Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Hey! Don't make me come over there!

I had to delete a couple of comments by people sending out negative waves, man.  Like, that's just the wrongest, dude.

First day's over.  No recap for, or from, me.

Going to go over PT formats tonight.  That one today was unusual.  But that's all I've got to say about that!

Get some rest, folks.  One day down, two days to go.

Cheers!

62 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really? I forgot my watch so I ended 20 minutes early... Oh well, it's MBEs for me now.

Best wishes and maybe I'll see u tomorrow in Pasadena.

Anonymous said...

great mindset, GP.

get some rest tonight and stay positive for the marathon.

youre a winner.

nail those mbe's tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

Good job poobah!!!! wish you the best of luck and know that we are all out here cheering for you! Go poobah go!!

Anonymous said...

Go GP! I'll be keeping the faith for you until you pass this thing! I believe!!

Anonymous said...

Good luck, playuh.

JLB said...

Good luck dude!

Hana said...

All the best - I am firmly on rooting for you!

Anonymous said...

honestly - you can do this thing! 5th time was the charm for me. And i mean that with all due sincerity - the frustration is the wait, not the exam. Besides the mbe day sounds like it's almost "fun" for you - just drills. You'll be pumped for tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Again, I'm not going to blow smoke up your skirt. The Bar sucks. It sucks everywhere but particularly in CA. It's awful and horrible and even shook the earth with it's evil about a year and a half ago, as you will recall.

I want you to pass. I really, really do. And if I could go and sit beside you I would. But I already did that once and it didn't work out so great for you. So will you please hurry up and pass already so I can take that trip to Palm Springs off my Day Planner?

All the luck in the world, neighbor. All the luck in the world.

Anonymous said...

Good luck to you. As a fellow former IT person, of the same age I know the challanges of making the switch. I also know many people who paseed after several attempts who are excellent lawyers.

We swapped a few emails back in 08 when I took the bar, but I still check in every now and again.

I look forward to seeing you in court!

Anonymous said...

what was UP with this morning's MBE? The morning was impossible, the afternoon a breeze (relatively). Ugh. Maybe I was just tired this morning, but the stark contrast between the difficulty level was just insane!

Anonymous said...

I actually felt it was the other way around.

This afternoon kicked my butt. Oy.

Any sages out there have predictions on tomorrow's essays?

Good luck all!

The Grand Poobah said...

There are two versions of the MBEs. Half of us get one or the other of the sets in the morning and they switch in the afternoon.

So, we each think one of the sets was tougher than the other one, the only difference is that some of us had the easy one in the morning and the rest of us got it in the afternoon (like I did).

And I definitely think the set with the last question being about the voluntarily intoxicated guy trying to show negated intent for attempted murder and/or battery was the tougher set.

The Grand Poobah said...

There are two versions of the MBEs. Half of us get one or the other of the sets in the morning and they switch in the afternoon.

So, we each think one of the sets was tougher than the other one, the only difference is that some of us had the easy one in the morning and the rest of us got it in the afternoon (like I did).

And I definitely think the set with the last question being about the voluntarily intoxicated guy trying to show negated intent for attempted murder and/or battery was the tougher set.

The Grand Poobah said...

There are two versions of the MBEs. Half of us get one or the other of the sets in the morning and they switch in the afternoon.

So, we each think one of the sets was tougher than the other one, the only difference is that some of us had the easy one in the morning and the rest of us got it in the afternoon (like I did).

And I definitely think the set with the last question being about the voluntarily intoxicated guy trying to show negated intent for attempted murder and/or battery was the tougher set.

The Grand Poobah said...

Ack! Delayed response at the crappy hotel/motel/inn I'm at caused the duplicate entries. What the heck, I'm going to leave them there ...

unless I don't.

Anonymous said...

Good luck, GP.

Anonymous said...

yes -that is the one that was REALLY tough. What the ???
The difference in difficulty was jarring.

Anonymous said...

Good luck, GP. I hope you rock the exam!

