A Note About the Bar Exam

This is from a LinkedIn group I belong to, written by Barry Spurlock, posted with permission:

I really want to emphasize the point I made about relaxing for the bar.  I worked full time in a professional position while attending law school and while studying for the bar.  I finished a semester early and took the Feb. KY bar; and passed.  I utilized BarBri and thought is was great prep, however because of work and family demands, I only got to take a fraction of the practice questions they recommended.  I utilized “window time” in the car to listen…and listen again to lectures, and few other “less intense” methods to help me study.  The mantra I kept repeating was that I went to law school for 3.5 years and did well; this is very important.  Passing was God’s providence and not so much following “the formula.”  The day I received my pass results, I also received word that a family member was diagnosed with cancer.  That puts the bar in perspective.  So, remember the bar is important…very important.  You should work as hard as you can and take advantage of every moment.  But, RELAX because its JUST THE BAR.  If you can still breathe, brush your teeth without help, etc., life is still good and you can take it again.  I feel too many, very smart law students do not do well on the bar because they do not put in the proper perspective.  Bar passage is as much your psychological prep as anything else.  If you don’t pass, the sun will still come up the next day.

Well said.  The Bar Exam is not your life nor does it determine what direction your life takes.

One of the reasons I finally passed was because I learned to relax.

 

Another post on a National Bar Exam

Adjunct Law Prof highlighted another good piece about the idea of having a national bar exam rather than each state having their own.

Quote:

Advocates of a uniform bar exam say that the advantages would benefit both attorneys who would be able to more easily between jurisdictions as well as consumers who could see their legal bills drop.

Just today, I was having lunch with someone who asked me about the bar, and I said I thought it would be cool if we had a national bar exam.  “Yeah,” he said, “But isn’t the law different for every state?”

To which I replied, “Not really.  The law is similar in a lot of places; however, each state may have a particular nuance on an issue that other states won’t have.”  (Locality Rule v. Same or Similar within Profession for med mal standard of care, for example.)  “I mean, if I go from California to Washington I would have to become familiar with Washington law but that’s why other lawyers and legal scholars write treatises to get you up to speed.  Plus, you can always hire law clerks to help bring you up to speed too.”

And really, without written treatises or additional staff to research the differences for you, you can always do it yourself with Westlaw.

 

A National Bar Exam? (And Other Stuff)

A National Bar Exam?

I was perusing my usual list of reading in Google Reader today and came across this interesting bit: a national bar exam, whereupon successful completion, a newly minted Esquire may be certified to practice law in any state he chooses.  Naturally, a lot of law students like this idea despite the fact that many, including myself, consider the Bar exam and most standardized testing an anachronistic waste of time and money.  (Hat Tip: Best Practices for Legal Education Blog, One BAR to rule them all…)  Here’s a quote for ye:

The time to act is now, [Erica Moeser, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, says].  She mentions globalization in the profession, as well as a terrible job market that leaves many students unable to tell what state they’ll be working in when it’s time to sign up for bar exams and prep courses.

I highlighted the relevant language because this ought to be a prime, motivating factor for such an initiative.  I think we have all heard the horror stories about deferred first year associates and massive lay offs.  A national bar exam seems like a good idea.  If one job market looks like crap and you think you might have better odds in the neighboring state, then why not try it out?  It’d be nice if there were no obstacles in your way, like some other state’s exam which will probably cost you some dough at a time when you’re still trying to pay off your student debts (including thousands of dollars of debt incurred for taking bar prep and paying for the bar itself).

Unless God Himself intervenes, however, I (cynically) predict that things will stay exactly the same for some time.  The reason I think this is because state bar examiners still cling to the belief that a licensing exam is the best way to determine who deserves to be a capable attorney.  Also, states like California would not be apt to pick up on a national bar exam because California is a vast maze of legal nuance, thereby ingraining bar examiners into the mindset that a localized bar is better to prepare a would-be attorney for California practice, than a national bar that would not be customized to California’s  particular legal market.  To that I say: Big Deal.  There is a reason why there are treatises like California Jurisprudence and Witkin, etc.: to get lawyers up to speed on what the law is in California.  Oh, and lawyers have clerks too.  Have them do the research if you can’t pick up a state-specific treatise and read it.

