July 2016 California Bar Exam Forum

[chicoalto0649]

P.o.ed I squandered a 1550 Mbe .... totally blew essays. For a 1400 total. 'Not sure if I should wait till July when MBE is 50:50 or suck it up for July. Thankfully, employer only requires one bar admission.

[djwjddl]

How long until we get the materials necessary to be sworn in

[LurkerTurnedMember]

Holy fuck. I passed. Second try.

I don't know WHAT my fucking graders were smoking. Must have been some really good shit. I didn't mention modifications at all, I forgot the law on covenants, and I used FRCP the whole way through (with a bit of "CA civ pro is the same" thrown in). Oh and the guy sitting next to me was horking up a lung during the MBE, so my concentration was shot.

For all the people who failed, don't give up hope. Take a few weeks to rest and heal, then get back at it.

The only thing I did differently this time was that I structured EVERYTHING. Every essay (including the PTs) was IRAC'ed to death. And by that I mean everything I wrote was like:

The issue presented is ...

The rule is ...

Here, ...

In conclusion, ...

Also don't forget those dumb little captions you have to put on the tops of essays. Like EVERY contracts practice essay, write "All contracts are governed by either the common law (if they are contracts for services or real estate) or the UCC article 2 (if they are goods contracts). "Goods" are usually defined as tangible, movable objects. Here, the contract concerns ... and so ... will apply" EVERY Evidence essay starts with "California's Truth in Evidence Law (Proposition 8 ) provides that relevant evidence shall not be excluded in a criminal proceeding. Prop 8 is subject to a number of limitations, including hearsay." They are so fucking stupid but they make a difference.

Congrats! And I'm pretty sure that's 90% of passing the cali bar (my estimate) so it's good advice for people looking to take it again. I kept getting that advice while I was studying. "Make sure you break down everything and organize it really well. Every essay should be the same. The issue is.. The rule is.. Here.. In conclusion.. Even if it's repetitive, and even if it sounds like a dr. Seuss easy to read book because, the story goes, the bar graders have less than 4 min per essay so they skim. If your stuff is outlined well they don't have to read too much into it and can see generally u hit the right categories, got at least close to the rule and did some application so u get a 65 more easily than the person who didn't organize mechanically and made the bar examiner's brow frown in having to read more carefully to see what u actually put or try to organize ur essays him or herself while they read.." it's basically how people graded law review write ons.. The more you had to read carefully and figure out what people said the more annoyed you felt and less likely to give a good score. The easier it is to just skim through, the better the grade. On the bar you might not get the top score but it's a good way to getting at least to 65. I did it for every essay, even outlined every issue and subissue like that before filling out each paragraph. It worked. Good luck and I'm off this thread now!

[EdSaid]

How long until we get the materials necessary to be sworn in

I received mine yesterday and I live on the East Coast.

[MsAvocadoPit]

Ha!

So a few weeks ago I was being stupid and tried to order my mbe score services report. They didn't forget about me, it arrived last night. Oh well - wasted $25 but I know now my mbe was over 150 to qualify for all three jurisdictions that allow auto transfer in! D.C. Would be neat to have, no?

(Barbri simulated practice was 143 fwiw)

[rcharter1978]

Quick sidebar: I was lucky enough to get good news on Friday in re the exam, but my fucking moral character app is still in processing purgatory. I submitted back in March, but they came back to me in July with a request for new fingerprint cards. I guess that reset my 180-day clock, and when I called my analyst today, he said there's no way I'm going to get sworn in any time soon because I'm not close to the 180 day mark.

Does anyone have advice or experience with getting them to expedite at all? I also have heard whispers that if you poke them too much, your 180-day clock might mysteriously reset back to zero. But neither I nor my firm have no desire to wait until the Spring for me to get sworn in.

LOL -- no, you cannot expedite a damn thing. I've gone down that path and have accepted my fate and just pray that the analyst will be kind enough to approve my application in 180 days.

I don't see why the fingerprint card would set you back 180 days though, maybe a few weeks while they wait for the results or whatever. But far be it from me to even question the powers that be at the California Bar. Every time I call now I try to be as nice, and non pushy as possible.

Is the fingerprint card the only thing that is missing? I asked the first lady (the one in charge gathering documents) if anything was missing from my references or jobs, and she told me no. Come to find out from the analyst that two employment verifications and one reference was missing. Now I have to scramble to try to get them. Which I could have done three months ago when I asked the first lady about it like 5 times.

