Bar Exam: Day 3...Free at Last!

Now, I finally get to breathe for the first time all summer. We had four Arkansas law essays this morning: Property, Torts, Domestic Relations/Equity and Decedents' Estates.

We won't find out if we passed until September 5, but all anyone cares about at the moment is drinking and forgetting the torture we went through the last two and a half days.

Bar Exam: Day 2

Day 2 of the Arkansas Bar Examination - and most others around the country - is comprised of 200 multiple choice questions split equally into two 3-hour sessions. At the end of the day, it feels good to be finished. Remember how you felt after you took the ACT, SAT, LSAT and all those other qualifying tests? Yeah, multiply that by eleventy billion. Yeah, that's what it's like. Emotionally draining would be an understatement.

What's the plus side? We only have half a day more of this godforsaken test in the morning.

EDIT: I noticed on the Above the Law blog post about the MBE that several test takers ended up with a series of 5 Ds as answer choices toward the end of the afternoon. I had 5 Ds in a row and I can take a bit of comfort in the fact that I wasn't the only one who experienced that. Maybe it went better than I actually feel about it at this point.

And it Begins...Good Luck Everyone!

1 day...

Applicable law
Formation
Terms
Performance
Remedies for unexcused performance
Excused performance
Third party issues

For anyone who took or has taken Barbri, you might recall with fondness or pure, unadulterated hatred (most likely the latter) Professor Epstein's contracts lectures...all three days of them. After those lectures, I'll never forget Armadillos From Texas Play Rap Eating Tacos, his mnemonic for analyzing contracts issues. Apparently stupid mnemonics are the way to go for memorizing points of law. It's certainly helped me out in other subjects. Another of Epstein's mnemonics was MY LEGS for applicability of the Statute of Frauds (marriage, year, land, executors, goods, suretyship)

Professor Guzman had a few mnemonics for evidence though, as I recall, his handouts called them pneumonics...to introduce evidence of prior crimes, use a MIMIC (motive, intent, absence of mistake, identity, common scheme) proposition, competency of witnesses is judged by the ROTC (recollection, observation, truthiness, communication) standard and prior similar occurences are only "slipped in" by using a DICK (dangerous condition, impossibility, causation, knowledge) exception.

In property, Professor Norvell taught us that the elements of adverse possession could be remembered using HELUVA (hostile, exclusive, lasting, uninterrupted, visible and actual). To create a joint tenancy, you must have intent to create the joint tenancy plus the four unities, TTIP (time, title, interest and possession). I wish there was some kind of mnemonic for the Rule Against Perpetuities, but that is for another post.

I tried to come up with more but I gave up after a while. Intentional torts: BAFITTC (battery, assault, false imprisonment, IIED, trespass to property, trespass to chattels and conversion). Defenses to intentional torts: CSDDNAD (consent, self-defense, defense of others, defense of property, necessity, arrest, discipline). Elements of negligence: DSBCD (duty, standard, breach, causation, damages).

OK, enough for now. I have a test tomorrow.

3 Days...

I've decided to spend most of these last few days before the test reviewing old essay questions. So I have my MEE essay book and my Arkansas essay book with the "best answers" from previous bar exams. These are just random thoughts I've had going through them.

First, and my favorite part, is that most of the essays tend to have multiple sub-parts. So that gives me plenty of chances to screw up instead of just one or two.

Second, I've noticed that almost all of the torts questions cover negligence. Occasionally there will be an intentional tort, but only rarely. There is often also an issue with minors driving cars - bless kids doing adult activities.

Third, I've always got to be thinking about vicarious liability. If life was actually like bar exam fact patterns, no employer would ever hire another person again. The dumbest people always appear in these questions and almost always end up costing their employers in the end.

Fourth, if there is a trust question on the wills, estates and trust question, most of us are screwed. I'm glad I took decedents' estates and estate planning so I can at least stumble through a trust question. Fortunately for us, Arkansas is still so poor that trusts apparently haven't taken hold well enough to test on the bar exam.

Fifth, the elements of crimes and torts have begun to enter my dreams...I think I'm in pretty good shape for those questions (MBE and essays). Common Law Burglary = breaking + entering + the dwelling of another + at nighttime + with the intent to commit a felony (i.e. theft) therein. I'm not quite as strong when it comes to criminal procedure.

I could go on and on, but I suppose I should get back to cramming. Almost there!

4 Days...

There is ultimately only one question, often with many sub-parts, when it comes to an Evidence issue:

Is it in or is it not in?

That's what she said.

