Well, when October 7th came around, I wasn't expecting to hear any news ... after all, the results were not supposed to come out until the 8th. Low and behold they came out early, and on the morning of the 7th I got a text message from a friend letting me know the good news. Yes, that is absolutely correct, after all that crap I had to go through, the end result was worth it. I PASSED.
The essays were my savior when it came down to it, and if you've been following this blog, you know what my feelings were about the MBE. Those feelings have not changed.
I was sworn in on October 25th, and I got my attorney registration card in the mail this week. The swearing in ceremony was pretty cool and in hindsight I am glad that I decided to attend.
I have to say that I am pleased the process is done and over with - and I never want to go through it again. But, for those of you out there that are considering going to law school or taking the bar ... just remember, people pass this thing all the time.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Professionalism Course
Well, yeah, another requirement before you can be sworn in is the professionalism course. $100 through the CBA and you get to sit through several hours of lecturing regarding the ethics of Colorado. Granted, I was not happy about having to sit through this class, especially since the MPRE is required ... but I do have to say, when it was all said and done with, I'm glad that it was a requirement. Colorado has some interesting rules and the speakers make it as interesting as possible - and given the subject matter that can be a difficult task, especially considering most of the attendees just finished with the bar exam and were in zombie mode during the entire presentation ... myself included.
The course covered everything from the attorney/client relationship to private conduct and the ins and outs of law practice management.
The price is steep, but what can you do? You have to do it to be a licensed attorney in the state.
The course covered everything from the attorney/client relationship to private conduct and the ins and outs of law practice management.
The price is steep, but what can you do? You have to do it to be a licensed attorney in the state.
Exam Day Two
Well, Wednesday was the MBE - the hell of exams and my hand hated me after it was all over and done with. Because mechanical pencils were not allowed, wooden pencils were the instrument of choice, and the grips on wood - well, it is nonexistent and sucks. My hand was ready to fall off at the end day two. Also the pencil sharpeners that are left around the room, well, they're electric. So in the middle of a question you will suddenly hear the whirring sound as someone sharpens what's left of their lead instrument. Irritating, yes. Avoidable, not really. Ear plugs work wonders.
The day started out a little better because there were no laptops to wait for - everyone was in the same boat. When you are working on practice exams for the MBE, time seems to take forever, but once you are in that room and the proctor tells you to begin the next thing you know they are telling you that five minutes remain.
Can't really say anything about the exam other than - wow, it can really kick your ass - but when it is all done, time is called and the materials are picked up ... it is a great feeling to know that you made it through in one piece.
The process is a long one, and hopefully most of the people that took the test will find out that they passed. Then all you have to do is get the professionalism course out of the way and you are set. Oh, btw the professionalism course is offered the day after the bar exam and I do have to say I signed up for it right away to knock everything out in a single blow.
Advice - grippers for the pencils. Make sure they are sharp and breathe.
The day started out a little better because there were no laptops to wait for - everyone was in the same boat. When you are working on practice exams for the MBE, time seems to take forever, but once you are in that room and the proctor tells you to begin the next thing you know they are telling you that five minutes remain.
Can't really say anything about the exam other than - wow, it can really kick your ass - but when it is all done, time is called and the materials are picked up ... it is a great feeling to know that you made it through in one piece.
The process is a long one, and hopefully most of the people that took the test will find out that they passed. Then all you have to do is get the professionalism course out of the way and you are set. Oh, btw the professionalism course is offered the day after the bar exam and I do have to say I signed up for it right away to knock everything out in a single blow.
Advice - grippers for the pencils. Make sure they are sharp and breathe.
Exam Day One
On Tuesday, the MEE portion of the exam, the day started early and ended rather late. It took forever to get into the building because all the laptop users had to go in first, and at the end of the day it took forever to be released because of the sheer number of laptop users. There were orange "distress" flags popping up at the end of the exam as people couldn't get their USB backups to work - glad I decided to write. In hindsight it did make things a lot easier (the graders may feel differently about that).
The proctors were quite strict about what could be brought into the exam room - so for the sake of making things easy on yourself, follow the directions and don't bring something in that the instructions explicitly tell you to leave at home.
When it came time to actually open the test and get started I dove right in. Trying to get your mind to work can be a challenge, but all you can really do is rely on what you did to prepare and hope that, in the end, it's enough.
At the end of the day, I thought I would be a nervous wreck. Normally when exams come around, my stomach starts doing hula hoops around my knees, but for this, it didn't happen. I was calm when the morning session was done, and again when we left for the day. Very odd for me - and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Only time will tell.