Anonymous said...

~~~~OK PEOPLE~~~~

E N J O Y Y O U R L A S T
B A R ! ! !

UR ALL PASSING! K, OK!

kris said...

is it PTs today?

kick em in the ass!

All the best and hope you are able to collapse on the beach with a cold one.

Anonymous said...

Way to go, GP. You just did something you're not supposed to do with respect to the MBEs: You disclosed a question on the test. TO THE WHOLE WORLD!

Anonymous said...

I took the bar in July and I remember one set of MBEs being much tougher than the other set. I think that's completely normal. Plus, if you don't think they are hard, you're probably missing something. Keep on keepin on!

Anonymous said...

OK - seriously, are we guinea pigs or what. In so many ways. #1 and #4 - ?????? when has that happened. Ever? Bizarro. 5 hours left ....!!!

Anonymous said...

Oh my god. I never got around to defining "regulatory taking."

I forgot to discuss what makes a pre-nup acceptable.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. That last PT was just intense - I was so determined to not screw it up that I was like a maniac. But, neither of my pts was that long. :(

Anonymous said...

Holla at a playuh!

Jonathan L. Kramer, Esq. said...

There will be a lot of time to do the what-iffing later. For now, I simply congratulate all of you to took this bear (again).

The only way to truly fail the bar exam is to give up before you pass the bastard.

Jonathan Kramer, Esq.

PS: I'm mighty proud of Brian. jlk

Anonymous said...

I can't believe I haven't crashed yet...

So, this time I WILL continue studying. I will not stop, I will not stop, I will study and study until I see my name on that pass list. I WILL NEVER CRAM TRUSTS in one day, and i will practice every subject, and I will not start in May.

Good luck to everyone and enjoy the weekend.

Anonymous said...

Good luck to all......

Anonymous said...

Alright.. of course, of course, I'm not suppose to ask questions about the bar exam, but I just need'a: what was the relevance of the prenup agreement in the CP question?

Anonymous said...

For the prenup, you were supposed to headnote it as an issue and state "It's something that you need to have, cuz if she leaves, she gonna leave with half."

Who knew Kanye West understood community property.

Anonymous said...

Okay. That's what I did. Good to know I got all the points.

Anonymous said...

What was the point of having a divorced wife on the wills/ trust question on Day 1?

Anonymous said...

Point? Nothing.
Issues? (1) Omitted Spouse; (2) General Rule that Gifts For Spouses Are Not Enforced at Divorce, Unless Intent Shows That It Was Intended To

Although, that issue just ends in her getting nothing; so there is really no point in it other than to talk about it.

I only talked about (1), I didn't touch (2).. because I just realized now.

That's why it's recommended you're not suppose to talk about the BAR, because a lot of stress for no reason: can't change the outcome, and I could be wrong anyways.

:)

Anonymous said...

You are not wrong.. that was why that spouse was there... to say that any gift to her made prior to divorce is no longer valid after divorce

Anonymous said...

You are all RIGHT! The correct answer has most of the issues, but not all. You're not supposed to know and be able to write ALL the issues, you're supposed to be able to point out AT LEAST the most important ones, resolving the crux of the question. The little issues are extra points... Arguing the crux issues gets you the passing grade. All the rest get you an 80.
As far as the MBEs, I didn't have an intox/murder at the end of my morning nor pm session. Talking about it with my friends, she had the 15 I had the 26 in the morning. We realized we had the same questions in different order in the morning. But both sets have a jumbled version of the same set.

If you have doubts about passing, keep reviewing or wait and promise yourself you'll study/practice more next time. That promise has worked great for me 5 times!!!
It's summer guys, who wants to study in the summer? Do it now!

Anonymous said...

You hear that Brian... DON'T STOP!!!! Don't keep doing it hard core, but keep at it until you see ur name on the pass list. Keep the material fresh in your mind so you can add more info and build on it. Worse case scenario,(if we don't pass) you can practice daily a little in the summer, and you don't have to subject your life/work/family to stop-the-presses-barstudying and hard core drama.

It's just a test... We will not GIVE UP!

Unknown said...

I think crazy essay #5 was based on this US Supreme Court case: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=99-2047

I think I kinda got it, but my whole essay was like one page long.

Robin

Anonymous said...

February 26, 2010 9:32 AM-- That is hilarious!!!! Good luck to all who took the test from a successful repeater. :)

Anonymous said...

The prenuptial agreement specified H and W's earnings during marriage would be SP. If pre-nup is valid, no need to discuss Pereira/Van Camp (SP business, CP earnings). But since this is the bar exam, we should go with "If prenup invalid as H asserts,earnings are CP" then we need Pereira/VC and discuss. I tried to do the calculations and it was impossible (for me)

Unknown said...

My take on the CP essay was this: the prenup said "wages". wages is not necessarily the same thing as efforts, which is what defines CP. Many people who own businesses take wages which are not really related to their efforts. So I based my analysis on the difference between wages and efforts. The facts gave us a difference...that the wife got $25K in wages but the value of her services was $40K. So I went ahead with Pereira & Van Camp, because under the facts, her efforts created a CP interest.

Unknown said...

