Slaying Dragons... Good Idea?!?

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I'm slaying my own personal Civ Pro dragon today. I think I've only half-assed that subject up to this point and, now that I've confirmed with the Bar that they're going to let me within 100 feet of the door on the 24th, I think I'd better kill off as many personal demons as I can before the Big Show.

Evidence is another dragon that I have to finish off. After our last battle I let it slink off to the back of its cave in the hope that I'd dealt it a mortal blow. However, I'm hearing rustling sounds emanating from that hole in the ground, and little wisps of steam are occasionally escaping. It looks like I'm going to have to go back in there with my new and improved California sword and shield.

Okay, enough with the medieval swords and sorcery metaphors.

My Con Law needs some brushing up. I can handle Equal Protection and both varieties of Due Process, but I haven't looked at zoning issues lately. But I've got the First Amendment stuff down pretty well and I figure that zoning's kind of like free speech in that the state can regulate reasonably, but a complete regulation can be a taking if the owner is left without any commercially practical use of the property, and therefore it's unconstitutional when it's done through a zoning ordinance. Unless, of course, the state compensates, in which case it becomes a real taking and the whole zoning issue goes to the background. I think. Or is that Real Property? See, I really do have to look at that again.

And there seems to be something of a consensus that the Commerce Clause may pop up along with its evil twin, the Dormant Commerce Clause. But I did a lot of that in school so that shouldn't be too difficult to resurrect.

Hmmm… might as well go through all of the subjects while I'm at it. Buckle up, there's turbulence ahead.

I beat Criminal Law to death (pun intended) for the baby bar so I'll spend less time on that. Plus, because they just did a full- blown murder question in February it's not likely to appear again. Especially because they have to leave something out to make way for the new stuff. But who really knows what evil lies in the hearts of the California State Bar Administrators. (Moowhahaha… (evil laugh)). In fact, append that last sentence to every paragraph from here on out.

Criminal Procedure - I feel pretty good about this. I’m only weak in the non-mainstream issues there. Stuff like indigent rights and the Eighth Amendment. I’ll look at it again but not for a more than a few hours. (Insert evil laugh, State Bar comment here.)

Contracts/Sales – I used to know this pretty well but it’s been years since I dug into it extensively. Third party rights, assignments, and those darn construction contract scenarios tend to trip me up. Over all, though, I wouldn’t mind seeing one of these. Unfortunately, no one predicts a Contracts essay.

Torts – I’ve heard predictions for a defamation/invasion of privacy fact pattern. Again, I feel pretty good about Torts and especially those sub-areas. One of these would make me happy.

Remedies – I need to look closer at this subject because it’s a fundamental component of many other subjects and I know they’ll want to see in-depth analysis of the available remedies along with clear rule statements. I should spend some time reinforcing this subject.

Business Associations – I had a great Corporations professor so I feel good about this subject. And I’ve heard three separate bar review sources predict a Federal Securities question. I’ll make sure I review this one again though because I know it can be a racehorse. Especially when you get into the duties of directors, officers, other miscellaneous insiders, majority shareholders, tippers, tippees, etc. The 10b5 analysis is pretty straightforward but I have to brush up on the 16b short-swing-profits formula for when the trader buys high and sells low and doesn’t appear to make money but the SEC considers some of those transactions to be profitable based on the starting price or something. Anyway, that shouldn’t take too much time. As far as Agency goes, all I really feel good about is the general agency elements that are found in all of the other subjects. I need to examine the Conviser more closely on this one. And I’ve looked at the Partnerships outline in the Conviser and it seems pretty straightforward. I’m thinking I should probably look up some Partnership fact patterns from East Coast schools. I understand they test this subject back there. If anyone has some, perhaps you could e-mail them to me? If you can, send them to: tortious777@gmail.com

Community Property – I’m comfortable here, except I need to nail down the rules on transmutations and the dates that affect the need for writings.

Wills – I’m comfortable with Wills but I need to look at DRR and republication again, as well as the effect of holographic codicils on formal wills. And the incorporation of attachments that have independent significance as well as the timing issues that can come up there. Oh, and per stirpes too. (Whenever I say per stirpes, I think of Red Stripe Beer.)

Trusts - I feel okay here but I’ll need to look at it again. Duties of trustees, formation and the types of trusts; I’ll spend a few of my remaining hours here. Especially since someone predicted a Wills/Trusts essay.

That leaves Professional Responsibility. Someone predicted a full-blown PR essay. And, because it seems to rear its ugly head in almost every fact pattern, I’ll be trying to come up with an essay template for this. This subject is tough to outline though because there’s not much structure to it. There’s certainly not as much structure as a negligence or contract formation question. I’ll likely be spending another whole day here.

Of course, append the evil State Bar sentence here for final effect.

Hey, look, I wasted almost an hour here… Good Idea? I think not.

But it did help me to sort things out a bit. And if you’re still reading this, you’re wasting valuable study time! Get back to work!

(;-)>