All of this doesn’t deflect another concern that the NCBE probably has self-interested motives for advocating a national bar exam, but in standard law school fashion, let’s balance the harm versus the utility of such a thing and see what the less onerous result is.  For the sake of moving things along I’ll wrap this up by just saying I stand for a nationalized exam.  It makes more sense than each state deciding how much of a barrier they want to throw up in front of capable law students who successfully navigated law school.  I wish the NCBE the best; their fight will take years to see some fruition.  (There is another obverse to my pro-national exam: the national exam being harder than the state exam that got replaced; and also the national exam being a complete exercise in ineptitude so that anyone with a functioning brain stem could pass it, but those are blog posts for another time.)

——

Give Teachers More Money

From Adjunct Law Prof Blog, it was reported that some website with a snappy name went and listed the best undergraduate majors by salary.  Naturally, the social sciences had some of the lousiest starting pay.  Speaking as a history major, however, I can tell you that you MUST pick what you love or your undergrad years are going to D-R-A-G.  Nothing drains the spirit by being locked in abysmal classes whose subject matter you cannot stand.  (I was a former computer science major.  Pure hell, I tell you.  So glad I finally saw the light.)

One thing I keep shaking my head is at lousy starting and mid-career pay scales for teachers.  These people deserve the big bucks because they shape the minds of our children, and yet we pay them like they were lowly DMV clerks.  The Adjunct Law Prof says: “[I]t has been known for some time that teachers are not paid the best.  Therefore, very few students go into teaching for the money.  That is how it should be.”  Yeah, but I believe the harder you work the more you should benefit from it, even if teachers already benefit from the satisfaction of expanding young minds.  This is particularly true in a profession where the school administration is automatically antagonistic towards you and will always throw you under the bus when parents complain or threaten legal action.  It makes me think of the people I know in law school who would have stayed in the teaching profession but for the horrible working environment, long hours, stress and low pay for doing something they originally loved but came to hate.  Giving teachers an extra 20K a year is a decent start, I think.

Also from Adjunct:

1. Lawyers talk too much.
2. Students from lower tiered schools are much happier workers.

—–

A New (Approach To) Law School

Last, and certainly not least, there is good friend Brian Baker @ Life on the Outskirts, whose article The Window for New ABA Law Schools is Closing Fast is very interesting.  Mr. Baker premises, inter alia, that the legal education system is changing, personified by the newly established UC Irvine School of Law:

[Dean Irwin Chemerinsky states:] “If we just replicate other law schools, UCI will fail in its unique opportunity to create an ideal law school.” So, what is his plan? Simple, “starting with its first year, when law students will be introduced to the practical tools of their profession through a lawyering-skills class that integrates clinical experience. Then, in their second year, students will work through simulated fact situations, honing their skills in a particular field of civil or criminal law, so that when they are ready to register for a third-year, semester-long clinical course, they will already have a working knowledge of how to represent clients.”

In addition, Dean Chemerinsky plans to introduce inter-disciplinary education into doctrinal courses. For example, the Dean states. “[i]f you’re going to do business or tax law,” he argues, “you’re going to need to know some economics. If you’re going to do criminal law, you need to know some psychology. If you’re going to do patent law, you need to know some engineering. And if you’re going to do environmental law, you need some environmental science.”

This, my friends, is the future of legal education. Not many schools can afford to do it at the tuition levels they charge now. Not many schools will be able to do it with the faculty they have now. This alone will close many law schools and cause many to be merged.