And I don't think the analyst would have called me about them until she had my file on her schedule.

[2TimesTheCharm]

P.o.ed I squandered a 1550 Mbe .... totally blew essays. For a 1400 total. 'Not sure if I should wait till July when MBE is 50:50 or suck it up for July. Thankfully, employer only requires one bar admission.

Wow, that's a really good MBE score. 1400 is very close to passing, and I know you'll get it next time for sure. These things are arbitrary (and possibly capricious.) For what it's worth, Kathleen Sullivan had a spot of trouble with the CA bar as well, and she was dean of Stanford law when she took it.

[bananasplit19]

Quick sidebar: I was lucky enough to get good news on Friday in re the exam, but my fucking moral character app is still in processing purgatory. I submitted back in March, but they came back to me in July with a request for new fingerprint cards. I guess that reset my 180-day clock, and when I called my analyst today, he said there's no way I'm going to get sworn in any time soon because I'm not close to the 180 day mark.

Does anyone have advice or experience with getting them to expedite at all? I also have heard whispers that if you poke them too much, your 180-day clock might mysteriously reset back to zero. But neither I nor my firm have no desire to wait until the Spring for me to get sworn in.

LOL -- no, you cannot expedite a damn thing. I've gone down that path and have accepted my fate and just pray that the analyst will be kind enough to approve my application in 180 days.

I don't see why the fingerprint card would set you back 180 days though, maybe a few weeks while they wait for the results or whatever. But far be it from me to even question the powers that be at the California Bar. Every time I call now I try to be as nice, and non pushy as possible.

Is the fingerprint card the only thing that is missing? I asked the first lady (the one in charge gathering documents) if anything was missing from my references or jobs, and she told me no. Come to find out from the analyst that two employment verifications and one reference was missing. Now I have to scramble to try to get them. Which I could have done three months ago when I asked the first lady about it like 5 times.

And I don't think the analyst would have called me about them until she had my file on her schedule.

Yup, when I called yesterday I confirmed that my app wasn't missing anything, and that I just need to sit tight. Sigh, my record doesn't even have any speeding tickets, much less actual red flags. I bet it would take the analyst 10 minutes to clear my app; but it's looking like those 10 minutes might not be until well into the Trump presidency. What a headache.

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

[lhanvt13]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Thank you.

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

[a male human]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

[1289yup]

Just curious if anyone else failed by this close of a margin:

Total scaled score: 1436.4566

The second set of graders gave me a 1442...but because I failed on the first read, the bar examiners took an average of the first and second read scores. Failed by 3.5 points.

(MBE was 1466)

[lhanvt13]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

^ that. Sorry, shoulda put a disclaimer woops

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

^ that. Sorry, shoulda put a disclaimer woops

No worries, thanks for posting that!

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

^ that. Sorry, shoulda put a disclaimer woops

Obviously I need to up my MBE if my raw was ~119. However, would you guys say that a 119 raw is "bad"? Could you still pass CA with a 119? Right now I am debating between taking CA again or my home state of PA. Wondering if taking PA, since it is arguably easier than CA, would be a nice confidence boost if I passed it. However, I can't really tell if I completely bombed the test and need to start from scratch or just need to fine tune some things.

[maxmartin]

P.o.ed I squandered a 1550 Mbe .... totally blew essays. For a 1400 total. 'Not sure if I should wait till July when MBE is 50:50 or suck it up for July. Thankfully, employer only requires one bar admission.

I wasted my 1574 MBE, will wait for JULY exam!

[maxmartin]

Just curious if anyone else failed by this close of a margin:

Total scaled score: 1436.4566

The second set of graders gave me a 1442...but because I failed on the first read, the bar examiners took an average of the first and second read scores. Failed by 3.5 points.

(MBE was 1466)

I got 1429.0257, the second bastard gave me PT A 5 points lower than the first grader, otherwise I will pass. MBE 1574.

[rcharter1978]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

^ that. Sorry, shoulda put a disclaimer woops

Obviously I need to up my MBE if my raw was ~119. However, would you guys say that a 119 raw is "bad"? Could you still pass CA with a 119? Right now I am debating between taking CA again or my home state of PA. Wondering if taking PA, since it is arguably easier than CA, would be a nice confidence boost if I passed it. However, I can't really tell if I completely bombed the test and need to start from scratch or just need to fine tune some things.

