Category: Bar Exam

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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam

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.

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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam Virginia Bar Exam

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.

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Bar Exam Tutoring

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.

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Bar Exam MPRE

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.

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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam Virginia Bar Exam

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:

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Bar Exam

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:

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