brucewaynegretzky
Member
HELL YEAH!!!! FISTBUMP!!!
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Law School & Lawyer GAF
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HELL YEAH!!!! FISTBUMP!!!
Congrats!
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
That really is a weird way to phrase "you passed."
Pollux
Member
Congrats buddy
ZackieChan
Member
Congrats! Those weird BarBri lectures did the trick!
Frank the Great
Banned
i got straight As for the first time in law school, in my very last semester. okay, so two of them were A-s, but they still count. my gpa actually went up, did not see that coming. not that it will help me get a job or anything.
graduation is tomorrow, then bar study on monday. gonna be a fun summer.
congrats mang, it does feel damn good.
graduation is tomorrow, then bar study on monday. gonna be a fun summer.
just wrote my last exam, feels good
congrats mang, it does feel damn good.
Frank the Great
Banned
starting bar review today, NY and NJ. i'm using themis because i'm a cheapskate, let's see how this goes.
my goal is to not get over-anxious.
my goal is to not get over-anxious.
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Don't study for NJ. You'll pass both.
I did the exact same thing, works fine.
All you need for NJ is to study the few civil procedure quirks. The rest is common law that you'll learn during the MBE portion.
Ape Gone Insane
Member
Do you guys get exit interviews for summer associateships?
Byakuya769
Member
Hopefully you have some vacation time or something? But most prospective employers do phone screen first, then bring you in. For the second one I've never heard of anything like weekend interviews. I guess how you handle depends on your context.
SouSouRocket
Member
Is there a point in bar study where you stop feeling like an idiot who's going to fail or is that kind of how the whole summer goes? ;_;
EDIT: WOOO, FULL MEMBER!
EDIT: WOOO, FULL MEMBER!
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
About two weeks out, I started taking days off and wouldn't study as hard previously. I wouldn't ever say I was sure I'd pass, though.
Frank the Great
Banned
i felt like that at the beginning, but now i'm not really stressing much. themis does a good job of constantly trying to calm you down. i'm spending ~8 hours a day studying, and i'm confident that as long as i stay disciplined and do everything in the course, i should be fine.
remember, the objective isn't to get an A, it's just to pass. for example, i dunno where you're testing but the target to pass in NJ is only 120 of the 200 MBE questions. they also said i could completely bomb two out of seven essays and still pass. i mean, shit, if we got through three years of law school we can do that.
SouSouRocket
Member
I'm testing in Ohio, so there's not really any metrics like that, I don't think.
They tell us a good essay can save a bad MBE but not the other way around, and the essays are most of the exam. It's like 50%.brucewaynegretzky
Member
Just got the results back from my first ever brief to the state supreme court: affirmed without an opinion.
Nice! I'm always amazed how that happens. They're convinced everyone else was so wrong it is even worth commenting on? Then how did it reach that point!?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I didn't really feel confident of passing until the third day of the Bar itself. Pre-bar I just had no clue thanks to BarBri blowing smoke up your ass the entire time about how prepared you are. Really, they just act like you're failing the whole time, which pissed me off to no end.
I felt like the second and first days of the Bar went like shit, but I was pretty confident that I kick-fucked the third day and it just made me feel better about how I did on the first two days.
Well, in our case, we pointed out numerous times where they had screwed up in interpreting a particular exemption to a federal law. In fact, 35 pages of or 50 page brief was arguing how their interpretation was incorrect.
I'm assuming they didn't want to backtrack on their previous opinions but realized we were right.
That can also be a curse. We filed a brief in response to our three defendants motions for summary judgment (both traditional and no-evidence) in a Texas case that was all told about 130 pages, with our longest brief being 80 pages.
Sometimes word-limits can be helpful.
I felt like I was going to fail the entire time. I even didn't do so well on practice exams up until the day-of. But on the actual test, I thought it was so easy. My MBE score was ridiculous. Bar bri practice questions are just annoying.
RandomDancing
Member
My first bar exam was with Barbri and I felt like an idiot every second of that summer. I took two more in February with Themis and I think both having experienced a bar before and using a program that is less interested in scare tactics really helped me feel calmer with the February exams.
If you want to gauge your experience with ours last year, here's a link to our bar study thread from last summer: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=475982&page=1 Warning though, on the first page an image someone posted is now a giant penis.
