UVA Humor

Words fail me...

Outlines

A comment pointed to a website selling bar outlines, called BarOutlines.com. I do not know anything about these outlines. But in a thread on the CA Bar Exam Primer, someone writes:

i ordered the CA outlines about two years ago. i was extremely disappointed in them.

Another writes:

In the strongest terms I would advise that you not not buy these outlines. They
give you a sample which looks good, but the new outlines on Business Association
and CA civ pro are worthless.

Those were the only two post in that thread concerning that website.

Another post in the same thread mentions Bar Secrets and the study group. Apparently, these sources already have outlines for the new July 07 CA topics. I may look into all this later.

[Edit:] In the spirit of fairness, a rep from BarOutlines.com points out that one of the opinions in the above thread is 2 years old. So it may not be reflective of the quality of their outlines today. But as I said I have no personal knowledge of any of these outlines, especially since we July 2007 takers are looking for outlines of the *new* CA subjects, and few vendors have actually put out outlines for the new subjects, and even fewer of us are in a position to evaluate the quality of these new outlines. As for me, I'm just going to wait for Barbri.

Things

Not much since last post.

Apartment is a bit pricey, but otherwise exactly what I wanted on paper. I'm going to sign the lease in late April.

The firm emailed, saying they will pay for the hotel stay during the exam. They're also paying my moving costs. I still have to submit my bar exam app fee for expense.

The Remedies CDs are highly annoying. I've had most of the material before from other classes. The CD lectures are not organized very well. I do not recommend them.

Clerkship apps are going; asked for recs. One prof wasn't so enthusiastic in his email. Will meet with him tomorrow.

Finals are looming.

Free Contracts Lecture

My school is offering free Barbri "preview" lectures. I'm not sure why they are doing this. Anyhow we spent 3 hours today going over a good chunk of Contracts. The live lecturer (a law prof from our school) went over formation and remedies. I thought it was kinda helpful. I figure every time I hear something again it's good.

Three hours is a long time to sit and listen to someone. My brain was toast after the lecture. But Barbri is going to be even worse than this. It'll be day after day of non-stop lectures. Hopefully, I will build up listening stamina after a few Barbri days.

Started listening to Remedies CDs. The Lecturer is Lisa McElroy. I like her voice. But she needs to pause more.

MBE CDs - Done.

This post marks the point where I'm done with the MBE CDs.

Now this doesn't mean that I've listened to all CDs. I still have "Remedies." But that's not a MBE subject. So I've listened to: Torts, Ks, Property, Conlaw, Evidence, Crim, and Crim Pro. 32 CDs in all.

Certainly haven't retained everything. But I never intended to. I memorize things like I forget: involuntarily. So this was a good idea for me.

I don't plan to listen to the CDs again so I will sell them soon.

More PMBR Confusion

An Evidence question.

A bank clerk is presented with a forged check. She knew it was forged b/c she was familiar with the customer's real signature. The thief, however, took off with the check. THe check is *not* offered as evidence at trial. The clerk's testimony about the forged check is:

C) admissible, b/c it is rationally related to the witness' perception.
D) admissible, b/c the witness was familiar with the alleged victim's handwriting.

Answer? D. Under FRE 901, authentication as a condition precedent to admission is satisfied by "nonexpert opinion as to the genuineness of handwriting, based upon familiarity no acquired for purposes of litigation. Thus D is correct. R 701 provides for lay opinion which is rationally based on the perception of the witness. Nevertheless, D is a more specific answer than C.

Me: But we're not even introducing a check here, real or forged. If we were trying to introduce a real check, then there would be a foundational requirement, and 901 comes into play. Here, the witness is only offering an opinion. I can't see how D is correct. Can I get a witness?

Clerkships

The last few months of 3L. I love how when you see a 3L, the standard greeting is "ready to graduate yet?" Or "six more weeks." To my surprise quite a few of my friends are taking the CA bar. Almost all are doing Barbri here (not California). A few are traveling elsewhere, with their Ipod.

I began the clerkship application thing. I'm debating whether I should blog about this in detail, because I don't really anticipate getting anything, or even a single interview. But all this will be happening concurrently with bar prep next summer...

