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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam

D.C. Bar Exam Results Posted

I received my letter in the mail today and I passed the February 2009 D.C. Bar Exam. As of right now, the Feb 2009 results are not online, but they will be posted this week at the following url:

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

UPDATE: The list has been posted with the following message:

“Notice is hereby given that the list published herewith contains the names of 116 successful applicants of the District of Columbia Bar Examination administered on February 24 and 25, to 262 applicants. This represents a 57% pass rate among first-time takers or an overall pass rate of 44%.”

I passed with a high MBE score, way above the national mean (135.67) and the minimum passing score (133)… Makes me wonder how I did on my essays and MPTs… Honestly, with my MBE score I could have failed nearly every essay and done well on the MPTs and passed… I am realizing that my strategy of focusing on the MBE definitely worked… Just wish I could get a hold of my essays to see how I did, lol…

Congratulations to all who passed! This exam was particularly brutal, with only a 57% pass rate for D.C.

For everyone who did not pass, don’t be discouraged. You will pass in July. Just redouble your efforts, focus on your weak areas (evidence, property, whatever) and know that you are going into the exam with experience from having taken it in February which will help you. Study hard and study smart!

Finally, as a result of having not cracked open a law book for a decade, then self studying and passing with a high score, I am planning on offering bar exam tutoring services… I plan to focus on working with people, who like me, have been out of law school for quite some time and can’t take 2 months off work to study… In fact, I didn’t take a single day off work to study, only 2 days off to take the actual exam, and passed on my first attempt, my first ever bar exam…

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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam MBE Study Materials

Final thoughts on self-study materials for the DC Bar and MBE/MEE/MPT

Now that the Feb 2009 bar is behind us, I wanted to discuss the materials I used… I must be honest, 90-95% of my study was on the MBE. I put in less than 1 week of study on the MEE subjects (much less than 40 hours), and about 20 hours of study for the MPT. So the other 300-400 hours I spent studying were MBE focused… I did this because the MBE is 50% of the exam, and the MBE subjects are usually 2-3 of the 6 essay questions on the MEE. The MPT does not require more than 20-40 hours of study, so I decided to roll the dice and focus heavily on the MBE subjects and MBE test-taking strategies and tactics. I feel that the gamble paid off well, as I was quite comfortable with the MBE material, MBE essay topics on the MEE, and the 3 MEE questions that I did have that were non-MBE subjects, I felt that I did about the same as everyone else I talked to after the exam… So I don’t think I would have gained much by having spent more time studying on the MEE subjects, but I definitely think I would have done worse on the MBE had I studied less for it…

Anyway, on to my ratings of the materials:

Here is my analysis of all the materials on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest)

Continue reading “Final thoughts on self-study materials for the DC Bar and MBE/MEE/MPT”
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Bar Exam

February 2009 Bar Exam is Finished

Well, it’s over… The MBE was harder than expected… Morning section was particularly brutal, I saw a lot of dejected faces at the end of the morning session… There were some VERY tricky questions, one of them was such a fine line that I found myself asking myself “What point does such a fine line question serve other than a ritual-style hazing of bar examinees?”

I must say, the questions on the actual MBE were not very similar to any practice questions, not even the released ones… Maybe a small minority were similar, say, 15-20%, but the rest were pretty different, many topics that I had never seen and many others where the question required a deeper mastery of the material than I had…

Anyway, I hope everyone did well, I will do a post in a few days discussing all the various materials I used and how useful I found them for the actual exam, as well as which study strategies worked best for me…

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Bar Exam DC Bar Exam

Unpredictable MEE in DC

Wow, DC totally screwed people over today by giving MEE topics that are non consistent with what they have given in the past, and leaving out topics that have been consistently testing for years… I guess they want to make their ultra-low pass rate even lower… My heart goes out to all the poor folks I saw today retaking the exam… Seriously, it was a sad sight, people looked so dejected and defeated both before and especially after the exam, I felt bad for them… Lots of older folks too :(

MPTs were as expected though, so hopefully that helped everyone out! Good luck on the MBE tomorrow, knock it out…

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Bar Exam

Last weekend before the bar, MPT/MEE push…

Well, the time has come… Just a few days till the DC Bar Exam and I am definitely underprepared for the MEE section… I feel good about the MPTs though, having done 3 previous MPTs this week, I will do 1 more tomorrow but I’ve been doing very well on them so far… My hand gets tired after all the writing, and I wish there was more than 1.5 hours per question, but c’est la vie…

I’ve been reading plenty of previous MEE questions from about 2003/2004 to the present… I am woefully unprepared for the MEE-only subjects, but strong (as should be expected) on the MBE subjects… I plan to focus heavily on Trusts, Wills, Family Law, and Corporations this weekend by reading the BAR/BRI Conviser outlines for those 4 subjects, as well as the outlines in the Rigos/Emanuel MEE book… I plan to finish my day on Sunday doing all 9 actual MEE questions from February 2008…

Oh, and I will be reading Strategies and Tactics and doing a handful of PMBR MBE questions each night from now until the bar… I have not yet decided how I will be spending my Monday/Monday night, but I think I’ll be doing about a 50/50 split on MBE/MEE stuff… Tuesday night will obviously be 100% MBE study…

Believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to the bar exam, as I am curious what the current, actual MBE questions look like… The MEE/MPT I don’t really care about, but the MBE fascinates me and I can’t wait to see what fine-line questions they have prepared…

BTW, I took the newly posted MBE-OPE-1/2 exams from the NCBE and the questions are reflective of the NEW style of MBE questions, so I would highly recommend to anyone to pay the $52 and buy both exams and do the questions to familiarize yourself with the new style… I love the new simplified style of questions, they are much easier to read, more straightforward, and really hone in on knowledge of the law, instead of multiple-choice “tricks”…

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Bar Exam

Just over 1 week till the bar…

Well, with just over 1 week till the bar, I thought I’d post a few updates:

1) I received my admission ticket to the exam on Wednesday. It was mailed out Tuesday and arrived the next day via first class mail. Very straightforward, MPT/MEE the first day, MBE the 2nd day, no surprises…

2) I took about 2 weeks off studying as I had tons of work/travel to do, so I haven’t done much in the way of MEE/MPT studying… I read the barbri conviser outlines for the MEE subjects, and skimmed the Rigos/Emanuel MPT book, but that’s about it… I went back and did the 200 question PMBR practice test and did very well on it, with a passing raw score, which was my goal… So I’m feeling pretty good about the MBE, but I really want to score as many points there as possible to make up for bad MEE performance, so I’m going to continue to focus my efforts all the way through the exam on the MBE…

3) So, the plan is to do the feb and july 2008 MPTs and MEEs, and that’s about it for those 2 exams… I am hoping the trends for the usual subjects and rotations of subjects continues on the MEEs, but either way, with the addition of the MBE subjects on the MEE, I feel much more comfortable focusing on the MBE… As Feinberg says, “If after 4 years of undergrad, and 3 years of law school, you still haven’t figured out how to bs your way through a bluebook during an essay exam, then you don’t deserve to be a lawyer!” :-)