As far as the actual writing went, my hand cramped up more times than I care to count. If I was ambidextrous, my hand would've thanked me ... but I can't even hold a spoon in my other hand let around write legibly with it ... heck, I don't even know if my writing was legible with my writing hand. Some of my writing was rushed and I had to go back through and cross out words and print them out because I knew there was no way anyone could actually read my words. I just hope the rest isn't as bad ... it's my own writing, so I can generally make it out ... just have to wait and see. On a side note, the pens with the nice rubberized grips work quite well at attempting to help with the hand cramping. If I were using any other pen without those grips, I think I would've lost a few digits. My hand also got very sweaty, something that I wish I could've prevented. Nerves working their way through - and it did make holding onto the pen rather interesting during the last parts of each session.
Some of the essays took a short time, others longer and the MPT - well I guess it depends on how well you planned it out before putting pen to paper. I think that I may have rushed things - as evidenced by the fact that I finished 40 minutes early on both the morning and afternoon sessions. There is nothing more unnerving than being done and having to sit for the remainder of the exam while everyone else is still writing and there is nothing more that you can think to even add to your responses. Will it hold up - well, I guess we'll find out in October.
Advice - don't stress out about it. It will make the day miserable for you - just go in there knowing that you are as prepared as you are going to be for the test on that day. And when you are done, leave it in the room. Don't take it home, don't dwell on what you could've done differently because there is NOTHING that you can do about it. Will I change my mind if I have to retake it, probably not. I don't wish having to do this more than once on anyone, but you know what - sometimes shit happens and you just have to deal with it.
Now, if only you could bring in personal cooling devices, that would be something.
The proctors were quite strict about what could be brought into the exam room - so for the sake of making things easy on yourself, follow the directions and don't bring something in that the instructions explicitly tell you to leave at home.
When it came time to actually open the test and get started I dove right in. Trying to get your mind to work can be a challenge, but all you can really do is rely on what you did to prepare and hope that, in the end, it's enough.
At the end of the day, I thought I would be a nervous wreck. Normally when exams come around, my stomach starts doing hula hoops around my knees, but for this, it didn't happen. I was calm when the morning session was done, and again when we left for the day. Very odd for me - and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Only time will tell.
As far as the actual writing went, my hand cramped up more times than I care to count. If I was ambidextrous, my hand would've thanked me ... but I can't even hold a spoon in my other hand let around write legibly with it ... heck, I don't even know if my writing was legible with my writing hand. Some of my writing was rushed and I had to go back through and cross out words and print them out because I knew there was no way anyone could actually read my words. I just hope the rest isn't as bad ... it's my own writing, so I can generally make it out ... just have to wait and see. On a side note, the pens with the nice rubberized grips work quite well at attempting to help with the hand cramping. If I were using any other pen without those grips, I think I would've lost a few digits. My hand also got very sweaty, something that I wish I could've prevented. Nerves working their way through - and it did make holding onto the pen rather interesting during the last parts of each session.
Some of the essays took a short time, others longer and the MPT - well I guess it depends on how well you planned it out before putting pen to paper. I think that I may have rushed things - as evidenced by the fact that I finished 40 minutes early on both the morning and afternoon sessions. There is nothing more unnerving than being done and having to sit for the remainder of the exam while everyone else is still writing and there is nothing more that you can think to even add to your responses. Will it hold up - well, I guess we'll find out in October.
Advice - don't stress out about it. It will make the day miserable for you - just go in there knowing that you are as prepared as you are going to be for the test on that day. And when you are done, leave it in the room. Don't take it home, don't dwell on what you could've done differently because there is NOTHING that you can do about it. Will I change my mind if I have to retake it, probably not. I don't wish having to do this more than once on anyone, but you know what - sometimes shit happens and you just have to deal with it.
Now, if only you could bring in personal cooling devices, that would be something.
The eve of the exam
Well, on Monday night I had a hard time sleeping. I was nervous about the MEE on Tuesday and my ability to make it through. I think I wanted to take a nap, which ended screwing things up for me in terms of actual sleep. It wasn't until around 2am that I actually went to bed - and when I was up at 5 it didn't make for a very pleasant or restful experience.
I do have to admit though, on Monday, while I wanted to be able to review some materials, I just couldn't concentrate. There were roofers working on my building and all I could hear was the banging of the hammers. I gave up around 1:30 and decided to go to a movie to try and get my mind off of things. It worked - at least temporarily. But then, by the time I got back home I was tired so a short nap turned into several hours, and my hopes of review ended in the parking lot of the exam location at 6:30 in the morning.
Cue anxiety.
