print out your ticket" this time? In July we got it mailed to us.

[jamescastle]

Also for those trying to calculate score minimums and stuff:
I got a 0.0 percentile on the MPT last time and that amounted to a 106 score because of how it's scored in comparison to the MBE percentiles, i.e. the lowest score possible on the MPT isn't a 0 but whatever a 0.0 percentile on the MBE ends up being. Just factor that in for however you're seeing where you can get points, lose points, etc.

[bluesplitter]

Also for those trying to calculate score minimums and stuff:
I got a 0.0 percentile on the MPT last time and that amounted to a 106 score because of how it's scored in comparison to the MBE percentiles, i.e. the lowest score possible on the MPT isn't a 0 but whatever a 0.0 percentile on the MBE ends up being. Just factor that in for however you're seeing where you can get points, lose points, etc.

I mean this in the most respectful way, How do you get a 0.0? Was there some kind of mistake? Also, considering you ended up with the 0.0 percentile, how close where you from passing?

[BVest]

Also for those trying to calculate score minimums and stuff:
I got a 0.0 percentile on the MPT last time and that amounted to a 106 score because of how it's scored in comparison to the MBE percentiles, i.e. the lowest score possible on the MPT isn't a 0 but whatever a 0.0 percentile on the MBE ends up being. Just factor that in for however you're seeing where you can get points, lose points, etc.

Interesting (though I'm still sorry about that). I suspect 106 was two standard deviations from the mean MBE score. The 0-6 grading scale is just bizarre; why use something with such low resolution when you're going to scale it up to a 200 point scale anyway?

[jamescastle]

Also for those trying to calculate score minimums and stuff:
I got a 0.0 percentile on the MPT last time and that amounted to a 106 score because of how it's scored in comparison to the MBE percentiles, i.e. the lowest score possible on the MPT isn't a 0 but whatever a 0.0 percentile on the MBE ends up being. Just factor that in for however you're seeing where you can get points, lose points, etc.

I mean this in the most respectful way, How do you get a 0.0? Was there some kind of mistake? Also, considering you ended up with the 0.0 percentile, how close where you from passing?

Had I done average on the MPT I would have passed but barely. I was pretty below average at everything except about 4-5 essays.
Also apparently I had bad analysis and didn't format it correctly so that didn't help at all. That's what my informal review said. tl;dr I sucked at it really hard.

Also it's not a 0-6 scale. The lady that I talked to at the office said that it's really 1-6 and the lowest score is a 1. I mean that still doesn't explain that had I done nothing I would have gotten the same score as that person (i.e. I feel trying and completely failing should be higher than submitting a big blank but whatever). Couldn't figure out if the only scores are 1,2,3,4,5,6 or if you can get halves or what. And it'd be interesting for me to know what the next highest score above mine would have translated to so I could better see how I'll be making up my missing points this time around to pass.

[Feb16Retaker]

It seems like, just roughly gaming the numbers on an unscaled score, you can completely and utterly bomb the P&E, and as long as you knock 2 essays out of the park, do mediocre on the rest, do mediocre on the MPT, and pull a 145 on the MBE, you can still pass.

Yep, definitely reached the paranoid phase of prepping.

I can see the logic in that. A friend of mine failed the July bar by 7 f*king points. His MBE was around 145ish and his family/community property essays were in the 90th percentile. The rest where around 40th-50th percentile. The dude allllmost made it.