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

Category: Bar Exam

  • 1st Weekend in June – Time to start studying a VA essay primer

    For those of you who have not started studying yet, this weekend is the time to do so. We’re at less than 2 months till the July 2011 bar exam, so this is the time to start.

    For all of you taking the Virginia bar exam, I have some tips to share for the essays and short answer section, which is 60% of your overall score. First, the basics. You have approximately 36 minutes per essays, and 36 minutes for 20 short answer questions. Of course, you overall time is 3 hours and you can divide it up however you want, but it breaks out to 36 minutes per question approx. In the morning section you have 5 essay questions, and in the afternoon section you have 4 essay questions and 20 short answers. For the afternoon section I recommend doing the short answers first (they usually take much less than 36 minutes) and then finish off the last 4 essay questions of the day.

    Take a look at the past essay questions and model answers (available from GMU and W&M) for years past and look for frequency of subjects tested. (NOTE: The barbri frequency chart is flawed and many of the years/subjects are incorrect, so I recommend looking at the questions yourself and not blindly relying on inaccurate materials.) The VA bar examiners have openly stated that they like testing subjects that a new attorney is likely to encounter. Read into this! (more…)

  • DC Bar Exam February 2011 Results

    A bit late, but I wanted to post a link and quick analysis of the Feb 2011 DC Bar Exam results. First and foremost, congratulations to everyone who passed, especially to those whom I know personally! Great job. Now, on with the results:

    http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/membership/current_members/examResults.cfm

    100 people passed this time around, which is a 71% pass rate among first–time takers, which is quite good, and a less impressive overall pass rate of 48%, but still better than what we have seen in the past. This exam appears to have been graded more uniformly that the last time around, which is good to see.

    Here is another link directly to the PDF of the results:

    Click to access SuccessfulList_2011-02.pdf

    For those of you who did not pass, again, I encourage you to re-evaluate the approach you took and try something new. If you are interested in tutoring, read my past posts on how to select a tutor. My roster for this summer is almost full so anyone interested in tutoring either for DC or VA should reach out sooner rather than later as I only tutor a few students each exam period.

  • Virginia February 2011 results posted, still waiting for DC

    Virginia posted their pass list this week:

    http://www.vbbe.state.va.us/bar/barresults.html

    Overall pass rate was 60.71% with first-time takers doing a little better at 68.57%. Congratulations to everyone who passed, especially to everyone I know personally! It was a fair but tough exam and the 60% pass rate shows that. For those of you who did not pass, check out the William and Mary website and go over the model answers. Also, look at your breakdown of scores that the VBBE will send you and see if the MBE or essays were your weak point. Study differently for the July 2011 bar exam and don’t lose hope.

    As for DC, let’s hope the results are posted next week.

  • Tutoring for the July 2011 bar exam

    As bar results for the February 2011 DC and VA exams roll in, this is the time when I begin to receive multiple requests for tutoring assistance. Most of my students are repeat takers for the simple reason that nearly everyone who takes the bar exam for the first time starts with a commercial prep program such as barbri. When that fails, they seek out alternatives such as individual tutoring. More than half of the people that come to me looking for assistance have taken the bar 3 or more times and have tried at least 2 different commercial bar prep programs. What I find is that all the commercial bar prep programs have more or less the same approach and use an unmanageable amount of study materials. This is where tutoring comes in because with the 1:1 attention, you have someone that can guide you through your studies week by week and steer you in the right direction instead of simply following a 2-month syllabus/study schedule blindly, regardless of where your individual strengths and weaknesses lie.

    With that being said, for those of you who are considering tutoring, here are a few tips when seeking out a prospective tutor:
    1) Be prepared to discuss your bar exam history. So, have your past scores (broken out by MBE & essay scores) ready and gather up a list of your previous study materials/methods. (more…)

  • Suggested prep for July 2011 Bar Exams (MBE Focus)

    For those of you wanting to get a head start on the prep for the summer bar exam, I’d recommend picking up some used PMBR materials. First, get the PMBR 6-subject MBE Audio Lectures. These come on either a single DVD with MP3s, or as a 32-CD set. Then get the PMBR Red book to do some practice questions. You can find these used on ebay or cragslist or wherever for pretty cheap. I’d recommend listening to the entire audio lectures once or twice and then tackle maybe 50 questions per subject in the red book. This should be a good start before you start barbri or whatever other program you will be doing. Most programs today do not emphasize the MBE enough and it really deserves more attention and a unique study approach. Most people that fail the bar exam do so because of low MBE scores. You can write a fluffy essay and still pass the bar exam but you can’t BS you way past the MBE. So if you want to get an early start, focus on the MBE.

