The Wringer

plenty of resources to fuel your bar exam prep experience.

[cynthia foster]

Welcome to The Shark's bar exam page: The Wringer! Here you'll find everything bar exam, starting with a great resource from Cal Law: Bar Q&A. The feature has six questions, culled from the February 2009 California bar exam, along with sample answers written by expert bar exam prep instructors. All questions and answers are available free without registration.

Additionally, check out the first installment of our advice column, featuring Vivian Dempsey of The Writing Edge. In this column, Vivian addresses issues as varied as how to keep stress in check while studying, and whether or not to to take PMBR.

We're opening up our inbox to more questions (either about the test prep process or about specific subject matter!) for Vivian and other test prep instructors, so please email us if you'd like to anonymously pick the brains of an expert.

Until then, please entertain yourself here and on Cal Law.

Q&A with vivian dempsey of writing edge/barboost.

1. How many hours a day should I study?

There is no one answer to that question, since applicants vary so widely in their backgrounds and education. Looking at your own school’s success rate on the bar and on your class standing can give you some guidance. But there is no doubt that California’s bar pass rate is consistently low, so it’s fair to say half the applicants underestimated how much (or how) to study for. I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone who passed the exam regret that they studied hard. That being said, if you are taking time off to study for the bar, then studying for the bar ought to be your primary focus for that period of time. Treat it like a job—like a really hard, new job you have to put in time to master. Study 8-10 hours a day.

2. Do I need to take PMBR and Barbri? (i.e., Should I take a separate course for the MBE?)

Since I teach a bar review course myself, I do not feel comfortable commenting on a specific course. The MBE is worth only 35% of your bar score, and most people spend almost all their time studying for that one part of the exam. They don’t realize it, but the law their survey course teaches them is useful for the MBE but is not detailed enough for reasoning on essays. I believe there is a lot of duplication between most bar review courses and multistate prep courses, because they both focus on broad, superficial legal concepts. But taking two courses that help you most with the MBEs will take up all your time time, and only prepares you for 35% of the exam.  I think people tend to over-prepare for the MBE and do not prepare enough for the other 65% of the exam, essays and PT’s. Applicants have to be good consumers and make wise choices about how they spend their study time.

3. Should I stay in the hotel while I'm taking the bar or should I stay in my apartment?

It depends on how far you live from the exam site, I recommend staying at home if it is feasible.

4. What should I be doing in the time between the bar classes ending and the test?

I think that is an excellent question for a student shopping for a bar course to ask of the courses she is considering. What plan does the course have for you? In my course, the classes go right up to the weekend before the exam and the last two weeks are review of the most important legal issues. So my answer is that the last leg of studying should be review and synthesis of the major legal issues so you feel confident walking into the exam.

5. How much time is it okay to take off during bar study? (E.g., is it okay to do nothing for the bar one day a week?)

I recommend short, frequent breaks instead of a whole day off. I honestly don’t think ‘burn out’ is a risk in two months.

6. Should I study by myself or in groups?

This is another question where individual learning styles could differ. Did you study in groups in college or law school? Did you find it was effective for you? I think studying alone is more productive. There is a lot of wasted time in groups.

7. How badly am I disadvantaged if I didn't take law school classes for some of the subjects covered on the exam?

I don’t think you are disadvantaged at all. Law school law is not the same as what the bar tests. The California Bar exam tests a handful of core issues repeatedly. Coming at a subject with a clean slate and learning just what the course says is important is more often an advantage than a disadvantage.

8. Is there anything specific you recommend to relieve stress during the bar? Weekly massages? Acupuncture?

Daily aerobic exercise. Nothing like it to relieve stress and sharpen your brain function.

9. Is there anything I can do to prepare now, before the bar review classes start?

The eight weeks between graduation and the bar exam will fly by, almost as if you were having fun! If you cut into that by another week for graduation festivities, you are really short changing yourself for the July bar. Now is no time to worry about looking like a nerd. You can begin examining bar essay exams and writing answer to them; you can get MBE materials and start taking questions. In both cases, you can keep track of the law you missed and learn from your mistakes. You’ll never regret beginning early! I wish each one of you the best of luck. 

