Update 2.5 Years Later

Update: This has been long due, but I passed the Maryland bar when I took it in June of 2010.  I scored a 131 raw score on the MBE and a 148 scaled score.  I was sworn in on December 14, 2010.

However, I this past year I decided to move back to Washington State, and it turns out that taking the Maryland bar was not the best decision.  I don't have reciprocity with anyone except DC, and I didn't particularly want to spend one year getting sworn into DC and another half year getting sworn into WA. 

So I took the February Washington Bar in February 2013.  The passage rate was only 58%.  I failed. 

I did not study nearly enough.  I seriously underestimated the difficulty of the exam.  Up until February 2013, the exam has been all essay, on about 22 or 23 possible topics.  Unlike in Maryland, where you get statutory extracts so you don't have to remember the nitty gritty details, like the maximum number of days between an arrest and a first appearence, in Washington you have to remember that stuff.  I ended up spending most of my time making flashcards.  I did not spend enough time reviewing flashcards, did not come up with a good way of reviewing subjects that I had already studied early on, and did not do enough practice exams.  I also found it much easier to structure MBE studying than essay studying, and that really hurt me here.  I also just did not spend enough time studying- only 5-10 hours per week as opposed to the 40-50 hours per week I spent on the Maryland bar exam.  At least I passed the PR exam- I'm apparently still an ethical lawyer, even if I not the best-prepared one.

So this summer, instead of a planned awesome climbing adventure, I will be studying for the Washington bar exam.  Full time.  I guess it's convenient that I'm quitting my job to move in a few weeks anyway.  I will likely write another blog about studying for the Washington State bar (now testing the Uniform Bar Exam) from a van. 

Post-bar wrap up

I took the Maryland Bar Exam Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I probably passed. But the passage rate is about 75%, so it is probable that I passed. I was really nervous the morning of the first day, but after watching the proctors/bar exam exercise their minimal incompetency by being unable to set up speakers or pass out exam questions and extracts, I stopped being nervous because of how ridiculous it was. I also finished each MBE section pretty early, about a half hour, after checking answers. If I check them for too long I just second guess myself, and I have shown no ability to actually recognize what questions I got wrong.

For materials, BarBri's convisor mini review was pretty much the bible. Both barbri and kaplan MBE questions are harder than the actual questions, so practice on those but do at least a 100 question set online through the National Bar Examiners. It's $26 for each 100 question set, but worth it only for the sense of security it gives you. I was getting about 75% of those questions right, which was quite a bit better than I did with the Barbri/Kaplan questions. I thought Barbri gave better explanations for MBE answers than Kaplan did.

If I had to do it again (which hopefully won't happen in Maryland) I would do some type of lecture thing all the way through. It's a lot easier to pay attention to a lecture than read an outline, even if it's only audio. The Kaplan MBE lectures were great, and then I just went through the MD distinctions in Convisor (but Convisor doesn't have the Crim Law & Pro distinctions for MD, so I had to go through the Barbri lectures for those and picked up a lot by going through practice essays). An essay book is also necessary, as is an MBE book. Ameribar has OK lectures, but they are very dry and if you do Ameribar you have to buy the whole package, and I think the Barbri materials are better organized and the essays include statutory extracts where you would get them for the exam.

Finally, a warning on buying used testing materials. Used outlines are fine, but used MBE workbooks and essay books can be a little sketchy because the previous person may have already gone through and underlined things, marked answers, or written key things in the margins. So even though they may be wrong, it won't be the full experience of going through and having to figure it out. I got lucky, I guess, and I had a lot of MBE questions that hadn't been done and the essay book was almost untouched. So just check the materials first.

From now on this will morph into a travel blog. Not as useful for the bar, but some motivation, I hope, to get through it.

This will make you laugh after 200 MBE Questions

I also wanted to point out that this is hilarious: http://legallynoted.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/studying-for-the-bar-this-will-make-you-laugh/

Especially funny after you've done a practice MBE.

Review Plan

This time next week I will hopefully be sleeping, because the bar exam will be the following morning. The review plan is going well. I review flashcards for 3-4 hours a day, usually get through 2-3 subjects, and my goal for each day is to do 6 essays and 36 MBE questions, just to stay on track to finish with 10 essay questions per subject and 340 MBE questions per subject. I'm trying to make flashcards a priority, though. I know how to write an essay. I know how to do multiple choice questions. But I still can't always remember what a buyer's remedies are when he receives a nonconforming shipment, and memorizing that stuff is more important than just wasting my time doing questions I can't do.

