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Bar Exams And Law Schools Nationwide Test Your Application Of The Law
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Law Schools Nationwide And The California Bar & Baby Bar Exams Test Your Application Of The Law
In law school or about to take the California Bar or Baby Bar exam? There exists a misnomer among law students that if one reads all assigned cases in the syllabus and briefs those cases, she will achieve high grades and successfully pass her law school and bar examinations. While it is true that knowledge of the black letter law is important, what is most crucial is knowing how to apply the law to essay examinations.
Professors and California bar examiners are looking for three very specific things when grading examination answers. In order of importance, they are looking to see if the student spotted all the issues in the examination, is the analysis supported with facts from the examination and is the student organized so they finish the exam in the time allotted. This is the secret formula to doing well in law school and on the California Bar and Baby Bar Exams. That’s it in a nutshell. It’s better to know the rules of the game before beginning to play the game.
You Don’t Have To Know All The Law
The fear of not knowing enough law should not prevent students from taking practice examinations. Practice examinations will enable students to start applying the legal theories that have been studying. If an issue is missed in an examination, the student can go back, review the facts of the question, review the model outline and/or answer and determine at that point why the issue was missed. In fact since these are practice examinations, why not keep study materials open and available so if an area of law has not been mastered, it can then be reviewed on the spot.
The lesson here is even after spending several weeks studying an area of the law; if issues are missed in an examination, zero credit will be awarded even though the material had been well studied. The earlier this examination process is understood, the more efficient students will become in writing their answers.
There is an old joke that fits this premise. A tourist stopped an old man on the road in New York and asked the old man, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The old man replied, “Practice, Practice, Practice.” The practice of writing essay examinations is similar to that of learning how to ride a bicycle in that the required skills are not inherent but have to be learned. A child begins learning to ride on a big wheel or some low riding plastic bike that allows small feet to touch the ground. In time, a tricycle is introduced and soon after a two-wheel big bike with training wheels comes out of the garage. After many, many afternoons of patience and practice, the training wheels are removed only to allow the child the greatest feeling of freedom riding the two-wheel bicycle with confidence and style.
Law students will also falter the first few times practicing with essay examinations. Many issues will be missed, rules of law will be unknown and frustrations will run high. Consistency is the key. In the beginning, it is expected that performance will be below average if not poor. In time, students will begin to see the light when with each examination taken their test taking abilities improve. Soon thereafter, students will approach essay examinations with confidence and vitality.
Visit Bar Made Easy to learn how to improve your test taking abilities through one of our programs including personalized Essay Critiques, Tutoring, Law School Coaching, Bar or Baby Bar Review or essay materials.
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- February 2011 California Bar Examination Results Are in (barmadeeasy.com)
FEBRUARY 2011 CALIFORNIA BAR EXAMINATION RESULTS ARE IN
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STATE BAR ANNOUNCES RESULTS FOR
FEBRUARY 2011 CALIFORNIA BAR EXAMINATION
SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2011, 6:00 p.m. — The State Bar of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners reported today that 42.3 percent of the applicants passed the February 2011 General Bar Examination (GBX). If the 1,848 people who passed the February 2011 exam satisfy other requirements for admission, they will become members of the State Bar.
Preliminary statistical analyses show that of the 4,364 applicants who took the GBX, 32.4 percent were first-time takers. The passing rate for 1,415 first-time applicants was 55.0 percent overall. The passing rate for the 2,949 applicants repeating the examination was 36.0 percent overall.
Preliminary statistical analyses show the first-time and repeater percent passing the GBX (rounded to whole numbers) by law school type as follows:
| School Type | First-Timers | Repeaters |
| California ABA | 64% | 50% |
| Out-of-State ABA | 58% | 42% |
| California Accredited (but not ABA) | 27% | 19% |
| Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility | 9% | 9% |
| Unaccredited: Correspondence | 47% | 15% |
| Unaccredited Distance Learning | 23% | 14% |
The applicants not included in the above totals either were attorneys admitted in other states who either chose or were required to take the GBX, attorneys admitted in foreign jurisdictions, law students in the Law Office/Judge’s Chambers Study Program or law students who qualified to take the GBX through four years of law study. More detailed statistics, including passing rates by individual law schools, will be made available in approximately four to six weeks and published on the State Bar’s website at http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/.
The three-day General Bar Examination is given twice a year, in February and July. The exam consists of three sections: a multiple-choice Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), six essay questions and two performance tests that are designed to assess an applicant’s ability to apply general legal knowledge to practical tasks. The mean scaled MBE score in California was 1413 compared with the national average of 1386.
In addition, the Committee announced that 172 (42.9 percent) of the 401 lawyers who took the Attorneys’ Examination passed. Out of the total taking the Attorneys’ Examination, 20 were disciplined lawyers who took the examination as a condition of reinstatement; four disciplined lawyers passed.
The Attorneys’ Examination, which consists of the essay and performance test sections of the GBX, is open to lawyers who have been admitted to the active practice of law in good standing for at least four years in another United States jurisdiction.
Successful applicants who have satisfied other requirements for admission — those who have not been reported by local district attorneys for being in arrears with family or child support payments, who have received a positive moral character determination and who have passed the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination — may either take the Attorney’s Oath individually or participate in admissions ceremonies held throughout the state during June 2011.
· February 2011 Bar Exam Results
· California Bar Exam Information & History
· California Bar Exam Pass Rate Summaries
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7 Tips to Help Law Students Avoid Essay Exam Pitfalls…
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by Irene Basdakis, Esq.