I’m all for the interdisciplinary approach but many law students I have spoken to have no clue what they’re going to practice in, or some, like me, had an idea of what they wanted to do but are learning that that area of the law just isn’t for them.  If I went to UCI, I would hate to think that all my psychology courses were a waste of time once I realized that criminal law was the absolute last thing on this Earth I wanted to do.  However, my argument is premised on the idea that UCI’s interdisciplinary approach means concurrent enrollment in law school courses and undergraduate courses.  Maybe what they meant was having a criminal law class with “psychology of crime” literature sprinkled into the case book (which I wonder if there are any even published).  Oh man, another thought just came to mind: you already know you hate criminal law but have to take it because its a bar course, and now here you are reading cases AND being subjected to case studies on serial killers that absolutely turn your stomach (Dr. Mengele, anyone?).  Plus, how do you fit in all the law and all the interdisciplinary into one course and still manage to get everything covered?  Imagine a contracts class that now has to include Posner’s theories of law and economics.  One of the things I liked about law school was that I no longer had to zone out to “undergrad” reading assignments that I just breezed through with little, if any, critical analysis because such things won’t help you IRAC any better.

Again, the interdisciplinary approach does sound good because I think its a creative alternative to the curriculum that’s in place now but the new system will have kinks to work out like any other.  Good luck to UCI and Dean Chemerinsky.

http://abaaccreditation.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/the-window-for-new-aba-law-schools-is-closing-fast/

 

Search and Leisure

It’s finals time…

I know it’s finals time because I’ve spent the past week looking at outlines and flashcards, trying to stuff as much law into my head as possible.

Been sitting at starbucks for hours on end pouring over this crap.  Down to my last two finals now: property and criminal procedure.

Today I attempted my first property final at my own pace and after four hours my brain hurts.  The problem is that what I’ve written isn’t going to even remotely look like what I’ll write on an actual exam; I won’t have time.  And yet that’s the problem with this class, there is so much stuff to know!

On the other hand there’s criminal procedure which I’ve given very little attention and yet I feel like I know it backwards and forwards…or at least I think I do.  4th Amendment, 5th Amendment, 6th Amendment – that’s about it.  Voluntariness, custodial interrogation, miranda, critical stage, search and seizure, warrants, and exigencies.  Not too bad.

Property: adverse possession, future interests, landlord-tenant, gifts, lost property, nuisance, water, easements, covenants, equitable servitudes, licenses, conveyances (listing agreements, contracts of sale, mortgages, six covenants of title, priority of lenders, title chains, warranty deeds, and security devices), zoning, and eminent domain.  And every topic comes with its own history stemming back to the Middle Ages it seems and some of the history is useful and some of it isn’t.  Well, most of it isn’t but whatever.  Ironic coming from me given that I was once a history major and yet I remonstrate unto you: screw history!

So, for the time being I’m stopping and devoting my energies to searching for a leisure activity.

Not that you needed to know any of this but you went and read the whole thing anyway, so there ya go.

 

Deep in the Trenches (Spring 2009 Edition)

Hey all,

Don’t expect too many posts out of me – currently knee deep in classes.  Some updates:

1. Two thirds of the way through a research paper.  It’s not for class; it’s a public writing competition for the Public Law section of the California State Bar.

2. Still reading for my classes.

3. I’m very anxious to write the next article in my tribal disenrollment series.  I truly had no idea how expansive those things were going to be much less the attention I’ve received from them.  At the very least I hope I’m shedding some light on one of the least-known aspects of federal Indian law and tribal sovereignty.

4. Once the disenrollment series is done I want to focus my attention on my second legal scholarship hobby: the War on Terror.  Currently taking a Law & War on Terror class at school and it’s the greatest thing ever!  Hope to begin writing some things about Gitmo, Obama, and what we’re going to do with present and future detainees.

5. Finally starting to get over this cough.

Best of luck to all of you and thanks for reading!

- Erick Rhoan

 

Deterioration of Legal Writing?

An interesting article from Legal Blog Watch:

A few months back, we posted about the deterioration of legal writing and theorized that the proliferation of e-mail, texting and Twitter — all of which encourage stream-of-consciousness ramblings and careless phrasing — might explain the erosion of writing skills. It turns out there’s a more serious cause: legal education, or lack thereof.