I'm beginning to hear from everyone who knows the bar is coming up next week that I'll be fine, I'll pass with flying colors, etc. The only people who have any room to talk are practicing attorneys - at least they know what we're all going through, having done it at least once in the past. I'll be heading to Little Rock on Sunday to have a late birthday dinner with the family, then Monday I check into the Peabody and it'll be game time until Thursday afternoon. Hey, at least I'll have a nice room to lock myself in for three days.

5 days...and Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm really not sure what to think about how prepared I am for the bar exam. I worked the essays from the test given in February of this year and did really well. Which totally doesn't match up with my performance on the MBE questions yesterday. Oh well, I can't do much more than I already am.


It's quite unpleasant to hear about the great summer everyone else is having. Yes, I would like to go to the Naturals game, but I'm stuck in the fascinating world of commercial paper and secured transactions. Yeah, I'd love to play a round of golf, but I can't take 5 hours out of my study day. I'm also NOT glad to hear that everyone is going to the beach this summer! Who's jealous of everyone not taking the bar exam this summer? This guy.

On a brighter note I hit the quarter century mark today. I've got evening plans to go to Bordino's for dinner with some friends and maybe a stop by Willy D's for drinks and a song on the pianos then it's be back to the books. I know this birthday won't be anything like last year, and thank goodness for that! (I was hungover for two days last year) I've also mostly finalized my post-bar trip to Austin for a wedding (and my summer vacation) so if anyone will be around those days or you know the area, it'd be good to know what to do on the non-wedding days. I have a feeling 6th Street will come into the picture.

6 days...and Things That Piss Me Off About the Bar Exam

Because I currently lack the intellectual capacity to come up with something original today, I'm going to repost an email I received from a friend who is taking the Washington State Bar Exam. I think it fairly sums up a lot of the frustration felt by those of us studying for the bar exam this summer.

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Things that piss me off about the Bar Exam:


1. People who don't record their deeds:

Hey. Fuck face. That's a nice deed you got there. Went ahead and bought Stankacre, didya? That's awesome. Owning property is a sign of real maturity. Now, why don't you do us all a fucking favor, and go record the fucking deed.

Right. Fucking. Now.

Don't put it in a goddamn drawer. Don't go off to India for 20 years. Don't leave the deed in your will for dear cousin Victorianox. Get your fat lazy ass down to the records office, and record it before I burn your goddamn house down.


2: Wily property sellers:

Here is a suggestion to those Bill of Rights violatin' petty thug ass clowns, the Police. How about you go down to Doucheacre, and arrest the son of a bitch who sells the same house to 15 different people, over and over. Im sick of this guy getting away every time he pulls this shit, and I'm left to sort out the fucking pieces.


3: 'Known' arsonists

Here's a little tip to all the cretins that keep hiring 'known' arsonists to burn down their cheating girlfriend's house. Why is it, do you think, that he is a known arsonist, you dipshit? He's known because he has been fucking caught before. You don't know who the good arsonists are, do you! Because they have their shit together.

But no, you had to go hire Dusseldorf, or Durango, or whatever D word your fuckwit moron arsonist is named, and now he's gone and burned the wrong house, and left me with a BAR question.


4: People who back out of conspiracies.

Why don't you just stick with it and save us all some trouble, you pussy.



5. Power companies that leave an electric wire live to deter copper theft

While I appreciate your effort to rid the world of thieves stupid enough to try and steal raw copper wiring that's fucking humming and has blue arcs dancing on it, it's just gonna bite you in the ass in the end. Just let the copper go.


6. Fertile Octogenarians

I think I speak for all of us when I say........Burn the witch! Burn her! And don't use a 'known' arsonist!


7. People who use anything more complicated than Fee Simple Absolute in a will

Hey, old man. Either give Horatio your fucking interest in Scroteacre, or don't, alright? Don't condition it on him growing a mustache, or learning to play the calliope, or winning 'Dancing with the Stars.' Don't grant a springing executive interest to Zenobia if she manages to graduate from Ninja academy.

Stop making my life more complicated than it needs to be, you Narcissistic old twat, and stop trying to control your property from the grave in a vain attempt to make up for your feebleness in life.


8. House Painters

Just paint the fucking house yourself, Paulson. Trust me on this one. It's not worth it.


9. Bank Mortgages

Hi there, First National Bank of South Calizonachussettsas. I don't mean to tell you how to run your business, but allow me to impart a bit of sage wisdom.

When someone :

1) named Defaultina McBankrupstein,
2) is taking out her 17th mortgage with you,
3) on a place called Mushacre
4) so she can buy a new hat,

do NOT fucking come crying to me when the inevitable judicial foreclosure sale nets $34, a button, and some lint, all of which are devoured by the banks that are 20 miles ahead of you in creditor line.