BarMadeEasy.com
1. Although interesting, reading and briefing cases is not the best use of your time in law school. (It’s also extremely time consuming).
2. If preparing study outlines for your law classes, try not to perfect them. If you cannot apply the law in your outlines to exams, your “perfect outlines” will become useless. An alternative would be to purchase commercially prepared outlines that will help you to identify more issues easily on an exam, provide you with mnemonics for law retention, examination organization and rules of law.
3. Obtain your professor’s previously tested law examinations directly from your professors, from the reserve desk at your library or online if the student section of your school’s website. Know what and how your professor tests prior to taking any examinations.
4. Ask your professor if he/she is willing to accept practice examinations from you. What better way to improve your test taking skills by receiving feedback directly from your professor. You can also write assigned essays and submit them on line for an actual law professor’s critique. Constructive feedback will be made in red on your exam answer and emailed back to you. Comments may include whether you identified enough issues and how to see more issues from the facts, evaluation how you wrote your analysis and other suggestions to help you improve. It is your commitment to writing essay exams and learning from your professor’s and/or on line critiques that will help to develop into a very good test taker .
5. You should review at least ten (10) essays per subject prior to your finals. Exposure to these exams will increase your issue spotting abilities and your test taking skills. Review previously tested California Bar and Baby Bar Exams (First Year Law Student’s Examination questions and answers). The exams are listed by the date they were administered. Scroll down and click on a date under the Essay Question and Selected Answers section. There you will find all the essays that were tested on that particular exam along with selected answers. Please note the Bar’s published answers are not professionally written but were written by students during the actual examination itself. http://www.barmadeeasy.com/2011/04/19/ca-bar-publishes-bar-candidate-answers-only-not-model-answers. These previously tested costs are great to practice your issue spotting technique.
6. Obtain and review professionally written model answers to learn how to write and structure your exam answers. Copying is the best compliment so study these answers and incorporate their approach into your answers.
7. Remember, it is not how much law you know but the application of the law to fact patterns that will ensure your success. So, Practice! Practice! Practice!
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Law School For The 40+ Crowd
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Where once only a minority of law students were over the age of 40, it has become a growing trend in most law schools across the nation, the average age of an incoming law student is between 26-29 years of age. (www.top-law-schools.com) Many people over the age of 40 are enrolling in law school for numerous reasons: obtaining an advanced degree, a second or third career move, or for pure enjoyment of learning. These mature students are attending law school in record numbers but, sometimes, there is a downside.
The older student faces many or even more obstacles than a younger counterpart. Many of these older students have to face getting back into the routine of studying and turning in assignments; also, these older students have other responsibilities besides making good grades in law school. Most older students have a family of their own and, also, a job during the day or night. Some older students have even remarked that they feel ostercized by their own classmates. The younger student may feel that the older student shouldn’t be there because they already have a career or they don’t need the income. Many older students remarked that even law professors do not take them seriously or feel they are not up to the rigors of law school. Let’s face it, as we get older, it gets harder and harder to retain information. However, statistics prove out that the older student is much more focused and motivated than their younger classmates. And an older student’s choice to take a postgraduate course or degree program is a more mindful choice as an adult person.
Even with these hurdles to overcome, most mature age law students agree that it was well worth the effort to achieve a law degree.
CA Bar Publishes Bar Candidate Answers Only Not Model Answers
The State Bar of California publishes Bar and First Year Law School Exam (Baby Bar) essays and answers soon after the administration of the actual examinations. They can be found by visiting http://www.calbar.ca.gov. Click on Bar Exam in the left hand column and then click on Past Exams in the left hand column.
There you will find essay questions and selected responses for both the California Bar and Baby Bar Examination. They are listed according to the dates of the exams. Both the Bar and the Baby Bar Examinations are administered twice each year – the Bar being given in February and July and the Baby Bar given in June and October. Place your mouse over the exam date you are interested in and there you will find the exams from that date.
This is a wonderful tool for law students and bar and baby bar candidates. What better way to prepare for these difficult state exams then by practicing with prior tested essay exams. However, be aware that the two published responses are not model answers but responses written by actual bar and baby bar candidates. In fact, the State Bar of California states “the answers received good grades and were written by applicants who passed the examination. The answers were typed as submitted, except that minor corrections in spelling and punctuation were made for ease in reading.”
What this statement means is these responses received passing scores but are not model answers. Mistakes have not been edited out of the responses including incorrect law, weak analysis, and non-issues; yet, enough issues that were being tested from the facts were in the responses. Hence, they received good grades.
In my own sixteen (16) years of being a law professor and tutoring students, I have read many State Bar published responses that contained many errors. The problem here is that law students study these responses in an attempt to emulate them in their own writings. Most students do not realize that these are not model answers and that they may contain incorrect information and analysis.
My recommendation is to use these responses for their issue spotting qualities. Compare your answers to the published responses to see if you identified the same issues that the answers had. However, I recommend you obtain professionally written model answers to study from; this way you can study the model answer and trust that it is correct. You will know that they contain all of the issues being tested and include good analysis which gives you the comfort that you can learn from those responses and incorporate what you learned into your own responses.
As a side note, students studying Contracts, Criminal Law and Torts should review both the Baby Bar and Bar essays for practice. Also, the Bar occasionally will test the same issues or even the same fact pattern on a future bar exam. What a nice surprise is it to be at the Bar Exam and look at an essay that you have seen before? I know this is true; it happened to me. I was presented with a Civil Procedure essay that I had seen in my practice. Now the names, dates and dollar amounts had been changed but the same issues were raised in fact pattern. It was a moment of joy, during the Bar Exam, which I will never forget.