Vivian Dempsey teaches The Writing Edge for repeaters and attorneys, and BarBoost for first time takers. www.writingedge.com; 800 949 7277.

bitter lawyer corners sleep-deprived exam victims. guess what ensues.

[cynthia foster]

Despite the Grade A meltdown of Biglaw, some brave law students trekked to a convention center near them last month and took the California Bar Exam: Version February. Bitter Lawyer sent a video camera and a "host" to the Ontario exam site, and interviewed exam-takers on their way out. The video made me laugh twice, which is huge, since it's Monday. 

bar prep loans may be lacking, but fear not for your ramen and rent: there's a plan b

[pam smith]

In a Cal Law story we just posted (free reg. req.), we've got one school noticing more loan rejections than usual this bar prep season, and many more wondering if they'll see the same, given the shrinking pool of lenders and the credit environment in general.

But fear not -- they have a plan. Many are banding together to try to persuade the federal government to give loans out for more bar prep costs (like, say, those pricey exam-prep courses) than it will typically cover. So long as the federal government moves swiftly, all should be just ... oh, um ... hmm.

uc davis suffers possibly embarrassing(?) drop in bar exam passage rates.

[cynthia foster]

TaxProf has a nice chart up breaking down the July 2008 California Bar Exam passage rates by school.  You can see his full chart here. 

Probably the biggest shocker here is that UC Davis dropped considerably in the statewide rankings. 

In July 2007, Davis came in at a very respectable #5 with a passage rate of 84% (.pdf).  In 2008, however, they slipped to #14 with a passage rate of 80%.  While the discrepancy between the two rates doesn't seem to be that much (4%), it is worth noting that most schools experienced an increase in their passage rates, because overall the passage rates for the 2008 exam were the highest in 11 years.  California Western, a school in the middle of an effort to improve its exam stats, jumped from #13 to #8.

Better luck next year, King Hall?

Brian, an, ahem, King Hall student, weighs in on the overall California results below:

[brian lauter]

Last November we reported on California’s brutal 2008 bar passage rate.  Now, just when you had finally weaned yourself off of the Prozac and come out of hiding, the California Bar has released the July 2008 bar passage rates by school.  You can check out the official document here.

Don’t feel like doing all of that clicking?  Here are the highlights: 

·        Stanford (97%) gave the rest of the California schools a giant beat down with a passage rate 7% higher than the second place school.

·        USC, UCLA and Berkeley all hover at around 90%. 

·        Surprise!  Pepperdine, USF and Loyola are close behind. 

·        Davis and Hastings come in below the state average of 83.2% and get embarrassed by schools populated by students they rejected:  Cal-Western, Whittier, Santa Clara and McGeorge.

·        Western State, which you’ve probably never heard of because its not rated by U.S. News, beats Southwestern which you might have because it is. 

·        La Verne College of Law is a colossal rip-off – if you go there drop out immediately and demand a full refund.

What effect will this have on next year’s U.S. News Rankings?  Probably none, because everybody knows academic prestige is much more important than students being able to actually practice law after they graduate from law school.

What effect will this have on next year’s 1Ls?  Here’s hoping a few of them decide to weight bar passage rate a little more than U.S. News does.

TaxProf has a nice chart up breaking down the July 2008 California Bar Exam passage rates by school.  You can see his full chart here. 

Probably the biggest shocker here is that UC Davis dropped considerably in the statewide rankings. 

In July 2007, Davis came in at a very respectable #5 with a passage rate of 84% (.pdf).  In 2008, however, they slipped to #14 with a passage rate of 80%.  While the discrepancy between the two rates doesn't seem to be that much (4%), it is worth noting that most schools experienced an increase in their passage rates, because overall the passage rates for the 2008 exam were the highest in 11 years.  California Western, a school in the middle of an effort to improve its exam stats, jumped from #13 to #8.