I don't think your mbe score is all that bad. But you gotta work on it. I don't know if you posted your essays, but if you got a re-read you didn't bomb the exam.

If MBE is your weakness you may want to try for February since it will only be 35% vs 50% in july

[psm11]

Re-reads killed me. Had a majority of 65s that were brought down to 62.5s or lower as well as a 70 that was brought down to a 67.5. I have no idea what to make of my scaled MBE. I took Themis and was meeting their target scores as well as scoring higher on the MBE midterm than the average. It says my scaled MBE was a 1364 can any one tell me, even if its just a rough estimate, what the raw of that would be? Did I completely bomb the MBE? Thanks guys.

1364 would be 119 raw. Admissions.calbar.ca.gov/portals/4/documents/unsuccessful_info.pdf

Just saw that that scale was for 2001. Anyone have any idea if its still accurate?

It's useful as an estimate. The scaling is different for each exam, and I'm not sure if there are other tables out there.

^ that. Sorry, shoulda put a disclaimer woops

Obviously I need to up my MBE if my raw was ~119. However, would you guys say that a 119 raw is "bad"? Could you still pass CA with a 119? Right now I am debating between taking CA again or my home state of PA. Wondering if taking PA, since it is arguably easier than CA, would be a nice confidence boost if I passed it. However, I can't really tell if I completely bombed the test and need to start from scratch or just need to fine tune some things.

I don't think your mbe score is all that bad. But you gotta work on it. I don't know if you posted your essays, but if you got a re-read you didn't bomb the exam.

If MBE is your weakness you may want to try for February since it will only be 35% vs 50% in july

Thanks for the reply. I'm just kind of confused as I hit the goals Themis set (and felt really good about the MBE as I did roughly 2,000 practice questions) and was scoring higher than the average of other CA bar takers during the milestone exams. If the the conversion chart from 2011 is still somewhat accurate I don't know how I didn't hit the 128 raw, which I was under the impression you needed to hit to pass (also is my CA MBE Scaled of 1364.0 a 136.4 in relation to National MBE mean score? All the other states I've looked at as well as the NCBE website use a three digit scale not a four digit one like CA, so when they say the national average MBE score is a 140.3 that means I was roughly 4 points away from that?)

In regards to my essays, on both reads I bombed PT-A which I knew I did as, for some reason, I just couldn't figure the damn thing out. As for the other essays and PT-B I got a few 65s and even a 70 and got a 65 on PT-B. When they went to the second read, however, the grader only passed two of my essays and gave me a 55 on PT-B. With the averaged scores, I only passed one essay which really makes me feel like crap. But c'mon the 10 point difference on PT-B? I'm sorry but I don't buy it. 10 points is a lot, there is no way two graders can be that out of sync. Not to mention the second grader gave me a lower score on every essay.

Right now I don't know if I should take CA again or my home state of PA. Have a decent law firm that a family member owns that I can work at in PA but have had a lot of promising interviews out in CA (some bar contingent some not). I know this is a CBX discussion but does anyone here know if a 1364.0 CBX scaled MBE score would be on track for passing in a state like PA? Sorry for all the questions just trying to see some good in all this. This has been especially hard to take as my class had a 93% pass rate (although they were all taking PA) even the kids that we all thought were total idiots passed. Got to remember to tell myself that the CA bar is a whole different animal. Thanks.

[Genius]

Does anybody know if we can get waived into NY or Hawaii with our CA Bar score? Or do these states require us to sit for the exam in their states?

[jbagelboy]

Does anybody know if we can get waived into NY or Hawaii with our CA Bar score? Or do these states require us to sit for the exam in their states?

NY definitely requires you to sit for their bar. Hawaii I'm not sure, you might be able to waive.

[lhanvt13]

Does anybody know if we can get waived into NY or Hawaii with our CA Bar score? Or do these states require us to sit for the exam in their states?

if you waive into DC, you can waive into NY in 5 years I believe.

[derfs]

Does anybody know if we can get waived into NY or Hawaii with our CA Bar score? Or do these states require us to sit for the exam in their states?

if you waive into DC, you can waive into NY in 5 years I believe.

Yep.