And do not ask me whether you are a junior or senior mortgagor, or whether you debt is secured, or some other bullshit I don't understand, because the answer is always the same.

D) You are Fucked. Take it like a man.


10. Wanna-be Burglars

I am sick to death of these slackjawed melon-heads deciding at 2 a.m. that they need to borrow their neighbors wrench, and are sure he 'won't mind' if they saunter on over there in the middle of the night, crowbar the garage open, smash open his tool chest, and 'borrow it.' And then always the inevitable fucking:

Did he commit Larceny/Burglary/Robbery??? Ohhhhh, no intent!

Let him go, boys. Let the man go. So I can throw the wrench right at his goddamn teeth.

Good thing when we are really in practice we will have these special Intent Goggles©, that can magically tell us, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, this jackass really didn't intend to commit a crime. He genuinely thought that breaking into your neighbor's house, stealing his car, taking a shit on his pool table, and sleeping with his wife were all part of the social covenants between good neighbors.

Seven days...

With just days until the bar exam, I'm going back over some of the really tough subjects, including the Rule Against Perpetuities. The text of the original rule is nearly unintelligible: No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. WTF were the British thinking when they came up with that mess? A more relevant question, perhaps, is why the hell was it later adopted into American jurisprudence?

Application of the RAP has really screwed over some attorneys in the past. The greatest problem with the rule is that the courts don't apply common sense or even reality to RAP cases. One of the more ridiculous examples is the "Fertile Octogenarian" rule, which presumes that anyone, even an octogenarian (that is, a person between 80 and 90 years of age) can parent a child, regardless of health or gender. RAP cases have resulted in many colorful examples including the "unborn widow," the "slothful executor," "the magical gravel pit," "the slaughter of the innocent" and "the war that never ends." Don't ask me what they mean - I don't know, don't care and am willing to miss any related questions on the MBE.

Fortunately, in its 2007 session, the Arkansas Legislature adopted the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetutities which takes an easier wait-and-see approach along with application of the cy pres doctrine to take some pressure off lawyers who aren't blessed with omniscience.

Unfortunately, Arkansas courts can only apply the new RAP prospectively - meaning the crappy old RAP applies to any nonvested interests created before 2007. That means, of course, that the old RAP is fair game for testing on the bar exam this summer. While that doesn't help me out on the bar exam, I can hope that Arkansas will adopt the California approach to malpractice with regard to the old RAP. In Lucas v. Hamm, the California Supreme Court held that it was not malpractice for an attorney to not understand the Rule Against Perpetuities! That's how bad the old rule is!

Anyway, I best be getting back to Property multiple choice questions...only got 7/18 correct in that last practice set and that's not quite going to cut it on the MBE.

8 days...

So after taking some time off I think, maybe, that I'm ready to buckle down and get some quality studying done these few days I have left. I tried to study on Saturday and got a little bit done, but ended up watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and several other movies. Which reminds me, by the way that on this day last year Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. Man am I glad it wasn't released this year. Granted, I read it in about 10 hours (after standing in line waiting for the midnight release!) but that still would have cut into some quality study time I'm sure.

So today, I think I'm going over Arkansas Criminal Law Distinctions. I feel prepared (enough) for the multi-state crim law questions (which test the common law) but there will be an Arkansas-specific crim law essay on Tuesday.

Just a few of the differences between common law and Arkansas statutory criminal law are the mental states. Common law uses specific intent, malice, general intent and strict liability. Arkansas uses purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligently.

Homicide provisions also differ between the common law and Arkansas law. Under the common law, a defendant could be convicted of murder (the unlawful killing of another with malice aforethought), voluntary manslaughter (the heat of passion/provocation killing) or involuntary manslaughter (gross negligence causing a death or by applying the misdemeanor or non-dangerous felony murder rules). In Arkansas, a defendant can be charged with capital murder, first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter or negligent homicide. There are multiple definitions for each and I'm supposed to know each of them.

Another important difference is in the Arkansas rape statute. At common law, rape was "forced intercourse by a man on a woman who is not his spouse." This takes me back to a story I heard about a class some twenty years ago in which our very own Prof. Guzman asked a student whether a person could rape his spouse. The student responded: "Well, Professor, when you say 'I do,' you say 'I do' forever." Well, that was the law before logic took hold in our state and the Arkansas Supreme Court held that spousal rape was a crime.

One of my least favorite Arkansas distinctions is the so-called "Retreat Rule." Generally, before using deadly force in self-defense, a victim is required to retreat if the victim can do so safely. Retreat is not required, however, if you are in your home. Note, as the cat to the right has made plain, you may never use deadly force to protect property alone. Well, time to get back to memorizing all the wonderful definitions of crimes.