Better luck next year, King Hall?

Brian, an, ahem, King Hall student, weighs in on the overall California results below:

[brian lauter]

Last November we reported on California’s brutal 2008 bar passage rate.  Now, just when you had finally weaned yourself off of the Prozac and come out of hiding, the California Bar has released the July 2008 bar passage rates by school.  You can check out the official document here.

Don’t feel like doing all of that clicking?  Here are the highlights: 

·        Stanford (97%) gave the rest of the California schools a giant beat down with a passage rate 7% higher than the second place school.

·        USC, UCLA and Berkeley all hover at around 90%. 

·        Surprise!  Pepperdine, USF and Loyola are close behind. 

·        Davis and Hastings come in below the state average of 83.2% and get embarrassed by schools populated by students they rejected:  Cal-Western, Whittier, Santa Clara and McGeorge.

·        Western State, which you’ve probably never heard of because its not rated by U.S. News, beats Southwestern which you might have because it is. 

·        La Verne College of Law is a colossal rip-off – if you go there drop out immediately and demand a full refund.

What effect will this have on next year’s U.S. News Rankings?  Probably none, because everybody knows academic prestige is much more important than students being able to actually practice law after they graduate from law school.

What effect will this have on next year’s 1Ls?  Here’s hoping a few of them decide to weight bar passage rate a little more than U.S. News does.

we'd all like to think we're smarter, but maybe the california bar exam is just harder.

[brian lauter]

As you may have heard, the California bar results were released last Friday.  Congratulations to those who passed, and better luck next time to those that didn’t.

In the wake of the results, a couple of interesting stories have emerged.  First, remember when an earthquake mildly disturbed bar exam takers in Southern California?  The California State Bar did when it got around to scoring the July exam, and it awarded southern California test takers as many as 5 extra points based on which test center they were at during the earthquake.

Apparently, the Bar created some kind of fancy matrix to figure out how to award the extra points it felt earthquake-terrorized test takers deserved, and, since lawyers suck at math, the matrix produced some pretty ridiculous results.  The absurdity is covered in detail by ATL and Lowering the Bar, so I won’t bore you with it here.

Mentioned in the ATL item, but not really discussed, is another intriguing storyline.  As The Shark reported late Friday, the overall passage rate for California’s July exam was 61.7%, the highest passage rate in California since 1997. 

As ATL notes, the passage rate in California typically hovers (.pdf) in the 40s and 50s.  By contrast, the passage rate (.pdf) for New York’s July exam was 74.7%, the highest passage rate in New York since...2007.  Further, by my count, in 2007 (.pdf) only the District of Columbia (56%) and the Virgin Islands (52%) had bar passage rates equal to or lower than California’s (56%).

Why are California’s passage rates so much lower than New York’s?  Some argue that New Yorkers are just smarter than Californians.  I seriously doubt this is true.  It seems more likely that the California test is just harder.  But, this may not be entirely accurate either.

A couple of weeks ago, Dean Barbieri, Director of Examinations for the State Bar of California, came to King Hall to discuss how the bar exam is graded and how students should prepare for it.  During this discussion Mr. Barbieri discussed several factors which lead to California’s historically low passage rate.

First, California allows graduates of non-accredited law schools to take its bar exam.  This year, for instance, the pass rate for first time test takers from non-accredited law schools was 33%, compared with 83% for first time test takers from accredited law schools.  Mr. Barbieri also noted that California has one of the highest passage requirements for the MBE section in the nation, that it allows certain apprenticeships in lieu of legal study, and that it allows law students from foreign jurisdictions to take its exam.  Finally, as evidenced by the guy in this video who has taken the California bar exam 41 times, California allows people to take its bar exam as many times as they would like.  Repeat test-takers have significantly lower passage rates.

