California February 2016 Bar Exam (Westside For Life) Forum

[a male human]

Woohoo, only about 9 hours and 30 minutes left! I'm so excited!

Who am I kidding? I'm not excited at all, I'm nervous. I can't remember the last time I've been this nervous. I wasn't this nervous even when an old, grumpy military doc touched my balls and told me to cough in room full of other naked men. Now I'm staring at the proverbial cross-roads of my life. If I pass, I get to continue my attorney path and continue improving my lawyering skills. If I fail, I will have to forget about being an attorney for at least another year and pursue other careers. The latter part is easier said than done - my post-bar job search was surprisingly unfruitful. Did you know that no one cares about Political Science degrees? I'm shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED! There are dozens of us!

Why did you decide to take a year off instead of trying for July (assuming you don't see good news today)?

[RoseBuddy]

I've been going through so many emotions these past few days! From nervous and stressed to almost feeling excited. I wish everyone the best of luck regardless of what happens. No matter what, it's all about how you pick yourself back up.

[MrMustache]

Why did you decide to take a year off instead of trying for July (assuming you don't see good news today)?

To take the two-day exam (they start next year), to get the July MBE curve, and to start preparing for the test with a new perspective and mindset

[fadedsunrise]

At work but going crazy and lacking in my usual concentration...forgot to pay a fee with a filing and now waiting on the court clerk for the last 15 minutes to pickup and tell me how to pay , while my stomach feels like it's been in a knot since last night.

Been trying to convince myself that I failed, period, so that my expectations aren't too high. I suppose it's comforting that my boss' operation is so small that at least I'd continue to serve as a competent paralegal if I wanted....maybe.

[minkylowlife]

I'm lucky, my bosses love me as a legal fellow so much that my employment is guaranteed until January under contract no matter what. They were all shocked I didn't pass the first time, and seem certain I will pass this time...but I've got a bad feeling. I'm slugging it through today with coffee and cookies and am pre-ordering Indian food to await me when I get home after work. I'm all about eating my feelings.

Come through, contracts essay! If I pass it'll be entirely attributable to that essay.

[fadedsunrise]

I'm lucky, my bosses love me as a legal fellow so much that my employment is guaranteed until January under contract no matter what. They were all shocked I didn't pass the first time, and seem certain I will pass this time...but I've got a bad feeling. I'm slugging it through today with coffee and cookies and am pre-ordering Indian food to await me when I get home after work. I'm all about eating my feelings.

Come through, contracts essay! If I pass it'll be entirely attributable to that essay.

Same, I've been with my boss longer than anyone in the office. He's once said (not sure if serious) before that he'd fire them out of necessity before me if it came to it. That said, they're all so convinced I'm passing that its eerie.

I got two cookies with my coffee this morning and have spicy pork stew leftovers for my feelings tonight. T.T

[a male human]

It must kill you guys to know that the truth is out there, somewhere.

[+] Spoiler

They probably had the results ready for a while now. But they can't put up the sadistic countdown if they just release results whenever

[MailboxCrusher]

Most of you are telling my story. Everyone was surprised I failed the first time and they are convinced I passed this time. However, more people are avoiding talking about it with me even my wife. It was a brutal blow last time so I can see why.

I was planning on going into work today but my two year old projectile vomited on me at 4am. So I have been up with him since then and cancelled our babysitter. A day with my boys and staring at the clock. 100% better than being at work around people talking about it.

I think I pass this time (only because I desperately need to conquer this beast this time as it will get much more difficult studying while working if I have to give it another go). But deep within myself there is this inkling that I failed - induced psychosis - or just a damn shitty rite of passage to become one of the brethren.

Here's to handling business so we can be examples to other about overcoming hardship and challenge

[MarcZero]

First off the news online is that nationwide this is the lowest pass rate for the MBEs since 1983. Short version don't have high expectations. I know I don't.

http://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2016/ ... since-1983

Next I am sick and tired of these elitist at the CA Bar. The CA Bar Exam is way too hard. I could pass the exam in a dozen other states with my eyes closed, my MBE's prove that.