Also, this essay asked for an analysis of what happens to a business between separation and trial. Normally, assets are valued as of the date of trial, but in this fact pattern the business decreased in value between separation and trial, so there was a discussion there.

Anonymous said...

What about the wife who divorced her husband on q.3 of day 1 (wills/trust). Why was she in the question? Were you supposed to talk about that she was due some divison of cp on divorce?

Unknown said...

I'm not sure why there was a divorced spouse in the trust question, but maybe to get her out of the picture so she would not be an omitted spouse. I think I screwed up that question by giving Carl $100K. I think he got 1/3 of nothing because there was no probate estate to distribute.

Anonymous said...

The point of the last part of question 3 was that the marriage was NOT a final dissolution. The facts simply stated that they only "dissolved" their marriage.

Under the CA Probate code, the spouse can still take her intestate share until there has been a FINAL DISSOLUTION of the marriage. I double checked to see whether there wasnt a final dissolution, and there wasn't.

Unknown said...

I think the word "dissolved" means there was a final dissolution.

Anonymous said...

What about call 3 on the Comm. Prop essay? Did one totally blow it if they called it an SP debt due to her means to pay the bill?

Also on q 4 did you have to go through a total contracts formation thing before really getting into the specific performance and defenses?
Calibration person, please respond!

Unknown said...

On CP call #3 I said it was an SP debt because it was incurred after separation.

On that second contracts question, I think they are going to label that one a pure remedies question. I didn't discuss any formation issues at all but started with SOF and hit all the remedies I could think of.

Anonymous said...

Robin,
You made my day:)

Anonymous said...

Last call for Question 6 (CP property question), you had to discuss how the debt was a necessary (even after the community has ended) and therefore the Husband would need to pay for it (You are still liable after permanent sep for necessaries of the other spouse). That was the whole point. He be entitled to reimbursement if W had SP property available at such time.


Remedies questions, you had to talk about equity and legal defenses, in addition to attacking the elements of specific performance, i.e. lack of inadequate legal remedy, feasibility of enforcement, etc.

Lastly, even though I did not get it, I think another poster said you need a final dissolution. I think that is a very smart, technical way of arguing, considering the circumstances.

Unknown said...

Oy! You're right & I blew that one. Family Code Section 2623.

I've been working in a family law practice for 13 years and have never seen that come up! Maybe that's because in real life, there are support orders in place that make that section inapplicable.

On Westlaw, 2623 has almost no annotations....the closest case to the bar question was from 1948, showing how infrequently it actually comes up. Ergo, the bar examiners love it....

Anonymous said...

there was a bar question I forget what year... where a debt arose for medical necessities for wife's cocaine addiction treatment.... that happened after marriage but before dissolution... on that essay it was allocated a Community debt even though the treatment was after permanent separation... the rationale was along the lines of "necessaries of life"

Anonymous said...

did anybody talk about "partnership by estoppel" and took the torts approach ie negligence, vicariuous liability before discussing the PR issues?

Unknown said...

I didn't, but I do see a potential argument there.

Anonymous said...

For Agency/Partnerships I did discuss Partnership by Estoppel after I talked about how to form an LLP(and why their LLP was defective) since there was colorable compliance. I probably went too far and did a separate section on partnerships despite their clear intent to form an LLP. I dunno! I probably shouldn't be thinking about this crap.

Unknown said...

Well, it's my 4th attempt and I think it's a good idea to do an in depth analysis of everything you did wrong. First because that helps improve future performance and second because they do revisit issues twice in a row, so anything from the current test could be on the next one.

Anonymous said...

yep.. they may revisit an issue or two... just be ready for anything tough.. I kept thinking property was up .... and studied property heavily in the last days...I thought they might hit us with evidence again... boy was I wrong... anyway, I just hope I did not go in a tangent by discussing negligence of the partership and respondat superior by the hiring of the computer graduate/thief... PR only talked about duty of confidentiallity/attorney privilege, duty of competence, fee splitting ABA and CA, and how attorney's should not restrict their liability by forming LLC's ... as for Con law... when are they just going to test a 1st amendment problem??? ugh...

Unknown said...

I was also ready for property, evidence, and the 1st amendment. It's like those bastards are psychic. They test whatever we don't study!

I also discussed negligence & R.S. on the P.R. question. Also duty to supervise under P.R.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't the takings issue a property essay?

The Grand Poobah said...

Yes, and not just. The government can't take one's property without just compensation. So, Constitutional issues are involved.

Unknown said...

I thought it was a pure constitutional law essay. If there were property issues to talk about, I missed them. Zoning? I think I did mention something about zoning, but in the context of taking. However I still don't get why they asked about partial & total.

The Grand Poobah said...

Right. The question was about real property, but the solution sounded in Con Law.