Inside Higher Education reports that results of the 2008 Annual Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE)  show that nearly half of all law students believe that law school does not “contribute substantially” to their ability to “apply legal writing skills” in the real world. Though most students feel that law school offers adequate opportunities to write papers and memos, more than a third wished for hands-on experience in practice-related writing, such as drafting motions or transactional documents.

I came from a graduate degree program before heading to law school and even though I felt like I could write really well, learning how to do it in a legal fashion took some time to learn.  And I still think I don’t have it right yet.

However, I wouldn’t put that on my school or my legal analysis/research professor.  I put that on myself.  Like most law students I have access to WestLaw and Lexis; briefs and motions are always available to view at a moment’s notice.  Legal writing takes practice and let’s face it, some people adapt more quickly than others and for the rest of us we just need time and patience.  If we have allowed our writing skills in general to deteriorate through Facebook, Twitter, etc. it’s not the school’s fault, it’s our own.

The LSSSE study found that few students used computers to download sample copies of briefs that could be used as a writing or study aid.  Instead, many students who use computers in the classroom do so to e-mail each other, surf the Web or play video games.

See what I’m talking about?

[Martha Sperry] recommends integrating legal research and writing into specific substantive courses so that, for example, students could learn to draft articles of incorporation while studying the basics of corporations law.

Now that sounds interesting.  Or how about drafting a contract in your contracts class?  A disclaimer for torts when hitting the products liability section, motion to demurrer in civil procedure, and so on?  Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

At a time when we communicate in sound bites and blog-blurbs and lack the attention span to focus on sentences of more than 140 characters, can legal writing in its present form survive? Or is that the point: Should law schools be focusing on ways to ensure that legal writing keeps its relevance in the age of the Internet?

Let’s not pass the buck.  It’s the law student’s concern that they can’t write well, not the schools.

 

Do we need an LSAT alternative?

Picked up on an interesting post from the Wall Street Journal concerning recent changes to the LSAT.  A law professor and a psychologist at UC Berkeley examined the test and concluded that an alternative is in order.  Here’s two excerpts:

They say the LSAT, with its focus on cognitive skills, does not measure for skills such as creativity, negotiation, problem-solving or stress management, but that they have found promising new and existing tests from the employment context that do.

And:

We “need lawyers with the kind of skill sets that the world needs — like empathy, persuasiveness and the willingness to have the courage to do the right thing — which the LSAT does not measure,” said Jeffrey Brand, dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law.

I can only imagine what the people who scored above 160 would say about this!  Specifically regarding the second quote, my opinion is that if you don’t have those “skill sets” such as empathy, persuasiveness, or courage before you get to law school then you might want to question yourself on why you want to go to law school in the first place.  Unless people think law school will magically imbue these qualities into you – which it won’t.  Certainly law school will teach you to think like a lawyer, master IRAC, and give you training in professional ethics and responsibility, but I see no reason why a standardized test should measure the character of a law school applicant.  That’s why they invented personal statements!

 

Law Student Blogging – Setting Up Your Own Research Blog

Introduction

Laptop Keyboard

According to a March 8^th, 2008 blog post from the Frugal Law Student, every law student should blog.  It is a thesis statement that I whole-heartedly agree with.  Blogging as a means of showcasing one’s research and writing ability has taken hold all over the world.  Law firms have caught on and it is not uncommon to see a firm page have links to their own blog; some law firms’ pages are just the blogs themselves or showcase the blog as the main area of their firm’s website.  One of my favorites is the California Labor & Employment Law Blog maintained by Carlton DiSante & Freudenberger LLP.  Another is the FCPA Blog maintained by CassinLaw LLC.  The California Workforce Resource Blog (maintained by Van Vleck Turner & Zaller LLP) published a February 13^th, 2008 blog article titled: “Why Every Client Should Want a Lawyer Who Blogs.” Both the Frugal Law Student and California Workforce Resource articles revolve around the same themes: clarity of communication, quality of communication, and the potential of future communication – particularly using the blog as a means of marketability and name recognition.