This classic scene from the Sandlot says it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I

I'm not sure if I shared this story on the last thread or not, but I was taking the exam next to a lawyer admitted in PA about 6 years ago. When he showed up on MBE Wednesday I was a bit shocked and asked him why he didn't skip the MBE since he wasn't required to take it? He said he had aced the MBE portion of the bar exam in PA back in 2010 and thought doing well on it this time would help pull up his averages in CA because he knew the essays were going to be more difficult. I warned him that the MBE had supposedly gotten harder over the past few years. Fast forward to the end of the day and when time is called in the afternoon session, he calmly put his pencil down, closed his book, turned to me and said, "What the fuck was that?" He stated that the questions on our test were light years more difficult than the ones he had in 2010. I've also told some of the other lawyers who took the bar around that time some of the questions on our test that I remembered being really stupid and they agreed they would have no idea what the answers would be other than just narrowing it down and guessing like we all did. Anyways, while not a great situation, it makes me feel better to know I'm not exactly stupid. These tests are just getting more and more difficult. If someone tried to tell me that the bar today isn't designed to winnow down the number of lawyers in CA, I wouldn't believe them for a moment.

[barprepblues]

trying hard to concentrate on work. it's not working...

rukawa, i don't think anyone felt good about that trusts essay. for me, in order from "not terrible" to "don't look at it":

contracts > torts > ptA> evidence > remedies > ptB > trusts and pr >>>>>>>> mbe

this is just based on those videos somebody posted on youtube

[BrokenMouse]

I'm lucky, my bosses love me as a legal fellow so much that my employment is guaranteed until January under contract no matter what. They were all shocked I didn't pass the first time, and seem certain I will pass this time...but I've got a bad feeling. I'm slugging it through today with coffee and cookies and am pre-ordering Indian food to await me when I get home after work. I'm all about eating my feelings.

Come through, contracts essay! If I pass it'll be entirely attributable to that essay.

my work situation is almost identical. they love me here and they were shocked that i didnt pass. they dont even doubt that ill pass today. they are in for a giant shock and awe. Which K essay? the remedies or UCC? or both?

[a male human]

First off the news online is that nationwide this is the lowest pass rate for the MBEs since 1983. Short version don't have high expectations. I know I don't.

http://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2016/ ... since-1983

Next I am sick and tired of these elitist at the CA Bar. The CA Bar Exam is way too hard. I could pass the exam in a dozen other states with my eyes closed, my MBE's prove that.

This classic scene from the Sandlot says it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I

I'm not sure if I shared this story on the last thread or not, but I was taking the exam next to a lawyer admitted in PA about 6 years ago. When he showed up on MBE Wednesday I was a bit shocked and asked him why he didn't skip the MBE since he wasn't required to take it? He said he had aced the MBE portion of the bar exam in PA back in 2010 and thought doing well on it this time would help pull up his averages in CA because he knew the essays were going to be more difficult. I warned him that the MBE had supposedly gotten harder over the past few years. Fast forward to the end of the day and when time is called in the afternoon session, he calmly put his pencil down, closed his book, turned to me and said, "What the fuck was that?" He stated that the questions on our test were light years more difficult than the ones he had in 2010. I've also told some of the other lawyers who took the bar around that time some of the questions on our test that I remembered being really stupid and they agreed they would have no idea what the answers would be other than just narrowing it down and guessing like we all did. Anyways, while not a great situation, it makes me feel better to know I'm not exactly stupid. These tests are just getting more and more difficult. If someone tried to tell me that the bar today isn't designed to winnow down the number of lawyers in CA, I wouldn't believe them for a moment.

I think I remember this story.

are results ever posted prior to 6PM PST?

No

[BrokenMouse]

trying hard to concentrate on work. it's not working...

rukawa, i don't think anyone felt good about that trusts essay. for me, in order from "not terrible" to "don't look at it":

contracts > torts > ptA> evidence > remedies > ptB > trusts and pr >>>>>>>> mbe

this is just based on those videos somebody posted on youtube

the thing is i hit most of the issues that bar secrets video discussed. yet i know im bsing myself because that's probably not how i actually wrote the exam. same thing happened last july. i was close to passing but the more i think about it the more this exam has to do with WHO READS YOUR ESSAY. nobody passes the bar with flying marks. we're all borderline, and we can all give our absolute 100% as intelligent law school grads, but at the end of the day, the subjectivity is what scares me. i was one of those victims who had a 60 on the first read and 75 on the second read for the same essay. had i had that 75 in the first read instead i would have had more than enough to pass. my essay scores just got shuffled too much in the third read and everything basically went back to being equal and ended up failing with pretty much the same second read score.

if this had been all MBE multiple choice i would have zero complaint.

[minkylowlife]

okay in order of "think i aced it" to "talk me off the cliff"

Contracts >>>>> Torts > PTB >>> Trusts > PTA > Remedies/Evidence/PR. I didn't have enough time for ANY of those last three.

