Good Idea?

Can I say that I love the Professor Honigsberg? He actually reassured us a bit (before we . . . okay, maybe it was just me . . . got hammered on the simulated/practice MBE) by making it seem pretty easy to pass the bar. Of course, I'm going to feel like shit if I fail after hearing about the girl who had her appendix out the week before the bar and passed, or the girl who slipped in the shower and hit her head and showed up with a concussion . . . and passed. But he makes it seem doable.

He made a lot of suggestions, often by mocking what a lot of students seem to think are good ideas with regard to studying. After talking about a student who decides to only outline essay questions (rather than actually simulating them), he asks "Good ideaaaaa? Good idea to just outline the essay? NO!" Maybe it's one of those things where you have to be there, but it was amusing.

Anyway, here's my recap (mostly from day 1) of the two days of Performance Test workshops that we had:

1. If you don't know the rule, make it up. (Yes, he is the third bar/bri professor to give this advice.) Alternative, ust work with the facts.
2. Erwin Chemerinsky has an amazing memory that none of us have (something I'm sure we all figured out after the Con Law lecture)
3. Bar/bri has no competition. Everyone takes bar/bri. "And anyone who doesn't take bar/bri just goes through the botique bar prep courses . . . and then they take bar/bri the next time around."
4. Everyone passes. (Even though he then launched into explanations for why a ton of people he knows didn't pass. So by everyone he means, it's possible for anyone to pass?)
5. Don't skip the essays on the paced program. He makes it sound like practicing and simulating the essays is the most important thing on the schedule. Judging from my essay performance thus far, I'm inclined to agree.
6. As far as the bar grader goes, as ageneral rule: the longer the answer is, the angrier the bar grader gets.
7. Be a sheep. Blend in with the crowd. If you give a "goat" answer and try to show off your creativity, the bar grader will wake up from his monotonous skimming of your essay answer and try to figure out why your answer seems so different. Good idea? Apparently not. Blend in!
8. Big lunch = big nap. Be careful what you eat during the hour lunch break or you risk going into a food coma.
9. Sleeping pills are not the best idea. He told us about a woman who vowed to go to bed early the night before the bar exam. She took half a sleeping pill at 10 p.m. (her usual dosage). By midnight, she was still awake and so took the other half. At 1, she was still up so she took another sleeping pill -- a full one this time. And at 3, guess what? Yup, still awake so she took yet another. This woman took six times her usual sleeping pill dosage. I'm sure you can imagine how she felt in the morning. (I think this was another one of his "she passed" stories, but I'm not 100% sure)
10. As an example that you must write something on the essay, Professor Honigsberg discussed a friend of his who grades bar essays. It was a property question that began, "I'm depressed." Then the essay continued with the following: "My boyrfriend got drafted to the NFL and now he's leaving me. And the worst part is he wants his ring back. I'm really depressed." Result? This essay got a 45. Reasoning? She talked about a ring and it was a property based essay.
11. Effectively, there are 10 grades on the written portion of the exam. Each essay is worth 100 points and there are 6 of them. Each performance test is 100 points which is doubled to get the individual performance test score and there are 2 separate performance test. Hence you have 600 points for the essays and 400 points for the performance test. Professor Honigsberg said, "You know how everyone says they passed the bar? WRONG! They all failed. Every single one of them. But the standard on the bar exam is failing. Watch." He then proceeded to write down ten grades. 65, 65, 65, 65, 65, 65, 60, 60, 60, 60. 65 for each essay and 60 for the performance test. For each of the 65s Honigsberg pointed to the number and said "FAIL!" then for the 60s, he shouted out, "MAJOR FAIL." Then after adding up all the scores, he ended up with 630 total points. Apparently the score you needed last year to pass the written portion was 627. "See?" he told us, "A failing score is the standard. You just need to shoot for FAIL."
12. And finally, he gave us two actual pieces of advice for the performance test. First, if there's a footnote in a case in the "library" read it; it's important. It's how the bar examiners manage to stick in an extra case into the materials.
13. The other piece of advice: if you're told to write a closing argument or opening statement, do not give stage directions. Apparently, one woman once wrote on her performance test "Walk ten feet then say this . . . "

Numbers 1 through 11 above took up the first fifty five minutes of class on Monday. That's right, in a three hour and fifteen minute class, he spent fifty five minutes talking without any substantive mention of the performance test.