So, don’t be discouraged by California’s low bar passage rate. When you start breaking down the statistics, the passage rate that matters to most people – the rate for first time-takers from accredited law schools – is 83% in California.  Still not as high as New York (91%), but those three years of California living should more than make up for the gap.

UPDATE:  Attempting to paraphrase Mr. Barbieri above, I wrote "California has one of the highest passage requirements for the MBE section in the nation."  After a commenter pointed out that my paraphrasing of Mr. Barbieri might be inaccurate, I phoned Mr. Barbieri.  As it turns out, the commenter was correct.  According to Mr. Barbieri, California has the second highest minimum passing score when the nation's bar exams are evaluated on the same scale (Delaware has the highest).  The MBE score is tied to this score, but my original understanding of Mr. Barbieri's statement was wrong and I regret my error.

[brian lauter]

As you may have heard, the California bar results were released last Friday.  Congratulations to those who passed, and better luck next time to those that didn’t.

In the wake of the results, a couple of interesting stories have emerged.  First, remember when an earthquake mildly disturbed bar exam takers in Southern California?  The California State Bar did when it got around to scoring the July exam, and it awarded southern California test takers as many as 5 extra points based on which test center they were at during the earthquake.

Apparently, the Bar created some kind of fancy matrix to figure out how to award the extra points it felt earthquake-terrorized test takers deserved, and, since lawyers suck at math, the matrix produced some pretty ridiculous results.  The absurdity is covered in detail by ATL and Lowering the Bar, so I won’t bore you with it here.

Mentioned in the ATL item, but not really discussed, is another intriguing storyline.  As The Shark reported late Friday, the overall passage rate for California’s July exam was 61.7%, the highest passage rate in California since 1997. 

As ATL notes, the passage rate in California typically hovers (.pdf) in the 40s and 50s.  By contrast, the passage rate (.pdf) for New York’s July exam was 74.7%, the highest passage rate in New York since...2007.  Further, by my count, in 2007 (.pdf) only the District of Columbia (56%) and the Virgin Islands (52%) had bar passage rates equal to or lower than California’s (56%).

Why are California’s passage rates so much lower than New York’s?  Some argue that New Yorkers are just smarter than Californians.  I seriously doubt this is true.  It seems more likely that the California test is just harder.  But, this may not be entirely accurate either.

A couple of weeks ago, Dean Barbieri, Director of Examinations for the State Bar of California, came to King Hall to discuss how the bar exam is graded and how students should prepare for it.  During this discussion Mr. Barbieri discussed several factors which lead to California’s historically low passage rate.

First, California allows graduates of non-accredited law schools to take its bar exam.  This year, for instance, the pass rate for first time test takers from non-accredited law schools was 33%, compared with 83% for first time test takers from accredited law schools.  Mr. Barbieri also noted that California has one of the highest passage requirements for the MBE section in the nation, that it allows certain apprenticeships in lieu of legal study, and that it allows law students from foreign jurisdictions to take its exam.  Finally, as evidenced by the guy in this video who has taken the California bar exam 41 times, California allows people to take its bar exam as many times as they would like.  Repeat test-takers have significantly lower passage rates.

So, don’t be discouraged by California’s low bar passage rate. When you start breaking down the statistics, the passage rate that matters to most people – the rate for first time-takers from accredited law schools – is 83% in California.  Still not as high as New York (91%), but those three years of California living should more than make up for the gap.

UPDATE:  Attempting to paraphrase Mr. Barbieri above, I wrote "California has one of the highest passage requirements for the MBE section in the nation."  After a commenter pointed out that my paraphrasing of Mr. Barbieri might be inaccurate, I phoned Mr. Barbieri.  As it turns out, the commenter was correct.  According to Mr. Barbieri, California has the second highest minimum passing score when the nation's bar exams are evaluated on the same scale (Delaware has the highest).  The MBE score is tied to this score, but my original understanding of Mr. Barbieri's statement was wrong and I regret my error.