[BrokenMouse]

for me, easiest to hardest

1) Evidence 2) Torts 3) PT-B 4) all other essays

i didn't miss a single issue in torts (as far as comparing it with bar secrets video and how i feel overall), but i think evidence had more points possible to earn.

did any of u mention "perfect tender rule" for the UCC essay? im one of the idiots who spat out this rule at least twice.

[barprepblues]

for me, easiest to hardest

1) Evidence 2) Torts 3) PT-B 4) all other essays

i didn't miss a single issue in torts (as far as comparing it with bar secrets video and how i feel overall), but i think evidence had more points possible to earn.

did any of u mention "perfect tender rule" for the UCC essay? im one of the idiots who spat out this rule at least twice.

i remember watching the torts video, but forgot if they mention negligence. was there negligence? i don't remember them mentioning it, but i wrote a bit on it (i guess they can stop reading that essay 3/4 of the way through if no negligence). that torts essay was long.

yes to the perfect tender rule, but i don't think i used that term. i probably said something along the lines of, "unless they agreed otherwise, there is no obligation on the part of the buyer under UCC to accept nonconforming goods" probably not as good, but whatever. at least it didn't fall apart like the end of the evidence essay ("not alive. can't cross examine. can't admit evidence.")

[BrokenMouse]

no negligence discussed in torts by Bar Secrets folks.

(im honestly still not sure why/how people could have come up with it. negligence implies the act was not intentional tort. but it was intentional. he meant to hurt the guy. it can't be that he tried to hurt the guy but didn't use reasonable care in trying to hurt him well... i've heard ppl say "you have a duty not to injure someone by cutting the brake." this is true if cutting the brake happened careless/recklessly, while someone was working on the car or something. but there's no negligence in intentionally cutting the brake. he actually did it flawlessly.)

[barprepblues]

no negligence discussed in torts by Bar Secrets folks.

(im honestly still not sure why/how people could have come up with it. negligence implies the act was not intentional tort. but it was intentional. he meant to hurt the guy. it can't be that he tried to hurt the guy but didn't use reasonable care in trying to hurt him well... i've heard ppl say "you have a duty not to injure someone by cutting the brake." this is true if cutting the brake happened careless/recklessly, while someone was working on the car or something. but there's no negligence in intentionally cutting the brake. he actually did it flawlessly.)

only speaking for myself, i threw it in there as an "in case of fire." it bugged me that there weren't any non-intentional torts, and given the question asked "what can be brought and how likely the success," i said in case intent cannot be proven, here's all this stuff about negligence, but they're probably not likely to succeed.

the way i saw it, better safe than sorry. if i write it and it's not an issue, they can just disregard it. if i don't write it and it was an issue, i have a bigger problem

[MarcZero]

no negligence discussed in torts by Bar Secrets folks.

(im honestly still not sure why/how people could have come up with it. negligence implies the act was not intentional tort. but it was intentional. he meant to hurt the guy. it can't be that he tried to hurt the guy but didn't use reasonable care in trying to hurt him well... i've heard ppl say "you have a duty not to injure someone by cutting the brake." this is true if cutting the brake happened careless/recklessly, while someone was working on the car or something. but there's no negligence in intentionally cutting the brake. he actually did it flawlessly.)

only speaking for myself, i threw it in there as an "in case of fire." it bugged me that there weren't any non-intentional torts, and given the question asked "what can be brought and how likely the success," i said in case intent cannot be proven, here's all this stuff about negligence, but they're probably not likely to succeed.

the way i saw it, better safe than sorry. if i write it and it's not an issue, they can just disregard it. if i don't write it and it was an issue, i have a bigger problem

Agreed. I ended up talking about all the intentional torts (except false imprisonment) plus negligence just in case. I'm kind of surprised the Bar Secrets people didn't at least bring it up, as a lot of people also talked about it. There were also a few (not out of left field) facts that I know I brought up on that essay that we also not discussed by Bar Secrets. We just have to remember that the Bar Secrets folks are just outside people like we are and are not perfect regarding their analysis, as their bar subject prediction success rate shows. We won't know what the CA Bar was looking for until we get the model answers.

[a male human]

no negligence discussed in torts by Bar Secrets folks.

(im honestly still not sure why/how people could have come up with it. negligence implies the act was not intentional tort. but it was intentional. he meant to hurt the guy. it can't be that he tried to hurt the guy but didn't use reasonable care in trying to hurt him well... i've heard ppl say "you have a duty not to injure someone by cutting the brake." this is true if cutting the brake happened careless/recklessly, while someone was working on the car or something. but there's no negligence in intentionally cutting the brake. he actually did it flawlessly.)

