Attn: All TWW Lawyers (mostly in NC though)

what blogs/websites do you guys visit on the regular? I'm a big fan of the Volokh Conspiracy. Above the Law is straight up trash most of the time (but an occassional guilty pleasure), and there aren't too many NC legal bloggers i see that post with regularity.

6/19/2011 1:42:07 PM

I'm trying to get going...it's hard to post every day. Just need to set a goal for once a month for now!

I actually like the ABA Blawgs list a lot

7/13/2011 10:50:43 AM

T-13 days until the bar exam. I'm not ready yet, but I'm optimistic that I'll get there in the next week. I'm running pretty solid on the MBE stuff, but it's all the little details of the essays that I'm struggling with now. I'll get maybe a 4 on one essay, then an 8 on the next, depending on the subject. Any last minute tips or pieces of advice?? (other than get off TWW)

7/13/2011 11:42:02 AM

you probably don't want my advice because i am a bar failure

but

i failed, by a minuscule amount of points, and guess where ALL of the points came from?? essays.

MBE was fine (good even, according to my tutor man) but ALL points came from essay land. i've been working with a tutor since april and he has helped me a lot on the essays.

i don't know if you can pinpoint your problem on the essays - like is it JUST being unable to remember little details? because everyone has that problem. no one will ever know everything!! my biggest problem was rushing. i rushed to the answer every time. so when i got my essays back guess what? i answered the questions correctly (for the most part) in each essay, but still failed the essays. why? because i didn't define and elaborate. i didn't define certain easy terms and elaborate on every detail. on the ones i can't remember all the details for (usually civ pro questions, because they always ask some obscure shit) i (with the help of my tutor) have learned to go through and define EVERY term even if it is so basic that it seems like it doesn't need defining. you can pick up little points by doing this (turning the 4 into a 6 perhaps). and then elaborating. he told me to stick every fact they give me in the problem back into my essays and to talk about it.

in the model answers they have MODEL essay answers where they note at the top that the student came to the wrong conclusion. or misstated the law. but their discussion was still excellent so it was a model answer. don't as me, but i have the model answers to prove it haha. my tutor said think of it as long division where the answer only kinda matters but your WORK showing how you got there is the important part.

i don't know if that helps at all. it has helped me a lot. a lot a lot. the worst part is i would have totally died in law school BUT FOR essays on exams. i suck at multiple choice. essays and research papers were my strong suit. NOT SO on the bar exam. not so. really frustrating. but hey, the majority of the people pass so you have that going for you

7/13/2011 1:14:55 PM

^Thanks, that does help. My problem is a combination of not knowing the little details, and forgetting to mention the little details I do know. I'll state the rule, but I won't state the definition. Or I'll state the rule I'm following, and not mention it's actually the exception to the main rule.

I think lots more studying the details, and lots more practice will help. I really appreciate the advice.

7/13/2011 1:20:41 PM

Only advice I can add is that it's just as much about your attitude and ability to handle the stress as it is about whether you can remember the exception to the exception to some rule

7/13/2011 1:39:20 PM

^^ exactly! that was my problem too. i'd state the rule and then forget to define stuff. and my tutor would be like if you had just put in a sentence saying "these are the elements of a contract" instead of discussing each one without defining you would have gotten an extra point probably. and i'm like

^ also excellent advice. that is the other half of my problem, according to profs and tutors. i get anxious which causes MEGA mental blockage. like i panic and can't even remember how to define summary judgment. it is THAT bad. but i've been working on my attitude and self confidence lately. it sounds so lame but, i'm not a moron. but i also don't feel the need to prove that to other people anymore. i know i am not stupid. it took me like a year to be able to say that so it is a big step for me

[Edited on July 13, 2011 at 1:58 PM. Reason : .]

7/13/2011 1:55:26 PM

You panic?! Never!

7/13/2011 5:01:47 PM

Speaking of freak outs...I just took a practice MBE and did really horrible. Like dismal. And am now unsure I am even going to sit for the real exam.

My MBE was pretty decent last time (good, even) and I just needed to gain some points on essays. I have wiggle room with my score like if it goes down a few points, no big.

Well the test I took today was way more than a few points. I just am uncertain I should even sit for the exam again. Kinda late in the game to be deciding this but NOT really when the $$ factor doesn't really matter to me. The emotional turmoil matters more to me than throwing away $. Would rather not endure hell + failure again.