I took a practice MBE last Friday and scored 59.5%. It was one of BarBri's practice MBEs, and they claim that the average is 58%, so that wasn't bad. But a 67% is about passing on a real MBE. I'm going to do another practice MBE on Thursday with the online MBE that NCBE puts out. http://www.ncbex2.org/catalog/. It's $50 for 200 questions (I don't know why one set of 100 costs $2 more than the other), but I figure it's worth it to practice with real MBE questions. I did 40 Con Law real MBE questions and scored 70% and they seemed easier than both the BarBri and Kaplan ones. There were some answer choices you could immediately identify as bad. But I think it's been good to practice with hard questions.

I'm feeling pretty good about this, but I am glad that I have another week left to study. I'm really not that stressed out about it. I feel like I have a lot of time in the day- I can study for 10-11 hours, work out, maybe sew something or go out. Of course, if I could go to sleep before 1am I would have less time in the day... need to work on that. Can't roll out of bed at 8am for the bar exam!

The MBE fries my brain

Now that I am working on MBE subjects, time is getting more crunched. The regular study plan is to do your subject essays for that day and then do 50 MBE questions per day, or something like that. But I felt like it was useless and depressing to go over MBE questions that I hadn't covered yet in lectures, so I am doing big blocks of MBE questions out of the PMBR book once I go through the lecture and essays. For example, today I did 175 Crim Law MBE questions. I am also checking my answers after each quesion, so this took about 8-9 hours (I had a minor kitchen accident during this since I forgot that vinegar + baking soda = volcano. Another example of my brain being fried). I do think this method helps me learn the material better. This means that going through MBE subjects takes about an extra day or so than Maryland-only subjects.

I thought that I don't get stressed about exams, but I have noticed that I am crankier and forgetful lately. Of course, these are classic symptoms of bar studying that I was sure I would avoid, but I also thought I knew contracts, so really, what do I know?

Rock climbing, my favorite activity, tends to make my brain feel a lot better and I am able to think more clearly after I've been climbing for about an hour or so. Probably because it is nonverbal. What I need to work on is being a nice person if I go directly from studying to socializing. I think it's the talking- my verbal capacity is so strained that I am unable to express myself and get frustrated. So new rule: have to go work out between studying and social events, or I won't have anymore social events to go to.

Lecture- based studying

I've started doing MBE subjects, for which I have audio PMBR lectures, and I have to say that this goes much easier than trying to read through the outlines or read the BarBri lectures. Even though its the same content, it's harder for the mind to wander when there is a man in my computer telling me about how Miss Cleo was his former secretary (yes, this actually happened towards the end of the PMBR crim law lecture). If I had to do it again (which better not actually happen), I would get some sort of audio lecture program, like Ameribar, for Maryland. My friend who is doing Ameribar says that the Ameribar lectures are very dry, but even an outline read to me is better than me trying to read it myself, and then thinking about my next grocery shopping trip instead. Because really, everything else on the planet is more interesting than studying for the bar exam.

Note on Ameribar: apparently in the essay books they do not include the statutory extracts that are provided to you on the exam. BarBri materials do. These extracts are very nice in helping to answer questions in sales, secured transactions, commercial paper, and civ pro without having to remember stuff. Ameribar gives you citations to the Maryland code, but BarBri and the actual exams give you the extracts themselves. I guess if you do Ameribar you will be pleasantly surprised when there are statutory extracts on your exam, but you will have wasted precious brainpower trying to remember how many days you have to file a motion to revise a verdict, when the examiners give you stuff like that.

Maryland is better than Virginia

In the DC metro area, people have a lot of options for bar exams. Something that has come up at parties two weeks in a row (law school parties, of course) is whether to take Maryland or Virginia (nobody seems to ever take DC. Why not, if you can waive in?) So here are some reasons why MD is better:

1. No CLE
2. You do not have to drive to Roanoke to take the bar exam
3. You do not have to dress up to take the bar exam
4. Voluntary bar association
5. Less intensive background check
6. No MPRE 
7. You can be admitted by motion into VA after 5 years of practice. You always have to take an attorney's exam in Maryland. So why not start with Maryland to begin with?

If you have more, let me know. Or if you would like to defend the silly driving to Roanoke thing and wearing a suit, by all means go ahead.