By the way, bar/bri still sucks. Big time. Although they promise to return our graded essays within 10 business days, mine's been missing for 13 business days. The advice I got? "Read the sample answer on your own. We have a 'rogue grader' out there so not all the con law essays have come back." Thaaaaaaaaanks. Because when I pay $3500 for a bar review class and I'm a neurotic law student, it's not like I expect bar/bri to actually do its job and give me feedback that will help me pass the bar. Full post to come when I feel like I have enough energy to vent . . .

Day 2 of Property

Professor Franzese's songs of the day:

• Dido's "Thank You" ("The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all. And even if I could it'd all be grey, but your picture on my wall")--I think it had something to do with habitability but I'm really not sure
• No clue who it's by but, "I'm sorry Miss Jackson, I am for real"
• "It Takes Two"

Considerably less today, but then the video we got today was simply the after lunch portion of a full day lecture she gave in L.A. (Apparently a lot of L.A. live classes run for the full day instead of the 3 or 4 hour video lectures we get in the mornings).

Property sucks. And so does bar/bri.

Property Lecture

Day 1 of Property
Professor Franzese, the Property Lecturer likes to sing and tell stories using voices. It can be entertaining (at least I didn't fall asleep today) but a little annoying. If her songs or stories were more directly related to the material, I would be all for them. I love mnemonic devices, even ones that don't make sense (i.e., Armadillos From Texas Play Rap, Eating Tacos) as long as there is enough connection to the material or enough repetition to make it stick in my mind.

Today, I don't think any of the songs will stick in my head -- or, at least, the reason Professor Franzese insisted on singing them will not help me remember anything about property. I think I'll remember her singing Destiny's Child for awhile, but won't remember whatever it was that had to do with property law and survivorship rights (presumably the reason she keeps singing).

Today's Songs/References:

• Ja Rule's "New York, New York" (She sang the first two lines which begin, "I got a hundred guns, a hundred clips, I'm from New York (New York). I got a semi-automatic that spits next time if you talk. I got a hundred guns, a hundred clips. I'm from New York (New York)")
• Mick Jagger's "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
• Tom Hank's character as Forrest Gump (she likened him to a remainderman . . . so I guess that one I've actually remembered)
• N*Sync's "No Strings Attached" (btw, she knew the names of all five former N*Sync members)
• Destiny's Child's "Survivor" (she not only knew the name of the two members of the group other than Beyonce, but sang it twice; the second time she made the group she was lecturing at [Los Angeles] respond with "word" after every line)
• Dr. Evil (complete with voice)
• MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This"

While I believe that was it for today (in our three hour lecture), I'll post additions for the next two days (I'm sure she'll continue the singing tomorrow). Also, in a post which is soon coming, Why Bar/Bri Sucks . . .

Three days of property...and more to come

"Real Property" is slotted for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. My least favorite subject. My lowest grade in law school. One of the few classes I dreaded going to my 1L year. And there are three glorious days ahead.

Despite the fact that this is actually a subject I took, it definitely makes me more nervous than, say, Criminal Procedure or Con Law II. I know I'm in the same boat as most people, though, since pretty much everyone says Property is the subject they're most worried about.

To make things even better, though, not only do we have three days of Real Property, but in the upcoming weeks we also have a day of Wills, a day of Trusts, and a day of California Community Property.

I hope I pass the bar so I never have to think about Property Law ever again...

Professor Sakai's Essay Workshop #2

I've decided that the essay workshops are completely useless. You go in, sit down, outline essays and go over the answers. The answers are published directly behind the problem. How is this any different than the big essay practice book we have? The outlining and simulating of essays that are the assignments listed on our paced programs every couple days? I can go over them myself, thanks.

Apparently other people in my class agree with the value (or lack thereof) of these essay workshops. The couple in front of me were actively engaged in a soccer game playing on ESPN 360. Then, they left during the second break. More than a handful of people left during the first break.

The fact that it was a Saturday morning class (and day 6 in row of class) made it even more worthwhile. :P I know, I know, we get Monday off. But what I can't understand is why we need to have a Saturday class? It's run through video lecture anyway...why not just play the video on Monday and give us our weekend back?

