We’re getting closer to February’s bar exam results, with Virginia’s coming next week. Here are the expected and anticipated dates for the February 2013 bar exam results for VA, DC, MD, NY, TX and CA:
Virginia – Expected April 25, 2013
DC – Anticipated May 1, 2013
Maryland – Expected May 3, 2013
Texas – Expected May 3, 2013
New York – Anticipated May 9, 2013
California – Expected May 17, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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
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