7/14/2011 6:19:09 PM

ive done some independent research on how to practice without a license. just fyi, you could become an unemployment/administrative specialist. as long as you go before a body that has no affiliation with the court system you can help people before any administrative body (with the added disclaimer that you are not a bar lawyer of course).

7/14/2011 7:00:52 PM

The thing is, I'm not even sure I want to practice anyways. But somehow I have tied my self-worth together with being able to pass the bar. And it has led me nowhere good.

I mean I am obviously going to still take it...might as well I guess. And I know my life isn't going to drastically change either way (pass/fail). But that realistic and rational side of me frequently gives way to the fearful completely illogical side. And then we have freakouts.

7/14/2011 7:41:47 PM

Well, if you're not sure you want to practice law, that should completely remove the stress, right, no pressure??

But really, I've read your law related posts in a few of the threads on here, and you know what you're talking about. I don't think you have to worry about your substance, just your test anxiety.

I'm getting a massage the weekend before, and making sure I'm not too stressed going into it. The more of these practice essays I do, the better it gets. I won't say "You'll be fine" because I hate it when people say that to me about the bar, because no, you don't know if I'll be fine, thanks. But now that you mentioned the whole "make sure everything small thing has a definition" I've been going back and checking things off as I define them, and filling in if it's too short. Thank you for that tip!!

Plus, I've been instructed that someone stands outside with free warm cookies and sodas after the first day. What a better way to end the essays than that?

7/14/2011 8:16:02 PM

^ haha thanks that made me feel better. bitching to people that understand usually helps a lot more than bitching to non law school people so thanks for listening

tonight while i was taking a 45 minute long shower to destress from the woes of my practice mbe i was thinking, why when i'm on the wolf web or arguing with a friend after like 17 beers can i spew out random facts like it ain't no thing. but then on a test i'm like "derrrrrrr"

but i think i will follow in your steps and get a massage toward the end of next week. and just try to remember that it isn't life or death (even though i clearly build it up to be haha).

and there IS someone with cookies and sodas after you leave!!! they also hand you a packet of info about the new cle requirement for recent bar passers though BUT it gets all your cle credits done for the year (i think if i remember correctly)

ok whew i feel better now. hopefully that was the last freak out.

and i'm glad the essay tip worked! it really helped me when my tutor pointed it out because just having certain things defined can help you pick up points. and it helps me be more careful/not rush through/word vomit everywhere haha

7/14/2011 8:53:28 PM

My clerkship/intership is proceeding nicely, making all sorts of new connections that could be valuable later on and are interesting in and of themselves.

7/22/2011 1:01:58 AM

i heard NC is considering allowing nonlawyers to own a 49% stake in firms, could shake things up

7/22/2011 1:28:09 AM

Good luck to all the TWW bar takers out there next week, I do not envy you at all right now. Don't listen to anyone who says to just relax and take the next two days off bc "if you don't know it by now, you never will." That's bullshit, you better be cramming your ass off until at least midnight Sunday, you'd be amazed at how much you can learn in two days of cramming.

And don't forget earplugs! They are especially crucial when you need to ignore all the commotion on the other side of the room where a girl is having a seizure. I always wondered what happened to that poor girl. I hope they just let her pass so she didn't have to take the whole thing over again...

7/22/2011 8:08:25 AM

Quote :

"That's bullshit, you better be cramming your ass off until at least midnight Sunday, you'd be amazed at how much you can learn in two days of cramming. "

Ha...I crammed like a mofo right before and the the nights in between. Fucking Shark Week was on though...that definitely messed up my cramming the nights before.

7/22/2011 8:17:42 AM

Quote :

"And don't forget earplugs! They are especially crucial when you need to ignore all the commotion on the other side of the room where a girl is having a seizure. I always wondered what happened to that poor girl. I hope they just let her pass so she didn't have to take the whole thing over again..."

I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to bring earplugs this year. They "provide them" for us.

7/22/2011 9:17:12 AM

I hope I don't fail this awful test

I think I'm fine on the MBE, at least going by the Barbri practice tests, but the essays seem like such a crapshoot.