The Value of the LSAT

I've always been very anti-standardized testing. Despite the fact that I did well enough on the SAT and LSAT to get into most of my top choice colleges and law schools, I never saw the value in standardized tests. It seemed to be a measure of how well one could memorize vocabulary words or learn stupid tips and tricks taught by Kaplan or the Princeton Review.

The LSAT in particular bothered me coming into law school. I felt that law schools placed too great an emphasis on this 3 hour exam, often rejecting highly qualified students who don't test well. Why do law schools place such a heavy emphasis on the LSAT? Although the party line seems to be the claim that the LSAT is an excellent predictor of law school success (most anecdotal evidence that I have shows that your LSAT score in no way predicts how you will rank within your entering law school class), some say it is all a part of the law school rankings game. GPAs and LSAT scores apparently account for a large percentage of a school's score used to rank law schools in U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings of graduate programs. I have another theory.

Unless you go to school in Washington state, you're probably going to have to take the Multi-State Bar Exam (also known as the MBE) as part of your bar exam. It appears that a good 25% of prepping for the MBE is doing exactly what I believe the SAT and LSAT tests on: ability to memorize stupid tricks. During bar/bri's video lectures, the professor always pauses, breaking from his outline and hypotheticals to announce yet another thing to watch out for on the MBE. "If you see specific performance as an answer, it's probably the wrong answer" or "Watch for terms like . . . "

So there you have it. The value of the LSAT is (quite possibly) a predictor of your ability to play the MBE by memorizing the five hundred tips and tricks that bar/bri will no doubt continue to throw at students prepping for the bar exam.

Advice from bar/bri professors

What I learned from Professor Sakai today about the bar exam essays:

1. If you don't know the rule, make it up. Seriously. Basically, he suggests that if we look at an exam question and have absolutely no idea what it's talking about or can't, for example, remember the elements necessary to prove defamation, to simply make up a rule and apply it to the given facts. You will get some points for the application of your made-up rule to the facts given. His caveat: you don't want to be doing this all the time.
2. As part of the above rule, he noted that it is very easy to make up a rule by simply throwing in a bunch of key terms relating to the subject. Example, in any negligence action, just thrown words like "reasonable prudent person" and "foreseeable" into a rule.
3. If you don't feel comfortable making up the law, just discuss the facts. Talk about who the plaintiff is and why he's suing the defendant. Apparently, you will get at least some points just for just discussing the facts. And, chances are, as you're discussing the facts you'll start remembering the causes of action and (hopefully) the elements necessary to prove those causes of action.
4. Do not refer to nmemonic devices as proper rules. Example, when saying that character evidence may be admissible to prove Motive, Intent, Mistake, Identity, or Common plan or scheme, do not write on the essay "Admissible under MIMIC rule" as the phrase "MIMIC rule" has no actual legal significance but, rather, is a merely a nmemonic device used to help remember when character evidence is admissible.
5. Bar exam graders spend about 2 minutes grading each essay; each essay should be approximately 5 to 6 pages long. Apparently, a former student of Professor Sakai who is now a bar grader said that he spends about 20 minutes grading 10 essays. How on earth graders manage to read 5 to 6 pages of a bar exam essay in just 2 minutes is beyond me. Do they just scan and look for key terms?
6. Do not copy and paste an analysis in subsection (a) of the problem if applicable in subsection (b) of the problem. Simply say "see above." Bar graders get it and you don't want to piss them off with an answer exceeding the suggested 5 to 6 pages.
7. If you're already behind in the bar/bri's "paced program" do NOT try to catch up. Stay current in the assignments or you may always be behind. Try to reserve some time toward the end of the summer to go back and catch up on things, but don't try to "chase" the schedule to catch up. So, if you haven't done the torts or evidence assignments, blow them off for the time being. Personally, I agree with the whole stay current thing, but I definitely think you should work on catching up throughout rather than waiting until the end of summer. Evidence and Torts seem too important to simply blow off and hope that there's enough time to learn it later.

What I learned from yesterday's torts lecture:

1. If you don't know the law, make it up on the essay. See above.
2. Now is not the time to break up with your significant other. Because bar review lectures are the perfect place for dating advice...Apparently, another professor starts the first day of bar/bri by announcing, "If you're in a bad relationship break up today or plan on staying in the relationship for the next couple months."