Negligence is a big issue in torts, so I'm not surprised that people just throw it in there as a reflex or forget that it's separate from intentional tort.

An example of "knowing just enough" to be dangerous... That's when intuition and knowledge smudge together and you get confused.

[barprepblues]

I'm constantly afraid I overlooked something, so I tend to throw in everything and order them most likely to least; my torts essay ended up being almost 2k in length (caveat being I defined "intentional" some ridiculous number of times) and judging by the video, it probably didn't need to be that long. The rest of them were more sanely lengthen, except evidence which was another almost 2k (defined "hearsay" too many times").

[MarcZero]

no negligence discussed in torts by Bar Secrets folks.

(im honestly still not sure why/how people could have come up with it. negligence implies the act was not intentional tort. but it was intentional. he meant to hurt the guy. it can't be that he tried to hurt the guy but didn't use reasonable care in trying to hurt him well... i've heard ppl say "you have a duty not to injure someone by cutting the brake." this is true if cutting the brake happened careless/recklessly, while someone was working on the car or something. but there's no negligence in intentionally cutting the brake. he actually did it flawlessly.)

Negligence is a big issue in torts, so I'm not surprised that people just throw it in there as a reflex or forget that it's separate from intentional tort.

An example of "knowing just enough" to be dangerous... That's when intuition and knowledge smudge together and you get confused.

Yeah, I think this was a fine line between something not worth your time to put down or putting it down because they want you to see that it's not viable. For example, in the Bar Secrets breakdown, they mention the "assault" at the beginning that's clearly not an assault but you have to put it down and come to the conclusion that it's not viable. We know there are many times the bar does that to make sure you see the issue (and because you can only be graded on what you write down, not what you know but didn't write down). I can see it going either way, but lean that it was not likely that it was wanted by the examiners (saying this as someone who did put it down in the heat of the moment). This is another reason I hate the CA format for essays as it can easily turn into a mind dump. In my home state, you are limited to 650 words total in the essay so you have to know exactly what to put down or else you run out of room.

[AspiringCALawyer]

First off the news online is that nationwide this is the lowest pass rate for the MBEs since 1983. Short version don't have high expectations. I know I don't.

http://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2016/ ... since-1983

Next I am sick and tired of these elitist at the CA Bar. The CA Bar Exam is way too hard. I could pass the exam in a dozen other states with my eyes closed, my MBE's prove that.

This classic scene from the Sandlot says it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I

I'm not sure if I shared this story on the last thread or not, but I was taking the exam next to a lawyer admitted in PA about 6 years ago. When he showed up on MBE Wednesday I was a bit shocked and asked him why he didn't skip the MBE since he wasn't required to take it? He said he had aced the MBE portion of the bar exam in PA back in 2010 and thought doing well on it this time would help pull up his averages in CA because he knew the essays were going to be more difficult. I warned him that the MBE had supposedly gotten harder over the past few years. Fast forward to the end of the day and when time is called in the afternoon session, he calmly put his pencil down, closed his book, turned to me and said, "What the fuck was that?" He stated that the questions on our test were light years more difficult than the ones he had in 2010. I've also told some of the other lawyers who took the bar around that time some of the questions on our test that I remembered being really stupid and they agreed they would have no idea what the answers would be other than just narrowing it down and guessing like we all did. Anyways, while not a great situation, it makes me feel better to know I'm not exactly stupid. These tests are just getting more and more difficult. If someone tried to tell me that the bar today isn't designed to winnow down the number of lawyers in CA, I wouldn't believe them for a moment.

Sounds like hubris on his part. I'm also PA attorney (1998) exam and wouldn't think about taking MBE again, despite advice from former co-workers.

Just left funeral of family member, which puts life in perspective and a damper on waiting for results. Making travel plans and getting here on moment's notice provided somewhat of a distraction this week.

The results come out the same time I have to go to bed (in eastern time zone) given my early flight in the morning. Debating whether I want to check it tonight. Bad news might impede my sleep even more.

[CAbarexamtaker]

Ran 5.5 miles this morning (a lot for me) trying to kill time and set a cool tone for the day. I'm still looking at the clock every two minutes. I have work to do, but what I need to do today is not particularly engaging. I may have to go back to the treadmill.

[BrokenMouse]

im at work and i cant work. but i also don't really have work because i stayed late at work last night to do all the work so that i dont have to work today.

i wish i had work to stay busy but work is work so it's actually not bad that i don't have work. but i have to find something else to do in place of my work. get more work? no. who needs more work ever.