I do have to admit though, on Monday, while I wanted to be able to review some materials, I just couldn't concentrate. There were roofers working on my building and all I could hear was the banging of the hammers. I gave up around 1:30 and decided to go to a movie to try and get my mind off of things. It worked - at least temporarily. But then, by the time I got back home I was tired so a short nap turned into several hours, and my hopes of review ended in the parking lot of the exam location at 6:30 in the morning.
Cue anxiety.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Final MBE preparations
Today and tomorrow are my final MBE preparation days, with Friday - Sunday set aside for essay review. Monday I am going to attempt to take off, as they recommend and just suffer the reality that Tuesday is the day.
As I've been reviewing MBE materials I am finding that I keep getting caught up on stupid mistakes - namely reading comprehension errors because I am trying to get through the material too quickly. I have a few more practice exams to go, and I am going to try and focus on really reading each problem before doing what I seem to always do and just jump down to the answers.
The final MBE review lectures that were in my bar course were extremely helpful - they really pointed out the nuanced points of law that are easy to overlook. Hopefully with all of that fresh in my mind, the next few practice exams will be alright. I'm worried about the essays at this point because two of the subjects for the essays are giving me a really hard time - and I need to get that law down pat. Memorization has been a process - there is only so much information that my head can absorb. I am taking the bar in a MEE, MBE, MPT jurisdiction so I don't have to worry about the state law and I really feel for a lot of my friends that are taking the exams in jurisdictions that have state laws for the essays and the MBE - that is two completely different sets of rules to learn and if I were in their shoes I don't know how I'd be able to get it all crammed in there.
The bar prep classes have reiterated since day one that this is a marathon and a cramming session just won't cut it - but you know what, sometimes cramming the hard to swallow information works. I may eat my own words in a few months, but for now, I am memorizing what I can - and what won't stick - we'll just have to cram it on in there. It can ooze out the day after the exam, I just need it to get through that first day.
As I've been reviewing MBE materials I am finding that I keep getting caught up on stupid mistakes - namely reading comprehension errors because I am trying to get through the material too quickly. I have a few more practice exams to go, and I am going to try and focus on really reading each problem before doing what I seem to always do and just jump down to the answers.
The final MBE review lectures that were in my bar course were extremely helpful - they really pointed out the nuanced points of law that are easy to overlook. Hopefully with all of that fresh in my mind, the next few practice exams will be alright. I'm worried about the essays at this point because two of the subjects for the essays are giving me a really hard time - and I need to get that law down pat. Memorization has been a process - there is only so much information that my head can absorb. I am taking the bar in a MEE, MBE, MPT jurisdiction so I don't have to worry about the state law and I really feel for a lot of my friends that are taking the exams in jurisdictions that have state laws for the essays and the MBE - that is two completely different sets of rules to learn and if I were in their shoes I don't know how I'd be able to get it all crammed in there.
The bar prep classes have reiterated since day one that this is a marathon and a cramming session just won't cut it - but you know what, sometimes cramming the hard to swallow information works. I may eat my own words in a few months, but for now, I am memorizing what I can - and what won't stick - we'll just have to cram it on in there. It can ooze out the day after the exam, I just need it to get through that first day.
Monday, July 19, 2010
A week to go
Now in the final week of bar preparation, the stress level I'm experiencing is starting to go through the roof. I lost Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in a blur of review. I can't distinguish one day from another - not a good sign.
Right now I am re-listening to some lectures that have given me a very difficult time, and with only a week to go I am really starting to think I'm not going to get it before the big day next week.
I've started to see the bar jokes floating around in email from friends and classmates that are also getting ready for this lovely mess, and the jokes to anyone who is not studying for the bar would make absolutely no sense ... but for those of us engrossed in everything UPC, UCC, MBCA, RUPA - you get the picture - the words are hilarious. Property seems to be the butt of all jokes bar related because so many problems could simply be avoided by common sense, yet that seems to be in short supply through the fact patterns.
All you can really hope for is that when your time comes to go through this, you have a sense of humor when it gets down to the wire because without that lovely sense of humor I think most of us would be insane by the time the exam actually comes to fruition.
Right now I am re-listening to some lectures that have given me a very difficult time, and with only a week to go I am really starting to think I'm not going to get it before the big day next week.
I've started to see the bar jokes floating around in email from friends and classmates that are also getting ready for this lovely mess, and the jokes to anyone who is not studying for the bar would make absolutely no sense ... but for those of us engrossed in everything UPC, UCC, MBCA, RUPA - you get the picture - the words are hilarious. Property seems to be the butt of all jokes bar related because so many problems could simply be avoided by common sense, yet that seems to be in short supply through the fact patterns.
All you can really hope for is that when your time comes to go through this, you have a sense of humor when it gets down to the wire because without that lovely sense of humor I think most of us would be insane by the time the exam actually comes to fruition.
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