I started Strict Liability in Blog for those reasons: to market myself, my writing and research ability; and to have a little fun, all the while communicating in a clear manner that may someday pay off for me.  Sometimes law school can take a toll on one’s mind after a while (current 1Ls know this all too well) and it helps to have some place of solace, a forum to vent one’s energy or frustrations and oftentimes the comforting anonymity of virtual reality that the internet provides is the perfect shoulder to cry on.  However, the problem with creating a blog to pen your memoirs, diatribes, and praise is that it can lead to ill effects – the least of which is getting sued for defamation or copyright infringement.  At the least actionable end of the spectrum, blogging one’s list of daily activities, thoughts on one’s current reality and how you spent your day off may not be material suitable to be classified as marketing material.  Perhaps most of all, one shouldn’t be so quick to scribe their personal information over the internet.

So, what then, can a law student blogger do to release a little energy, have fun, and build up a reputation as a person who knows to how handle an AmJur as deftly as a multi-connected keyword search on WestLaw?  The answer I chanced upon was to start my own legal research blog.

Write and Research What Interests You

Strict Liability in Blog sticks to California law because I’m a California law student though occasionally I venture into federal law, but even then it’s usually limited to 9^th Circuit holdings.  You may decide to set up your blog to focus on the research of law from your particular state or jurisdiction.  From there, you could then focus the entire blog to just researching and writing about one particular aspect of the law such as products liability, personal injury, bankruptcy, or something else.  Maybe common law is not your thing – you’d rather dive into the world of federal statutes: the Americans with Disabilities Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, or the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  Maybe it’s not so much the law as it is the policy behind the law that gives us these statutes to which our courts then tackle and interpret.  I decided that my interest were far to varied to just lock myself into one area of law or one statute so I write when and where the mood strikes me.  Today I might publish an article on the status of the law on spouses intercepting their (supposedly) cheating spouses in California; and tomorrow I might decide to voice my opinion and status of the law to disenrolled Native Americans.  The next day I might get around to finishing that California dog bite statute article or I may decide to hold it off and write about something else.

Regardless of what happens you should write about what interests you and have fun with it.  It’s your blog – there are many like it but this one is yours.  What are you into?  What are your hobbies?  Loves?  Interests?  What’s going on in your world?

• Suppose you are a California graduate student under the employ of a public University as a teacher’s aide. Are you considered an employee with a protected right to engage in the bargaining process or are you precluded from asserting this right? That’s an article.
• You just received notice via email that your item for sale on eBay was bought but now the winning bidder does not want to pay. The value of the item is substantial. Can you sue? Can he sue back? Should you sue? What procedures come first before filing suit? That’s an article.
• You’re moving out of your apartment and your landlord decides he’s not going to return the security deposit. What’s the law in your state say? What did you go through? How do small claims clinics work? Another article.

To quote myself:

In the realm of legal research blogging is my way of exhaling; just as one can’t hold all the air in them for fear of suffocating, I can’t just learn about all this cool stuff and not share it.

Quick Tips

• If and when you cite cases, statutes, law reviews, etc. be sure to do so in the manner that you have been trained.  I was trained to use the California Style Manual but you may have been trained to use the Bluebook, ALWD, or whatever.

• It’s okay, in my opinion, to have a few non-research posts to let people know what you’re up to – it will break up the tone and mix things up a little, letting people know that not only can you write and research, but you are still a human being with things to do and activities to perform.  The following article sums up my thoughts exactly:

Blogging on diverse topics, including very light ones, is not taken to undercut your expertise among law professionals who understand how blogging works. These people are valuable readers, who will bond with you if you have a personality, write clearly, say some sharp things, and post every day. They will check in frequently in the hope of being charmed or surprised or stimulated in some new way. When you have a law-related post up, they’ll be seeing that too and interested in what you, and especially you, have to say.  In this way, the non-law posts reinforce the law posts.  (Althouse, Why a Narrowly Defined Legal Scholarship Blog is Not What I Want: An Argument in Pseudo-Blog Form (June 2006) University of Wisconsin Law School <http://ssrn.com/abstract=898171> (as of October 4, 2008).

• HAVE FUN.

