Foreign educated, passed NY F2017. This is what I did
Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:47 am
Hey everyone. First, congrats to those who passed and good luck to those who will retake - you will make it.
I am an Israeli law school graduate who passed the Israeli bar exam and moved on to take the NY bar exam. Israel is a common law jurisdiction and I did not need an LLM.
I took Kaplan's regular, non-LLM online course. Paid $1300 for it, and used no other supplements. I started with a practice exam before learning anything and got 110 questions right, which is pretty good and probably was helped by having a common law background. I am not a native English speaker however, and was not familiar with many legal terms. My English is good though so this was not a serious issue once I completed the course.
I started 3 months before the exam but only picked up pace 2 months before. I wasn't working. I completed 100% of the course and answered about 1000 MBE questions. My midterm score was 130 unscaled, and final was 140. Kaplan said my real MBE will be 15-25 points higher. I completed the course something like 4 days before the exam and didn't really do their personalized program which you are supposed to do in the last two weeks. I also didn't write a lot of essays and would have put more effort in studying the MEE materials.
The MEE was a nightmare. I submitted 7 essays or so that I wrote with open books and still got low barely-passing scores on them. I just couldn't remember enough law and was shocked by each and every essay I took. I tried making my own outlines for all 14 subjects and that probably helped eventually.
I also had hard time with civpro, con law and evidence as I didn't have much background coming from an Israeli law school.
I entered the exam quite confident due to my good performance in Kaplan's practice exams. The MPT felt OK, I did only 2 at home and felt I got the hang of it. The essays were a disaster - I finished all of them and gave 30 minutes to each, but I didn't remember much law and bulshitted 4 out of the 6 - I only felt fine with contracts and something else I don't remember. Trusts, family law and corporations were mostly made up.
The second day's morning session was actually great. I had a few minutes to spare, the questions were not too long and not too tricky. The afternoon session was much worse. I didn't bring a watch and luckily my neighbor lended me hers. I fell behind in the third hour and was doing the last 30 questions very quickly but I did finish answering everything.
I came out feeling pretty good. I read that people who bulshitted essays passed and I kind of knew nobody remembers the law all that well. I was a little troubled by my afternoon MBE performance. I was definitely tired and in hindsight I should have got some energy drinks during the break (I don't drink coffee). Instead I went up the Corning tower in Albany and enjoyed the view.
I guessed that I will get something between 270 and 310. I didn't bother myself too much but was anxious the next 2-3 days. I became terribly stressed the week before the results came and barely left the house. I started feeling like I failed and braced myself for a 253.
My result was 296 with a 162.1 MBE. Kaplan's estimate was correct, and my MEE score was bad but not terrible. I'm very happy this is over and that I chose Kaplan's non-LLM program. Most of the lectures and professors were very good (some weren't) and the MBE bank and essay grading were great. I heard that LLM specific courses charge more but give you the same content so don't bother paying more for some useless tweaks. Hope it helps!
I am an Israeli law school graduate who passed the Israeli bar exam and moved on to take the NY bar exam. Israel is a common law jurisdiction and I did not need an LLM.
I took Kaplan's regular, non-LLM online course. Paid $1300 for it, and used no other supplements. I started with a practice exam before learning anything and got 110 questions right, which is pretty good and probably was helped by having a common law background. I am not a native English speaker however, and was not familiar with many legal terms. My English is good though so this was not a serious issue once I completed the course.
I started 3 months before the exam but only picked up pace 2 months before. I wasn't working. I completed 100% of the course and answered about 1000 MBE questions. My midterm score was 130 unscaled, and final was 140. Kaplan said my real MBE will be 15-25 points higher. I completed the course something like 4 days before the exam and didn't really do their personalized program which you are supposed to do in the last two weeks. I also didn't write a lot of essays and would have put more effort in studying the MEE materials.
The MEE was a nightmare. I submitted 7 essays or so that I wrote with open books and still got low barely-passing scores on them. I just couldn't remember enough law and was shocked by each and every essay I took. I tried making my own outlines for all 14 subjects and that probably helped eventually.
I also had hard time with civpro, con law and evidence as I didn't have much background coming from an Israeli law school.
I entered the exam quite confident due to my good performance in Kaplan's practice exams. The MPT felt OK, I did only 2 at home and felt I got the hang of it. The essays were a disaster - I finished all of them and gave 30 minutes to each, but I didn't remember much law and bulshitted 4 out of the 6 - I only felt fine with contracts and something else I don't remember. Trusts, family law and corporations were mostly made up.
The second day's morning session was actually great. I had a few minutes to spare, the questions were not too long and not too tricky. The afternoon session was much worse. I didn't bring a watch and luckily my neighbor lended me hers. I fell behind in the third hour and was doing the last 30 questions very quickly but I did finish answering everything.
I came out feeling pretty good. I read that people who bulshitted essays passed and I kind of knew nobody remembers the law all that well. I was a little troubled by my afternoon MBE performance. I was definitely tired and in hindsight I should have got some energy drinks during the break (I don't drink coffee). Instead I went up the Corning tower in Albany and enjoyed the view.
I guessed that I will get something between 270 and 310. I didn't bother myself too much but was anxious the next 2-3 days. I became terribly stressed the week before the results came and barely left the house. I started feeling like I failed and braced myself for a 253.
My result was 296 with a 162.1 MBE. Kaplan's estimate was correct, and my MEE score was bad but not terrible. I'm very happy this is over and that I chose Kaplan's non-LLM program. Most of the lectures and professors were very good (some weren't) and the MBE bank and essay grading were great. I heard that LLM specific courses charge more but give you the same content so don't bother paying more for some useless tweaks. Hope it helps!
