For the CA Bar, Blank Essay = Failure, correct? Forum

[Phoenix Falling]

Do any recent grads/1st year associates still lurk around here to provide advice? I wanted to see if any of them possibly screwed up as badly as I did yesterday and yet still somehow managed to pass. And if not, (assuming they had a job offer lined up after working as a summer associate the previous year, did your offer get revoked, or did they let you stick around and take it again in February)?

Which brings me to my Bar-related question (i.e. complete and total failure within the first 3 hours of the exam). Basically, as many of you know, for those of us taking the CA bar, today was the MBEs, and yesterday was 3 essay questions in the morning, with a Performance Test (PT) in the afternoon. Annnnnnnd I'm pretty sure I failed the CA bar by the time the lunch break rolled around. So, I wanted to check here and see if there are any recent alumni who passed the bar (or anybody else for that matter who knows the truth or at least more than I do), who could give me a little insight/perspective and let me know if there's still any small, glimmer of hope whatsoever, or if I might as well sleep in tomorrow for Day 3.

So nothing too excited about my story, it was basically your typical panic attack coupled with exhaustion sprinkled with a whole lot of poor time management, and it resulted in turning in a blank answer to Essay #2, out of the 3 essays yesterday. No good excuse, no exciting story or anything, I simply fcked up, plain and simple. Basically my brain froze, but beyond that I don't really know what happened. Here's the gist...

I spent the BarBri suggested time outlining and what-not, writing up a pretty thorough essay for the first one which was focused on Remedies (likely too thorough while still missing a bunch of issues, but that's besides the point). But anyways, what's done is done, and Essay #1 did get finished, at which point I thought I was still on schedule, but I know realize I was completely mistaken.

After spending too much time on Essay #1, and too much time Outlining in general (with a pen mind you, which was obv a huge mistake to begin with, because I couldn't even just throw in my outline into the space for Essay #2 to at least have something, gaining a few points in the process. But no, so then I end up skipping ahead to Essay #3 instead and began working on that one, because Essay #2 was mostly Evidence related (not exactly my strongest subject), so instead I decided to focus more time on the subject I knew.

Well, to sum it up, I end up losing track of time, and before I know it, I'm struggling just to get a somewhat finished Essay #3 written down in ExamSoft, and don't have any time at all to go back to the second essay. So, by the time they call "time," I've written a long Essay #1, an ok Essay #3, and I've somehow lived up to my worst nightmare and left Essay #2 completely blank.

I go to lunch completely shell-shocked by just how terribly I screwed up, but still manage to put together a somewhat decent PT in the afternoon without having a full-on meltdown in front of all my friends and peers.

To get to the point, I'm basically wondering if there's any chance at all of still passing after leaving one essay completely blank. I know CA has 6 essays, and 2 PTs (both of which are each worth the same as 2 essays a piece). I think I did fairly well on the other two essays, on the PT #1, and hopefully the MBEs today, but I know leaving an essay completely blank is going to be "difficult" to say the least to overcome and actually pass the Bar.

That's my main question for you guys, is there anyway I can overcome this and still manage to eek out a Pass somehow??? Did you, or do you know anyone, who passed the CA Bar after leaving an essay question completely blank?

I still don't entirely understand the scoring system, and I did above average on all the practice MBEs I tried throughout practice/study time in BarBri and in Emanuel's. So I'm hoping I can make up for it in other areas, but I just don't know if that's even possible tbh.

So PLEASE, If there are any of you out there, please reply and let me know (or if one of your friends pulled it off, that'll work too).

If not, or if you failed the Bar for other reasons, did you lose your job offer? Or did they let you try again in Feb?

There hasn't really been any communication from my firm about the consequences of not passing right now. I looked through my offer letter, and there was nothing about the position being contingent about passing the July Exam, so perhaps they'd let me try again in Feb? To put it into context, it's not Big Law or a Top 10 firm by any means, and I suppose technically it would be considered a "regional firm" ( I don't even know what they are considered tbh, but I know they're pretty well known for a specific type of law in this and nearby states -- Larger than a Mid-Size firm with multiple offices throughout California, with somewhere between 200 and 250 lawyers total, but they're almost exclusively a CA firm, with a presence at almost every top CA school's OCI, where they hire around 7 or 8 summer associates per year amongst the various offices.

So, obviously its not Big Law, but I'm not sure if that means I'm for sure losing my offer; or if I fail the Bar during this first go-around would I just lose the respect of the partners and have to put in a lot of extra work to regain a modicum of respect (but at least there would be a seat for me should I end up passing eventually.



Sorry Everyone....




TL; DR

Cliff's Notes:




I NEED ADVICE !!!!!!!


My 2 questions:


Question #1: - Can you still pass the CA bar if you leave an essay question (one of the six total) completely blank? Or is it essentially impossible, especially with the MBEs only being worth 35% of the total score? ; and


Question #2: - If you don't pass the Bar on your first chance, do you lose your offer from firms that are somewhere between Big Law and Mid-Size law firms?