LowEndTorque
Member
lol. I got to work on a litigation file today involving Microsoft, an Xbone game and a third party publisher. Can't share any details but it's fun stuff.
SouSouRocket
Member
This is both comforting and horrifying, because it's sort of like watching my whole summer unravel. It's nice to see someone else was getting 50% grades like me on the questions but then seeing the posts get closer and closer to the bar, then posting about how terrible the bar is. @_@ Nice to see people passed, though.
My friend told me we'd do it just like we always did in law school where you learn and memorize everything at the end but I'm just kind of terrified. I had about three days where I did nothing because I was attending E3 (even if I fail the bar I can't regret that) and now I'm trying to catch up by doing double-lectures each day. My big worry is that I haven't had time to do any memorizing yet, I feel like I just do what Barbri tells me but I've not really... I don't know, the information hasn't stuck yet. It feels like I'm going through the motions. And that's okay for things I have a decent background in, like criminal law and evidence, but I'm really nervous about things like Corporations, Secured Transactions, Commercial Paper, Agency... :I and Civil Procedure, ugh.
I do work better under pressure though, and although it's not really the same thing I wasn't doing great on my practice MPREs and then I got like a 122 on the actual exam. So sometimes I think "well, this is just like every other exam, you'll magically make it through like you always do" but this is also completely different... bleh. ;_;
For what it's worth, here's what I did to study.
I didn't pay for BarBri, but did buy the bar study books through AmeriBar, so that was the basis for my studying. In addition to the books, AmeriBar came with audio lectures you could listen to, so I ripped those from the website and put them on my iPod and listened to them whenever I was doing something where I could just pop in my headphones: mowing the yard, grocery shopping, etc.
I then took each subject book - MBE and essay - took the table of contents and treated that as a skeleton for my outline. I then went through and transcribed by hand every black letter rule from the books into my outline. As the weeks went on, I would gradually rewrite and condense these down until they were little more than the skeleton outline that I started with. At this point I felt that I could look at the topic on my outline and discuss the major points of law for each subject.
For the essays, I went through each practice essay and jotted down the law applicable to each question. I never wrote out a single essay as I felt I had enough practice doing that from my law school exams.
For the MPT, I didn't do jack shit.
Anyway, find something that works for you. You still have, what, a month? Plenty of time.
Man, I feel like Kaplan's bar review course is literally trying to burn me out before the exam itself.
I'm caught up on the lectures and I try to practice questions almost every day, but they're just like "Do these four hour lectures! Study your notes and the book outline for a few hours! Do 60+ practice questions! Look through these 200+ flashcards! Make your detailed outline! Make your outline-outline! Do more practice questions! Write some essays, send them in to us, and let us yell at you for not following IRAC even though you really did and give you shit scores! Do more practice quest- WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T DONE THESE YET? We're going to start sending out angry emails to you fucking slackers to get it in gear! You better get this done by tomorrow so we can start from the top again!"
I'm already hitting like 8+ hour days, even on weekends, and I can't get anywhere near close to the amount of shit Kaplan wants done in a single day.
I'm caught up on the lectures and I try to practice questions almost every day, but they're just like "Do these four hour lectures! Study your notes and the book outline for a few hours! Do 60+ practice questions! Look through these 200+ flashcards! Make your detailed outline! Make your outline-outline! Do more practice questions! Write some essays, send them in to us, and let us yell at you for not following IRAC even though you really did and give you shit scores! Do more practice quest- WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T DONE THESE YET? We're going to start sending out angry emails to you fucking slackers to get it in gear! You better get this done by tomorrow so we can start from the top again!"
I'm already hitting like 8+ hour days, even on weekends, and I can't get anywhere near close to the amount of shit Kaplan wants done in a single day.
Echoing the shitty experience with Kaplan and Barbri, I feel constantly behind and its killing my ability to do well on all these exams because I'm always worried I won't get through all my stuff for the day.
Lawyers at my old place said just to focus on the outlines and review them once you get through the lectures and do practice test questions. While Barbri wants to do AMP, studysmart, book questions, etc etc. And the lectures constantly mention non-relevant stuff (bankruptcy? why have a 4 hour lecture for something that hasn't been tested in 8 years in my state?). We just paid you 2k, why isn't this an ultra streamlined, very focused experience instead of just throwing the kitchen sink at us.
