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 . . .