7/22/2011 10:18:34 AM

^^ Yea, we weren't supposed to bring our own either, but I always smuggled them in anyways. The ones provided are subpar IMO. I was actually allowed to wear a hat in last summer, forgot to take it off before I went in and no one said anything to me which was surprising. I put those earplugs in and pulled my brim down low and I was basically in my own little bar exam world with no distractions.

7/22/2011 11:03:46 AM

Okay, this may seem like a ridiculously stupid question... but we only need to bring our laptops for the essay day right? I mean, we won't be using the laptops for MBE, right?

7/22/2011 11:08:12 AM

Nevermind, found the answer. Definitely don't need it on the second day at all. I'm still afraid they're not going to let me use it for some reason for the essay portion.

7/22/2011 2:46:37 PM

yes you only need laptops on the first day.

honestly if something DOES go wrong, handwriting isn't that bad. i handwrote before. i only failed by a few points and it wasn't the handwriting that made me or broke me or whatever. handwriting is ALMOST preferable because you get to be in this smaller non stressful room. i also handwrote all of my exams in law school though (yes, one of those weird kids). computers ARE fantastic though because you can do things so much faster. but really they are the best because when you get like half way through writing an essay and realize you've been "tricked" you don't have to scribble out a bunch of shit. you can just erase or reword things really fast. i wouldn't worry. especially if something goes wrong during the exam with your computer, handwriting is really not bad. people are fearful of it but i'm in the comfort zone....its not horrible, i promise!!

7/24/2011 2:58:51 AM

I'm handwriting because I don't trust my laptop not to die in the middle of the exam.

I've done all my practice essays by hand so I guess it's ok. I still feel like I don't know enough for the essays but I guess that's natural.

7/24/2011 11:30:36 AM

Trip report: Not 100% sure I passed... but not 100% sure I failed! I'm gonna call this a victory

7/26/2011 5:34:58 PM

Agreed. I had no laptop issues. But the questions were much harder than I anticipated. I'm only confident I did REALLY well on 2-3 of them. I know I got one just blatantly wrong, but hopefully managed to scrape enough points altogether.

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 6:29 PM. Reason : ]

7/26/2011 6:29:23 PM

CAN'T WAIT TO SIT IN A ROOM AND ANSWER 200 MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS FOR LIKE 8 MORE HOURS TOMORROW!

WAHOOOO

*HIGH FIVES*

omg ugh

^ this is exactly how i feel. there were like maybe 2 where i wanted to stand up and throw my exam down and dust my shoulder off. but the rest i was like...oh dear god please help me. and one i just blatantly didn't know. i looked at it for a long time at the end hoping something would come to me. it didn't. so i made something up. and it was bad.

[Edited on July 26, 2011 at 7:43 PM. Reason : .]

7/26/2011 7:42:09 PM

I know I don't have to say anything

but I will

that MBE was ten times fucking harder than I ever expected

I'm still in shock

7/27/2011 5:48:07 PM

I thought the afternoon MBE session was much more difficult than the morning session. I am not confident that I failed, and I am not confident that I passed. In all, I just hope I did better than 23% of first time test takers.

And I hate when people talk about it during lunch. But I did overhear some people today, who were talking and made me feel better. My answer was "less wrong" than theirs That at least made me feel better.

[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 6:12 PM. Reason : ]

7/27/2011 6:00:07 PM

what essay was the torts essay (just wondering if i was on track hahaha. i talked about torts in 2 diff essays but i might have just talked about it in one because i had no idea what else to talk about)?

and i thought the afternoon MBE was WAYYY easier than the morning. but there are diff forms of the test right? so like my afternoon could have been your morning?

i thought the MBE was hard, which scares me. i don't know. i feel as though i will never pass this dumb test. i don't know what is wrong with me. but i don't really care because i am NOT doing it again!



[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 6:16 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2011 6:14:59 PM

I'm glad I'm not the only one that was WTFing at parts of the MBE

By the way, if this thing is curved where do they get that "you have to get a 126 or you fail" figure from

[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 6:17 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2011 6:16:17 PM

i think they make that up

and i thought the mbe was only weighted 40% and the essays 60%

and then the entire thing is curved

OR SOMETHING

they probably made that up too

i'm still confused about scoring.