The Boundaries of Free Speech & Quotes to Know

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”  (U.S. Const., 1st Amend.)

“…the First Amendment leaves no room for the operation of a dual standard in the academic community with respect to the content of speech…”  (Papish v. Board of Curators of University of Missouri (1973) 410 U.S. 667, 671 [93 S.Ct. 1197; 35 L.Ed.2d 618].)

“The freedom of speech has its limits; it does not embrace certain categories of speech, including defamation, incitement, obscenity, and pornography…”  (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) 535 U.S. 234, 245 [122 S.Ct. 1389; 152 L.Ed.2d 403].)

 

Everything Begins Anew

Law, Love and Peace

On Monday, August 18th, 2008 my second year of law school will officially begin.

For the past two and a half months I made sure to cram in as much stuff as I could possibly could: hanging out with my friends, going to Colorado where I learned to ride ATVs and horses; did some target shooting with a .22 rifle; I spent four incredible weeks in Las Vegas hanging out and partying like there was no tomorrow, and also lounging poolside working on my tan; and of course, publishing new material for this blog. I even took two summer school courses while I was at it.

A word about summer school: it was awesome – not just because I did really well on my courses but because I came to summer school armed with a good sense of what I was capable of as a law student.  With my strengths already mapped out and defined from the 1L-hell period I just put myself into cruise control and sailed into Tribal Sovereign Immunity and Public Labor Law like nothing could hurt me and I had everything to gain.  And gain I did, I got my GPA up, and supposedly I was the second highest score in Public Labor Law but that fact remains unsubstantiated.  But I’ll believe it anyway.  Heh.

So, now my beautiful summer comes to an end leaving me with cherished memories of the experience, things and people that incorporated into that summer.  Currently I’m taking a break from reading my first assignments for the following classes:

1. Real Property
2. Business Organizations
3. Criminal Law & Procedure
4. Analytical Process
5. Professional Responsibility (in the Spring of ’09)

Being a law student does some things to you.  It breaks you down, smashes you like an anxious kid busting open his piggy bank to collect the valuable, shiny coins he so desires, and then slowly, right around the end of the first or second month something cool happens – you start thinking like a lawyer.  Suddenly you start seeing the world through different eyes.  Driving down the road in clogged traffic becomes an exercise in spotting issues of negligence, watching an enraged baseball team charging the field to combat the opposing team over some incendiary action is watching real-life examples of intentional torts, browsing appliances and electronics products in Best Buy engenders thoughts of products liability (manufacturing, design or warning defects?), and walking your dog brings to mind strict liability. These things I have come to see and so much more, and very soon I will learn to see a different set of rules that underlie the fabric of our society.

I wouldn’t trade the past year for anything and nothing can put a price tag on the summer of 2008.  The fall of 2008 is at the steps and the academic clock is wound up, ready to begin ticking when the doors of graduate schools all over the country welcome students for the first time and those returning for another accumulation of knowledge.

Good luck to every 1L and every returning law student this year!

 

Vacation

Off to Colorado, will be back in a week or so, just in time to start work and begin my summer semester at SJCL. 

Thanks to all my readers who’ve stopped by and listened to me spew boring law stuff.  Researching case law and statutes usually turns the stomachs of my law school friends, but there’s a few of us (me included) that actually eat this stuff up and really love it.  Even with new technological research advancements like WestLaw or Lexis I must admit that sometimes nothing beats heading into the library and pulling out the hardbound reporters and supplements, strolling through volumes of Witkin and California Jurisprudence.  If anyone from school is reading this I hope they’re not rolling their eyes ;)

In the realm of legal research blogging is my way of exhaling; just as one can’t hold all the air in them for fear of suffocating, I can’t just learn about all this cool stuff and not share it.  My inspiration to start this thing came from this blog post from the Frugal Law Student: Why Every Law Student Should Blog

I hope at the very least I have been informational and maybe, perhaps…entertaining?  But for whatever reason you came here and stuck around to read more than two words of my drivel I say thank you.

Thank you and keep reading!