Feel free to flame away, but any actual advice would be greatly appreciated. Obviously feeling really low at this point and I want to know if there's any hope at all for this Bar, and if not, if odds are I'll lose my offer given I'm not working at a Top Ten law firm or anything (but, OTOH, it's a real offer, or at least it was)

[lmr]

Take down this poll-you have one more day left don't dwell on yesterday right now. Just try your best tomorrow and see what happens. Stay in the moment of each essay and don't give yourself a fail right now….i remember someone in a thread saying how his boss's wife didn't even see an essay question and still passed-just stay positive and manage your time better tomorrow. After one hour FORCE yourself to stop and move on. Examsoft has the time. write the time down on the scratch paper and circle/highlight it.

[pkt63]

I agree you need to give it your best tomorrow. But if it helps to quiet your mind a little, take a look at this, bottom of second page: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/BarP ... .23.08.pdf

Depending on how you did on the MBE, maybe you need to average 70 or 75 or…? on the 5 other essays and 2 PTs? It will show you the math and what you already know - that you have a tough battle in front of you. But if it helps you figure out what scores you need, visualize doing what it takes to get those scores tomorrow and fucking bringing it, then all the better. godspeed, friend.

[Georgia Avenue]

idk how california works but i know of people who have left more than one essay blank and passed

tl;dr just forget it, what you're shooting for is minimal competence, if a lot of other people got crushed by it too you'll be fine, and you'll probably be fine either way

[Apple Tree]

Sorry this happened! I don't know what your chance of passing now is, but you definitely will fail if you don't show up tomorrow. You spent so much money and effort on this test. If anything, you should get your full three days...

[uvauvauva]

How about you take a chill pill and good luck tomorrow?

What is done is done. Taking it feburary won't be a death sentence.

Everything in life happens for a reason.

[Georgia Avenue]

also, the important rule to remember right now is the "not the first" rule

as in, assuming you fail (which is an assumption you shouldn't make right now) you will not be the first in the state of california, from your law school, or even at your firm to not pass the bar. and like i said that's assuming you don't, which you shouldn't make with one day left

shit happens, your firm knows this. don't worry about it and give it your best shot tomorrow

[yips]

Show up tomorrow, not even a question.

Think of it this way: PTs are (almost) a freebie if you passed LRW. This is 26% of the exam.

That leaves 74%, divided between essays and MBE. And you know what? The split is nearly 50/50: MBEs are worth 35%, essays are worth 39%. To break down even further, each essay is worth like 6.5% of your overall score.

So if you turned in a decent-to-strong performance on the MBEs and do a solid job on the PTs, then you can still pull this out.

Don't quit now. Don't quit until the end.

[rpupkin]

You can definitely pass with a single blank essay, which is a score of 40. If you got just 60s on all your other essays, 65s on your two PTs, and a raw score of 140 on your MBE, you would pass.

And if you averaged 65s on all your other essays and your PTs, you could get a MBE raw score of 123 (which is pretty low) and still pass.

http://one-timers.com/calculate-your-fi ... exam-grade

There are a lot of ways to pass.

[Xferr]

I voted the wrong way by accident. You can definitely come back from a bombed/blank essay. You just need to do better on everything else by that much.

I.e. if there are 8 essays at a mean of 40, you need to make up those 40 points on each of the remaining 7 essays to hit mean again. That means you only need to increase your score by 6 on each essay to get back to mean, which is probably only one deviation higher.

That's assuming you get mean on the MBE and MPTs. If you do better on those, you don't even have to work that hard to get back to mean overall.

[duskfall]

I voted the wrong way by accident. You can definitely come back from a bombed/blank essay. You just need to do better on everything else by that much.

I.e. if there are 8 essays at a mean of 40, you need to make up those 40 points on each of the remaining 7 essays to hit mean again. That means you only need to increase your score by 6 on each essay to get back to mean, which is probably only one deviation higher.

That's assuming you get mean on the MBE and MPTs. If you do better on those, you don't even have to work that hard to get back to mean overall.

huh?

There are 6 essays and 2 PTs (not MPT).

[Xferr]

I.e. It's a numerical example of what I'm talking about. You can plug the California numbers in on your own. Take the points you would get for scoring mean, divide them over however many essays there are minus one.

[iplulzer]

funny how no one is answering the most important question:

Question #2: - If you don't pass the Bar on your first chance, do you lose your offer from firms that are somewhere between Big Law and Mid-Size law firms?

never heard of a firm that fires an associate for failing the bar on first try. it doesn't mean they don't exist, but two failures is the standard. i do however know at least one firm where someone failed 3 times is still around. so i wouldn't worry about it. if you are this worried about it, ask the recruiters. they understand post-bar anxiety, it's a perfectly normal concern.

[hous]

I know of people who have scored significantly below the bottom 25% on the Florida essays and still skimmed by. If you answered the other two essays really well you will actually pass the essays.

[InTheWideLand I Walk]

in fact, my tutor I hired for this bar exam said when he took it in the late 80's or 90's he only wrote 2 short sentences on the PT when he took it cuz he also froze and couldnt figure out what to do, and he passed.

you would have had to do REALLY good on the mbe. let us know what happens

[chass]

lowest score on an essay is a 40, so you'll need to make up 15+ points. If you're confident that you have above average scores on a few other essays and the PT's then I wouldn't worry.

If you don't pass, I'm sure it's not because of one essay. It's usually a combination of mediocre essay, MBE or PT score.