Decided to not do mock trial.

PMBR: 6-Day or 3-Day?

Answer @ 1:49:

Word of the Day

MBE crim law is not just crim law, but includes also crim pro. I never took crim pro. I began listening to the PMBR Crim Pro CD yesterday.

Now up until then, having gone thru 6 subjects on these CD's, I've never encountered a new word that I've never heard of before. I mean, I may not know what "res gestae" means, but at least I've heard it before. But Crim Pro CD 1 taught me a new word:

Curtilage - The enclosed area immediately surrounding a house or dwelling.

Apparently, the curtilage is protected by the 4th Amendment from unlawful searches. Also interesting was the phrase "fruit of the poisonous tree."

Cathedral Hill

I am now entering the final stages of negotiations with the lessor of my summer apartment. They are doing a credit check on me. Also, I had to show them my firm's offer letter. It's close to St. Mary's Cathedral. Less than a mile. But when I asked if I can walk it, he suggested that I take a taxi. The reason? St. Mary's is on the top of "a hill." It's 2500 feet of a 45 degree climb!

Oh well. I guess I can use the exercise.

*Rubs Forehead*

Okay, these PMBR explanations are less than satisfying. This was one under crim law.

X breaks a law and is charged. Before X is brought to trial, the law gets struck down as unconstitutional. The state then drops the initial charge and instead charges X for the *attempted* violation of that law. THe attempt statute says legal impossibility is no defense. Will X be found guilty of the attempt charge?

A) Yes b/c X had the requisite intent.
B) Yes b/c the dismissal of the initial charge was not a final adjudgment and double jeopardy does not attach.

Two points: 1) b/c the attempt statute says legal impossibliity is no defense, X can still be guilty under it even tho he can't really violate the underlying law. 2) there is no double jeopardy here, b/c there was never a final judgement of X. So really, A) and B) are both right.

Explanation. A. B is wrong b/c double jeopardy does not attach. ... A dismissal of the initial charge does not constitute a final judgment.

Me: ok, and B is wrong how?

Reimbursement

The firm finally sent me the check for all the fees I've incurred. It's over $3000, mostly due to Barbri. I still have another $500 to claim.

I'm almost done listening to the Evidence lectures. This lecturer wasn't as funny as the others, but he talks nice and slow and is very easy to understand. I didn't learn about presumptions and judicial notice in my law school evidence class. But it doesn't sound very difficult.

I also took some MBE's from the PMBR workbook (volume 1). I got about 50% correct in torts. But I did badly in Contracts. I missed the first 7 questions in a row (out of 11). Several questions had to do with the Statute of Frauds. I didn't really know the Statute of Frauds and had to look it up. Apparently, even though a K is formed, the breaching party can raise this defense if the K was not written down in some way. This defense only applies to certain types of subject matter (interest in land over a year, etc). I sort of knew what SoF was but it was never really explained to me in this detail. Kinda sad.

Rest of Semester

Well, I called all three candidates, but only was able to reach one. I sent the other two emails from their websites. I'll keep trying. Apartments are expensive in that area, nothing under $1000. I'm paying about half that where I live now.

I'm debating whether I should outline my classes this semester. I'm taking Wills and PR, both of which are bar subjects. However, both classes will be very state-specific. We're using the state code and ethical rules, which is different from CA.

For the rest of the semester, which is just 1.5 month, I'm considering doing the following:
1) a mock trial
2) clerkship applications
3) golf classes
4) study for the finals
5) study for the bar

Summar Apartment Candidates

Candidate 1: On Market Street. May be loud. $1800-$2000.
Candidate 2: $1500-$1700. View.
Candidate 3: No price info.
In the map, I go from Candidate 1, to 2, to 3, and finally to St. Mary's.
Will call tomorrow.

Premier

So I made it to the premier. We lined up for about half an hour in the rain outside the theatre. The production staff was walking around outside so we can talk with them. The producer gave me my ticket. About half the viewers were lawyers: local law firm people, and a federal judge. They wore fancy cloths and hobnobbed inside. And then there was a bunch of law students.