  • Bar exams are done – VA/DC results

    With the VA and DC bar exams behind us, let’s look at the subjects that were tested. Most of the predictions were accurate this time around, with the usual few surprises.

    Feb 2011 DC Bar Exam:

    MEE’s:
    Evidence (witness credibility impeachment, hearsay, lay witness)
    Contracts (formation/damages)
    Family Law(settlement agreement, spousal support, adoption)
    Wills (validity, beneficiary conflicts, abatement)
    Corporations (creation, liability)
    Fed Civ Pro (service of process, cross claims, supplemental jurisdiction)

    MPT’s:
    1) Objective Memorandum
    2) Objective Memorandum (short) and persuasive closing argument

    Nice to see the return of dual memos, but the difficulty level was high again. And this marks the 2nd time that only 2 MBE subjects were tested instead of the usual 3. Nothing shocking, but interesting to note.

    Feb 2011 Virginia Bar Exam: (more…)

  • 1 day until the Feb 2011 bar exam

    I thought I might post my predictions for the DC and VA bar exams today. With a little less than 24 hours until the exam, now is the time to cram and do a last minute pass through your flash cards/outlines/spreadsheets/whatever you use to study. As always, all information posted here is use at your own risk. Here we go:

    DC Predictions:
    criminal
    property
    evidence
    corporations
    family law
    wills/trusts
    secured transactions

    VA Predictions: (more…)

  • A few thoughts on the DC and VA bar exams

    As we enter the “T-minus 5-weeks till the bar exam” zone I wanted to share a few thoughts regarding both the DC and Virginia bar exams. Now is definitely the time to start focusing on your studies if you have not already. No doubt with the holidays and other personal and work commitments, you may not have studied as much as you had anticipated up to this point. Well, now is the time to turn over a new leaf and get a solid plan in place where you dedicate X hours/day or Y hours/week to studying for the bar exam. For most of us, the bar exam is something that requires many weeks of study in order to pass, not just 1-2 weeks of cramming right before the exam.

    For the DC bar exam, you do not want to underestimate the MPT. It is a challenging part of the exam and requires excellent time management and organizational skills. Practice makes perfect so start practicing your MPTs now instead of putting them off till the last minute. The MPT is 25% of the total weight on the DC bar exam, and if you are an essay only taker, it’s 50% of the exam. Either way, it’s a significant piece of the pie.

    For the VA bar exam, remember that the MBE deserves specialized attention and simply knowing the law is not going to help you unless you are naturally gifted at standardized test taking. Practice questions are key but they only help insomuch as you review your answers carefully and understand why you are getting questions wrong OR correct. The trickiest MBE questions are fine line law distinctions that are tested repeatedly on MBE after MBE and it has been this way for decades. Learn those fine line distinctions and learn to spot the fact patterns that test them. That is how you will improve your MBE score, which is 40% of the total weight on the VA bar exam.

  • Less than 3 months until the Feb 2011 Bar Exam

    December is upon us, which means there are less than 3 months until the February 2011 bar exam. Many folks don’t begin studying until January when Barbri and other programs officially start, but I think this is a mistake. Now is a great time to start studying, even if just for 30-60 minutes a day. Get those legal juices flowing and get in the daily bar exam study routine. If you have a weak subject, start with that subject, you’ll be happy when February rolls around that you got a dozen or so extra hours of studying done in December!

    As for Tutoring – I still have a few open slots for tutoring remaining but will be finalizing my roster within the next week or two. So, if you are interested in tutoring for the upcoming Feb 2011 bar exam, send me an email soon.

    So, start studying now before the holidays are upon us a get a head start on the game. I’ll begin to post regularly next month with strategies and tactics for the bar exam. Good luck!

  • DC Bar July 2010 Exam Results Posted

    DC Bar Exam from July 2010 results have been posted and the results are very low. Overall pass rate is 41% with first time takers at 60%. Only 97 people passed this summer, which is a record low as far as I remember for a summer exam. Very tough.

    http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/membership/current_members/examResults.cfm