For the CA Bar, Blank Essay = Failure, correct?
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:33 am
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)
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)