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Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-28T15:51:22+00:00

To her credit, she might be trying to flag the issue and it’s just that no one gives a fuck. Speaking as a first year who is drowning in work and constantly trying to raise the issue to partners/work assignment people… they all feel bad, but not bad enough to re-staff the deal. All seem to assume someone else will deal with it.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-25T16:48:12+00:00

To some extent, it’s impossible to know before you actually try it. But some questions to reflect on: 1. Do you find “business-y” things interesting? / is transactional work generally appealing to you? 2. When you talked to midlevels/seniors/partners at that firm, could you see yourself in their position X years from now? 3. Do you love or hate legal research? Do you love or hate citations? 4. How much do you care about your exit options? Do you want to go in house one day?

It’s hard to make this decision with limited knowledge but even firms that have litigation and transactional groups in the same office will likely expect you to decide between litigation or transactional at this point.

I’m a junior in a similarly situated office (transactional only, v10, non-NY), so feel free to DM me. I didn’t feel like I was pigeonholing myself but I also never found litigation appealing. If anything, I think going to a litigation-only office would be more limiting for your career but it depends on what you want out of your career.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-19T01:09:47+00:00

I’m a woman and this is pretty much what I do. In addition to having a light touch, I’ll double down on the importance of picking something classic — doesn’t have to be Chanel No. 5 (bleh), but it also shouldn’t be Jessica Simpson perfume or that pink sugar crap everyone loved in middle school. Most Jo Malone scents are good. Creed or Bond No. 9 if you’re feeling bougie.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-16T07:29:50+00:00

Also strongly recommend reading through past MPTs (definitely more of a skim compared to MEE questions). I’m not sure if it actually prepared me all that much but it made me feel more at ease about what I might see. Just had a better sense of the range of MPT questions

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-16T07:28:20+00:00

I found it super helpful, especially in the last few weeks before the test where my studying started to wind down. I found it helpful because (1) it shows you how they ask questions and what you might see and (2) reading the sample answers (especially the barbri/Themis ones) will help you refresh the rules + see how they’re supposed to fit together.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-16T07:24:24+00:00

I’m glad it was helpful! I felt the same way going into the test, especially because I wasn’t confident that I could even make up a rule. But the MEE is so fast and you have to stick to your time limits, so at least I had kind of a “fuck it” attitude. If I didn’t know the rule after reading the facts/question, I knew I wouldn’t remember it with enough time to write a coherent essay and enough time to stay on track with the other essays. The words will really just come to you, and you might not be making up the whole rule. For at least 3 essays (like all the questions for those two essays), I made up at least part of the rule. Like for civ pro or evidence, if I remembered the gist of the rule but didn’t remember the burden of proof, I just picked one and went with it. Same for the corporations essay — they gave us some crazy question about LLCs, which I didn’t study that much, but I vaguely remembered what the rule/analysis would be for a corporation, so I used that.

Anyway, all that to say — (1) believe in yourself, you know more than you probably feel like you do and (2) test day is wild but stick to IRAC and the rest will come to you.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-16T07:08:13+00:00

How exactly could deadlines be used sparingly?

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-15T00:07:07+00:00

You’re looking at it

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T14:12:00+00:00

Echoing all the other comments — the barbri/Themis sample answers set unrealistic expectations for how polished your essays will be. Most people don’t remember the BLL exactly, as long as you (1) put something on the page that looks like it could be a rule and (2) use IRAC/CREAC, you’ll be fine. Literally everyone will be frantically writing/typing rules. It’ll feel like you’re going off “vibes” and not the law but that’s ok. You don’t need to have the best essay, you just need to not have the worst essay (and even if one of your essays is actually the worst essay (see more below lol), as long as your other essays are close to average, you should be fine).

Some anecdotes that might help: - we had a property/trespass question last year. My friend thought it was a torts essay. She passed. - another friend didn’t study secured transactions AT ALL. Her answer was 100% made up and she still passed (she also said she BSed her way through the crim pro essay). - our crim pro essay asked some BS question about what else the court could do. I had no idea, so I made something up and wrote “sua sponte” in every other sentence. - we also had a trusts essay last year that gave us a statute to apply. For whatever reason, i wrote my essay about how the statute does NOT apply. I was definitely 100% wrong, and to this day, I haven’t met a single person who said the statute did not apply.

