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…)
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.
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 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
The VBBE has just posted the results for the July 2010 bar exam. Overall passing percentage was 75.2% with 79.8% of first-time takers passing. Congratulations to everyone who passed! For those of you who did not pass, do not despair, you will pass in February. Never give up! Full results at the link below:
http://www.vbbe.state.va.us/bar/barresults.html
NOTE: The website link on the VBBE homepage for the Swearing-in ceremony is broken, here is the correct url:
For the first time, we will be seeing states officially using the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) this spring. Missouri and North Dakota are the first two states to sign on and will be administering the UBE in February 2011.
According to the NCBE: “The UBE includes three test instruments already available and in use: the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), six Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) questions, and two Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tasks. The UBE is administered over two days, with the MBE given on the last Wednesday of February and July and the MEE/MPT scheduled on the Tuesday prior to that.”
It is estimated that the UBE will cost $96 in 2011 as that is the cost of the 3 individual components of the UBE and the NCBE has stated that they do not have any plans to charge more for the UBE.
USA Today reported a while back that Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C are considering moving to the UBE as well.
The Virginia Board of Bar Examiners has informed us that the results of the July 2010 bar exam will be posted on October 20, 2010.
It’s over. Both exams looked tough this time around. We had DC (via the NCBE) throw a crazy crossover question on the essay portion and Virginia go absolutely nuts and test nearly every subject possible on the essays (17 subjects tested on essays). Additionally, the MBE was not an “easier” MBE as the past 2 July ones have been.
Starting with DC, predictions were fairly accurate but we had a first ever contracts/comm paper crossover question along with the unpredicted family law and civ pro. Quite surprised to see they skipped criminal this time around, making only two MBE subject questions. Hopefully this is not a new trend as criminal law is a cornerstone for any newly licensed attorney to be familiar with.
As for Virginia, they went nuts on the essay subjects testing as follows:
1) Wills/VA Civ Pro
2) Va Civ Pro/Fed Civ Pro/Conflicts
3) Sales
4) Personal Property/VA Civ Pro (more…)
Good luck to everyone taking the bar exam this week, just a few more days to study, make it count.
As for the DC essays, here are my rough predictions:
Contracts
Criminal
Constitutional
Corporations
Trusts
Commercial Paper or Agency/Partnership
As always, there is no guarantee on these predictions. The bar examiners can ask about any of the subjects they choose, and they always like to throw a curve ball on each exam. Good luck!
With 10 days until the Summer 2010 Bar Exam, I just wanted to wish everyone good luck in the home stretch. Now is the time to focus your efforts and cram as much as you can. I’ll post my predictions for the DC Bar Exam next week to help you fine tune your last weekend of studying for the essays.
For those of you taking the Virginia Bar Exam, I’ll post my predictions for that exam next week as well.