Washington DC (UBE) & Virginia Bar Exam Tutoring & Self-Study

Category: Bar Exam

  • Feb 2013 DC Bar exam Essay day Analysis

    The Feb 2013 DC Bar exam is over!  Congrats to everyone who took it, just for surviving.  This one was a little tougher than usual in some ways.  To start with, we had two persuasive MPTs, and neither was a memo.  Definitely not the best way to start the bar exam.  The good news is that the essays were MBE subject heavy which was a nice treat.  In fact, for the first time ever we had four out of six essay questions that were MBE subjects.  They were Property, Con law, Evidence and Contracts.  Speaking of predictions, getting 5 out of 6 ain’t all that bad so I was feeling pretty good. The other two questions were Agency and Fed Civ Pro.

    For the MPTs, as I said, neither were memos.  One was a letter and one was a brief.  Both were persuasive, which for most people is a more difficult assignment.  Time was a major issue on these MPTs, and finishing both in 3 hours was more difficult than usual.

    Now that it’s over, I’m going to relax and not think about anything bar exam related.  We’ve got a few months till the results come out.  I’ll post when I know more details about when to expect results.

  • Changes to the MBE – Civil Procedure is coming in 2015

    So last week we received a nice memo from the President of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) letting us know that the long-awaited changes to the MBE are now official and that starting with the February 2015 examination, we will be seeing Civil Procedure as the 7th tested subject.  As you know, the MBE has 200 multiple-choice questions, of which 190 are scored items and 10 are experimental questions that are not graded.  We’ve seen civ pro-like questions for some time in those experimental questions, but now it’s official.  With the addition of Civil Procedure to the MBE, that means that the number of questions per topic will decrease. Starting in 2015, there will be 28 questions covering Contracts, and 27 questions covering each of the six remaining topics, for a total of 190 graded questions, and of course the 10 experimental. Every U.S. jurisdiction but Louisiana uses the MBE.

    The NCBE has promised to release test specifications for the MBE Civil Procedure items no later than June 30 of this year. In the meantime, the specifications for Civil Procedure, already a topic on the Multistate Essay Examination, are available on the NCBE website, http://www.ncbex.org.  3 years seems far away but for those of you in law school that will be taking the exam after July 2014, this will affect you.  Whether or not this is good news or bad news depends on whether you dislike civ pro more or less than the other 6 subjects.  Here is a link to the official memo that was sent out.

    As for the Feb 2013 MBE that we just saw, it was tough as usual, but no major surprises.  Evidence questions were a touch trickier than usual, but the question length was the same and time was not as much a factor this time as it normally is.

  • Virginia Feb 2013 Bar Exam Essay Analysis

    The Feb 2013 Virginia bar exam is over.  The questions were right in line with predictions and the MBE (to be discussed in a later post) was average.  Question 1 started out with property, a Virginia favorite, followed by my favorite local govt law and VA Civ pro for question 2.  Question 3 was a hybrid wills and Prof Responsibility question.  The fourth questions was UCC2, sales, and finishing up the questions for the morning section was our old friend corporations.  The afternoon gave us another local govt question followed by the evil subject known as creditors rights which was mixed with more corporations and property. There was a nice Federal Jurisdiction question, and then finally, a nice gift of a question featuring personal property and wills.  Short answer/multiple choice were straightforward as always, with a few gimmies and a couple head scratchers, but nothing crazy.  It was interesting to see the bar examiners leave out UCC 3 and 9 (thank you!) and go a big lighter than usual on the VA civ procedure (thank you again!).  Depending on how you studied for this exam, it either seemed very hard, or tough, but fair.

    Good luck to everyone that took the exam!  I’ll post estimated dates for when bar exams across the country will be posting their results.  Got a few months of painful waiting until then, so try and think about something else other than the exam for the time being.

  • Weekend before the February 2013 bar exam

    It’s almost here.  The Feb 2013 bar exam.  The final weekend of studying is an important one, and usually a stressful one.  The feeling of all the months of studying coming to an end, and the feeling that it was not enough time.  Rest assured that I don’t think very many people feel “fully prepared” before taking the bar exam.  There is simply too much law that can be tested to know it all well enough to feel like you are going to ace the exam.  Good thing is, the bar exam is a pass/fail situation with a passing score being usually around the 65% mark.  This isn’t law school, you can’t get an A, or a B+ on the bar exam.  So, you don’t need to have mastered every bit of law in every subject they can possibly test.  Hopefully that little tidbit will help ease some nerves this final weekend.