I thought the movie was great. It is targetted towards the general public, but there were lots of lawyer jokes to keep us laughing. It's basically six people's experience taking the July 06 CA bar. The movie really didn't show too much of them studying, although I guess that would've been boring. Frankly I would've been really interested to see what their study plan and strategy was. They also didn't let the camera into the actual exam, although you saw the empty big hall in Ontario Convention Center where the exam was held. It also showed a lot of Barbri LA.

The movie featured commentary by several prominent figures and trial lawyers on the good and bad of having too many lawyers, etc. Everytime John Stossel talked about how America is too litigious, the audience boo'ed. We were all very anxious to find out whether everyone passed. We laughed when all the score checking crashed the CA Bar website. We clapped for the passers and felt sad for the failers. When it was all over, one of the movie's subjects went on stage and answers some questions from the audience. Apparently she is still unemployed.

I highly recommend this movie. Especially for law students / lawyers, and especially especially for CA law students / lawyers.

Spring Break

I've sort of let the last few days slip by. Felt good. But now my sleeping schedule is all messed up. Which is why I'm up now.

Let's review the application checklist.

• Complete the necessary general education; (check)
• Register with the Committee of Bar Examiners as a law student or attorney applicant; (check)
• Complete the requisite legal education; (underway)
• File an application to take the First-Year Law Students' Examination and pass, or establish exemption from the examination; (not necessary)
• File an application to take the bar examination and after eligibility has been confirmed, take and pass the examination; (waiting for eligibility confirmation)
• File an application for a moral character determination and receive a positive moral character determination from the Committee of Bar Examiners; (application sent)
• File an application, take and pass the MPRE with a scaled score of 79.00 or greater, which examination is administered and graded by the National Conference of Bar Examiners; (waiting for score)
• Be in compliance with California court ordered child or family support obligations. (check)

Civ Pro Is Boring

More bar-exam-induced insanity.



In other news, JDJive has decided to auction off its domain name. On Ebay. Bidding ends March 19.

Tired.

Not sure why I'm tired. I think I chewed too much gum during the exam. Well it's over. Some people thought it was harder than the Barbri practice exams. I thought it was about the same. I didn't feel great b/c I guessed on quite a few. Maybe 15 or more. I should get about half of those, and about 2/3 of the ones I didn't guess on. So...7.5 + 30 = 37, 38? I should pass with that for CA. Fingers crossed. Here*** is what I'm glad didn't happen to me:

I was slogging through it, thinking it was a bit harder than the practice questions.
...
Then suddenly with 10 mins left I realized that I was only on 48, not 58! I panicked, tried to pick off the shortest ones... Then I filled in random responses for about 8 questions. I glanced at 3 of those for a few seconds and just threw down the one that looked best.
Ya, I'm screwed.

***Be warned, this is a thread on xoxo, a law student discussion board notorious for its offensive content.

In Yo Face Barbri!

Well, here is another sample test, supposedly from NCBE. 50 questions, untimed. I flew through these. They are much shorter (and easier I think) than the Barbri exam I took this morning. Result? 90%. And it took nowhere near 2 hours. The starting instruction states:

This is a sample exam consisting of 50 questions for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). Most of these questions have been administered on actual Multistate Professional Responsibility Examinations. Keep in mind that this sample exam has no time limit while the actual MPRE has a time limit of 125 minutes.

Did I just get lucky on these? Who cares. I'd like to go to bed with the belief that I'm ready. And right now, I think I am. So I'm not gonna mess with that. Beside I'm too tired to do another one of these. Time to sharpen my pencils!

Motivation

Here. That's right folks, starting 2008 California will have the highest standard for passing the MPRE in all the land.

After analyzing my answers on the practice exam, I decided that both Barbri's questions and explanations are poorly worded.

Also, apparently, the scaled score goes from 50 to 100. That means if you just sit down you get a 50. And the scores are adjusted so that the average raw score becomes a 100. So if I get below a 79, I am one of the most unethical law student in the country. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for embarrassment by saying all this...

MPRE Practice Exam

I just took at 60-question Barbri practice exam. I only got 35 out of 60. Depending on the year, the passing score needed to be between 33-40. I am depressed. The test is tomorrow and I'm still borderline. Maybe the Barbri questions are harder than the real test. God I hope so. Back to the Conviser Mini Review Outline...