The Themis experience sounds nice. Wish I had done actual research and not just trusted what the profs and administration said.
Lawyers at my old place said just to focus on the outlines and review them once you get through the lectures and do practice test questions. While Barbri wants to do AMP, studysmart, book questions, etc etc. And the lectures constantly mention non-relevant stuff (bankruptcy? why have a 4 hour lecture for something that hasn't been tested in 8 years in my state?). We just paid you 2k, why isn't this an ultra streamlined, very focused experience instead of just throwing the kitchen sink at us.
The Themis experience sounds nice. Wish I had done actual research and not just trusted what the profs and administration said.
I've fallen behind in my LSAT studies (taking it in ~October) since I'm visiting the family. I'm a rising Senior, going to take the test just to make sure I have it done. I don't want to get 3/4 done next year and wish I would have taken the test. Any tips for studying?
Currently I'm just going over some questions every day with the LSAC book and I'm planning to take a test every week (starting a week from now when I get back home). Got like a 140 or 145 on my first self-timed practice test without studying so it definitely shows I have a ways to go.
Currently I'm just going over some questions every day with the LSAC book and I'm planning to take a test every week (starting a week from now when I get back home). Got like a 140 or 145 on my first self-timed practice test without studying so it definitely shows I have a ways to go.
what kind of prep are you using? I found the Powerscore bibles really helpful (at least the logic games and the analytical reasoning ones).
It's been a while since I took the LSAT (took it in 2011) but here are some general tips I remember:
- Get the games down cold. They are extremely learnable and I honestly believe anyone should be able to -0 this section.
- Don't waste your time on non-LSAC tests.
- If you're going to time it, don't cheat on the time. Not even an extra 30 seconds between sections, maybe it's proctor dependent, but I literally got no break in between sections (except the mandatory one).
Also, this isn't just aimed at you, but stumbling on this thread has reminded me that I still have my LG/LR bibles, and I think two different books of the "10 Real LSATs." If anyone is studying, maybe we can work out a sale, they're in extremely good condition, no writing or highlighting.
A thick LSAC book which also includes 3 tests and this
http://www.4tests.com/
for when I just want to do a couple here and there.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
Man BarBari AMP just seemed like the biggest waste of time. I feel like it's getting close to crunch time but I still have a long way to go. Oh and also I will get absolutely no studying done for the next two days, current with my wife in the hospital waiting for labor to start.
It is if you use it as a introductory learning tool, which is how Barbri wants you to use it. But I actually really like it as a review. I do them all as a bunch a few days after the lesson, and they really hammer home points from the big outline which helps if you don't have time to read the big outline. I say do them after, despite barbri being adamant about doing them before.
I hope the baby is healthy!
That's how I did mine as well.
Also, I just submitted my Barbri class action claim this morning.
Frank the Great
Banned
Just did my first practice MPT. Was brutal, went right up to the last second but managed to complete it in time. It was kind of fun, in a really weird way.
I did not get my third year practice card, though I wish I had. Closest I came was working in our capital defense clinic.
I can't believe the legal market in scotland is in such a parlous state that even w/impecable school quals, a 1st class law degree w/prizes up the wazoo, training at the biggest firm in the country across its three offices (inc. prestigious stint in london) and three years in-house (OK albeit in a non-legal capacity) compliance experience, I can't get an NQ job
at least I don't have any student debts, that's something
at least I don't have any student debts, that's something
I don't even think Alabama gives you that option if you pass.
Byakuya769
Member
Just had my handshake and a hug mid-summer review. I feel like I'm being tricked and there's going to be a huge bait and switch.
Handshake and a hug? That's a cozy firm you're working with.
brucewaynegretzky
Member
I just used my first sick day and used my health insurance for the first time today. I feel like crap.... but awesome!
Perks of employment, woot! Ok, back to sleep....
Perks of employment, woot! Ok, back to sleep....
Vermillion
Banned
So, I hear that like 70% of lawyers regret becoming lawyers...
How do you guys feel about this?
How do you guys feel about this?
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