(i mean 126 is over 60%. i heard you're good with anything over 50% if you do well on essays. who the fuck knows. clearly not me)

[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 6:20 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2011 6:19:20 PM

Really? I always thought you had to get 65%+ on MBE and an average of 6 on all the essays

I have no idea

7/27/2011 6:22:21 PM

REALLY? i heard 50-60% is fine on the MBE and at least a 6.5 avg on essays. and that you can't fail the essays and still pass the test (like even if you get 100% on MBE)

hahaha i love how no one really knows what is going on

i was thinking about that today during the test

and when i read the essay questions i was like, who writes these. are these the same people scoring my exam?

[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 6:25 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2011 6:25:10 PM

Welp I guess I'll quit trying to calculate my odds of passing based on how many I felt confident about if nobody knows how it works anyway

7/27/2011 6:29:19 PM

7/27/2011 6:35:41 PM

Haha... here I was thinking I had to get 145 on the MBE, and average 6 on the essays. I was really freaking out. 126 sounds a lot more achievable, and I like the sound of weighting!

Someone today was saying the MBE was weighted to a total of 220 points or something, and the essays were weighted to like 400. So, you only had to get 346 total out of 620 points... but I don't know how true that is! I wish they just had a place where we could really see how this thing is scored!!

[Edited on July 27, 2011 at 9:54 PM. Reason : ]

7/27/2011 9:53:53 PM

There's illegal MBE answer discussion on xoxohth.com if anyone cares

7/28/2011 8:53:29 AM

Quote :

"and i thought the afternoon MBE was WAYYY easier than the morning. but there are diff forms of the test right? so like my afternoon could have been your morning? "

This is true.

And I think to pass, they say if you get around 115 you're good...but it can change depending on the curve. I believe over 135 allows you to practice in D.C. (pat on back, I got over that).

7/28/2011 9:08:49 AM

^^As much as I'd want to dissect the answers, I don't even remember what I put on most of those questions. And I really don't want to freak myself out on whether or not I put the right answer.

I don't think they gave people different questions for the test form letters. I think they were just arranged differently. Because I had a form 15 in the morning, and a friend had a form 26, and we had overlapping questions. I also don't think they asked us to verify we got two different kinds of tests, and they would if there were a chance we'd get the same test twice. I just think my brain stopped working for the afternoon portion is all.

7/28/2011 9:14:20 AM

Quote :

"I think they were just arranged differently."

yeah that is what i meant.

haha. my brain still isn't working. last night i couldn't sleep even though i was so tired because i had a total freakout over the essay questions. i mean. its not like i can do anything about it now i, know. but i was like ugh i wonder if i put the elements in roman numerals? i should have done that if i didn't.

but i couldn't even remember really i just knew generally what i put. that all started from thinking about the torts question in which i discussed more than torts so now i'm all freaked out that i should have just done a more detailed discussion on that than discussed what i did. eeeeeeeeeeeeep. oh well i'm done thinking about it (until 2394289043 people ask how it went and i shake them and say "HOW DO YOU THINK IT WENT" jkkkk )

7/28/2011 11:40:11 AM

this thread is now



i just got my 1L syllabi and reading assignments

7/28/2011 12:11:49 PM

Where are you going?

7/28/2011 1:22:05 PM

just starting the 2L job search. i'm in dallas for interviews with 6 firms this friday. time to head back to school soon!

8/4/2011 5:47:36 AM

way more ready to start 2L than i was 1L

8/15/2011 9:47:30 PM

If this hurricane delays my bar results coming on Saturday, I may be a little upset.

8/22/2011 10:22:43 PM

all of my 2L classes except one are like 70+ people, i miss my small intimate classes

8/22/2011 10:25:36 PM

Y'all NC Bar people should be getting your results today or tomorrow


I passed that junk no problem son

[Edited on August 26, 2011 at 1:12 PM. Reason : ]

8/26/2011 1:11:37 PM

^Source? Nothing in the mail for any of my law friends today. Mine hasn't come, but I'm not getting my hopes up. There was a rumor going around that results went out yesterday, but it shouldn't take more than a day to get to a Raleigh address.

8/26/2011 2:47:55 PM

Good luck to everyone waiting on the bar results. Start 2L classes on Monday, and I've still got work for my professor to do, I have to move into my new apartment between now and next week (fortunately only about a mile away), and Law Review is already giving us assignments due Monday night.

8/26/2011 3:02:27 PM