BTW, the author of the previous post is "Rob," who is starting his own blog here. He welcomes your comments on his story.

A Long Comment (by a February Taker)

A blow-by-blow recount of the February California bar exam experience, here.

The MPRE

Well I am only now beginning to really start studying for the MPRE (had a final and mock trial this pass week). But actually I've already looked at the Model Rules outline, and I have been taking 5 questions per day from the Barbri "StudySmart" software. I'm getting around 55-60% right, although I am still learning. The test is in 2 days, on Saturday.

How many do you need to get right for CA? According to this, you need 28-33 out of 50, or if you're doing them by 60's, 33-40 out of 60, or 56-66%. Clearly I need to study more.

Also, here are some tips for the MPRE, which I found interesting:

Don’t sweat it like I did. You’re probably going to pass the MPRE. If you don’t, you can just try again! Just don’t give up weeks of your life preparing for this two hour exam. Now the actual BAR, well, that will be another story...

Dan Fessler

I didn't want to do my normal school work so I finished listening to the PMBR Contracts CDs. I'm not sure how much I'm retaining, but the lecturer (Dan Fessler) was great. I found myself laughing out loud several times (I don't normally laugh out loud), especially on the last half hour of CD 7. Professor Fessler lectures like he is reciting poetry. I've never heard anyone like him. You really have to hear him to experience it. Anyways so this leaves Evidence. But I like the PMBR Audio CDs so much that I ordered Remedies and Crim Pro too. These won't be a review for me since I never took these classes.

Very busy right now with school. I have an early final next week, and have to prepare for the skills trial for the advocacy survey class I'm doing. Then, MPRE.

Collective Sigh From the February Takers

The February bar exam just ended. Here are what three takers are saying.

Studied Ignorance:

To describe how it is the day after taking a three day California Bar Exam is nigh impossible. I woke up and felt afraid, like I have almost every day since December, but realised I had nothing left to feel afraid of. Like a zombie, I got a cup of tea and went into the study and turned on my computer, but realised there is nothing left to learn.

KMack:

After making tremendous sacrifices for this test (I missed Rome, 24 and Lost this week), it's over. It feels great, but now I hardly know what to do with myself. ... I wish I could take a picture of my brain. I will never know this much law as I do now. And the weirdest thing is that it seems so overwhelming before and as you're learning it. But once you do, it's just something you know like everything else. And it doesn't even feel like I've learned that much.

Cathy:

[I wonder] if I ended up missing something big and important. Was my efficiency a sign of extreme competence, or just the opposite? Well, we'll see... when the results come out in May. I refuse to look at my notes to find out at any point before that. In fact, I plan on stashing everything bar related in the back of a closet until I find out if I can dispose of them for good.* One way or another it's time to move on with my life, and I plan on starting tomorrow.

Video Time!

I first mentioned the song here (last paragraph). Now you can see the music video on Youtube. Not sure if it's the same band though. And here is another bar taker going nuts:

Oops.

So, it appears today is March 1 and that means we can sign up for a test center! So I just did. (also, rent is due.) I also realized that the San Mateo test site is mixed typers and handwriters, while Oakland is all handwriters. I hear people say that typers can be pretty loud so I put Oakland as my first choice. San Mateo was my second choice. I then also made a reservation at the Marriott in Oakland. So now I have two hotel reservations and I have to cancel one.

Why am I handwriting? First, I've only typed two exam in law school, and they were both takehomes. Second, laptops are just one more thing that can go wrong--and I think my laptop is about to go--why risk it? And finally, it costs $119. No that money matters at this point.

Hotel

So according to the CA Bar, there are special hotel rates for bar takers. I haven't even signed up for a bar location yet, but it's all changeable later and I got all excited and made a reservation at this place. I hope to take the bar here. This is what the drive will be like.

The lady over the phone asked me if I was there for business or pleasure. I said I was there to take the bar. She then says "I guess that means pleasure."

I wonder if I can expense this to the firm... Well, I need to actually settle where I'm going to take the bar first. I think I'm going to write the bar exam instead of type. Decisions decisions. Finally I think I'm going to put off my trip to SF until later. Too much to do here this spring break.