    OK, how about some final tips and advice?

    For VA takers, don’t forget to (more…)

  • 2 weeks of studying left, strategies for the home stretch

    OK, we’ve got 2 weeks of studying until the February 2013 bar exam.  I believe that this is the most important time to focus on studying.  Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way:

    1) Focus on your weak areas – If you have been avoiding evidence, or property, or any other subject because you “don’t like it”, or “just don’t get it”.  Then you really need to put in a little extra time now to try and get more comfortable with whatever subjects you have been avoiding.  Don’t be the ostrich.

    2) Be sure and do at least 10 or 15 practice MBE questions every day between now and the bar exam.  This is a good way to ensure you stay fresh on your MBE skills.  I keep hearing people say things like “I heard you need to do 50 per day”.  That may be fine if you have (more…)

  • Strategies and Tactics for the MBE – 5th Edition Review

    The fifth edition of Emanuel’s Strategies and Tactics for the MBE was published this past October (2012) and, as many of you know, is my favorite book for MBE prep.  A new edition is usually published every 3 years or so, with only minor changes.  The biggest change was in the last edition, the questions were re-written and updated to reflect the new style of MBE questions in 2009, while the content of the subject matter outlines (Study strategies and exam tactics) was left unchanged.  This newest edition with the purplish cover actually does have some new content in the subject matter outlines, although mostly the book is unchanged.  If you already own an earlier edition (more…)

  • 6 weeks until the Feb 2013 Bar Exam

    With 42 days remaining, we’re at the 6 week marker until the Feb 2013 bar exam. Most folks are totally immersed in studying right now, a trip to the law library confirmed that for me today. I talked to a guy who is working full time but has Monday’s off until the bar exam. We were discussing how it’s hard to get in enough study hours while also working a full-time job. I gave him the best advice I know of, which is just do the best you can with the time you have.

    Check my twitter feeds for daily MBE and Virginia bar exam tips during the weekdays as well.

    On an MBE note, I’m going to post a mini-review of the latest edition of one of my favorite bar prep books, Strategies and Tactics for the MBE. The 5th edition (2012) has a purplish-reddish color and a few nice updates. I’ll write that up and publish it soon.

  • Just under 60 days until the February 2013 bar exam

    With just a couple of days until the new year, and a little less than 60 days until the bar exam, many people are starting to panic because they have not yet started studying. Whether it was due to the holidays or whatever, don’t panic. Instead, take the next day or two to create a good study plan. Organize your study materials, put your game plans together and then make a commitment to stick to it. 2 months is plenty of time to study for, and pass, the bar exam. I am not taking on any more students for tutoring for the Feb 2013 bar exam, and my other tutors are mostly booked as well, but feel free to drop me a line with any questions you have. I’m always happy to help out where I can. Happy New Year!

  • July 2012 California Bar Exam Results and Analysis

    Time to review the CA bar exam from this past July. The public pass list is available here: http://apps.calbar.ca.gov/exam/

    Overall pass rate was 55.3%. That’s 4,834 people out of 8,737 applicants. As usual, first time takers did better, with a 68% pass rate. Nearly 3/4 of the test takers were first timers (74.2%), that’s 6,485 first-time applicants. For the 2,252 repeat takers, their pass rate was 18%.

    Finally, first time test takers from a California ABA school had a pass rate of 77% and repeat takers passed at a 24% pass rate. First time out-of-State ABA school takers had a 64% pass rate while the repeat takers had a 21% pass rate.

    California’s mean scaled MBE score was (more…)

  • July 2012 New York, Maryland and Texas bar exam results

    3 more July 2012 bar exam results are available today. Private lookup only for New York at the following link:

    https://www.nybarapply.org/LUJ12/XResults.asp

    On Monday NY will post the public list on their website.

    Maryland is releasing today at 4:30PM at the following link:

    http://www.courts.state.md.us/ble/examresults.html

    Finally, you can get your Texas July 2012 results here:

    http://www.ble.state.tx.us/Results/pass_0712.htm

    Congratulations to everyone who passed! California is still a ways off, Friday the 16th for private lookup and Sunday the 18th for public posting. Best of luck to everyone.