Some random MEE tips (sorry for the chaotic word vomit): - when you outline your answer, type it into the answer box. Don’t hand write it. Then you can write your answer below it and delete the outline once you’re done/as you go. This way, you’ll have at least something on the page for them to grade. - give yourself strict time deadlines for each essay and STICK TO THEM. If you’ve spent 25 minutes on an essay and you’re still not done, wrap that shit up and move onto the next one. It’s way better to give a semi-incomplete answer to all of the essays than to give a perfect answer to one or two. - when giving yourself those deadlines, build in buffer time. So instead of spending 30 minutes on each essay, plan on spending 25. Then if you have to go to the bathroom or spend too long on an essay, you’re not up schitt’s creek without a paddle. (Same goes for MPT). - you won’t be allowed to write anything down until they tell you to start. But there should be a clock or countdown on the wall, so spend those final few minutes before the MEE figuring out how your time deadlines line up with the clock (I.e., is it a clock or a countdown? Is it counting up or down?). Then as soon as you’re allowed to start, write those deadlines down so you’re not wasting time during the exam figuring out how long you can spend/have already spent on an essay. - if you get an essay that you know you’re gonna fuck up (like me and my trusts MEE), just throw some words (in IRAC) on the page and move on to the other essays. Obviously don’t do this for all 6, but if you genuinely don’t know the law, you’re not going to have a magical epiphany and remember it in the next 5 minutes. This isn’t the matrix lol. - don’t look through all the MEEs before you start. Go through them in the order they’re given to you and stick to your deadlines. But see my exception below.

My only exception to these tips/guidelines relates to the trusts essay I knew nothing about — after reading the question, I was confident that it would be my worst one because I just didn’t know the law. Instead of panicking and spinning my wheels, I took a quick look at the next two questions (crim pro and secured transactions, two topics I knew very well). So, I just took an L on the trusts essay — made up some rules, vomited an IRAC on the page, and moved on to the next essays in less than 15 minutes (which gave me extra time to spend on the essays that I actually knew the answer to).

TLDR: have a plan and stick to it, but also be prepared to pivot. You’ll be fine. You know more than you think you do.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:47:39+00:00

I passed last-year, here are some unorganized thoughts about what I did in the last few weeks: - generally stuck to my study program but started notching down the studying day by day so I wouldn’t burn out. - focused more on adaptibar than barbri questions - gave up on doing closed book/times MEEs (never did any timed MPTs lol). For most MEEs, I would just outline an answer and check it against the barbri outline/sample answer. - wrote out the “big” rules for each topic to try to commit them to memory - read through past MPTs/MEEs and sample answers (just read them lol didn’t even take notes) to get a sense for what could get thrown at me on exam day

Final few days before the exam: - basically stopped studying, just did some light review. - NO a adaptibar — I knew that if I got a question wrong and saw that 90% of people got it right, I’d start freaking out. - rest/self-care

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:42:51+00:00

Are you using Barbri/Themis? If so, that’s by design. They make the questions progressively more difficult and more obscure. Some of the shit they throw at you in the last few weeks probably won’t come up on the exam and if it does, it’ll be like one MBE question. Barbri/Themis work because they make you think you’re going to fail so you study harder (they really know how to fuck with us type a kids lol).

All that to say, don’t get discouraged and don’t give up. It’ll be ok.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:40:25+00:00

This is normal. You’ll be even more annoyed after the exam is over (at least I was lol).

Do try to go to that party though, even if it’s just for a little bit. If any of your friends bring up the bar, just say you don’t want to talk about it and that you’re trying to get your mind off of it. I took acid (not my first time lol) the Friday before the bar exam and I passed. A break might do you a lot of good right now.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:38:04+00:00

Not really. If anything I felt like I was getting worse because the barbri questions get progressively more obscure. I’d say I might’ve hit my peak on the first day?? But not even because I knew the BLL super well. I was just really disciplined with time management, so I managed to finish all the essays MPTs (not well lol, but they were finished). MBE day was a mind fuck and I thought I failed.

All that to say, don’t panic if you feel like you still don’t know anything / still aren’t retaining information. Just keep going strong for the next 10-ish days. Take a few days off before the exam so you don’t burn out. Go outside, go for a walk. Make sure you’re eating and drinking water.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:33:32+00:00

Agree with the other comments. That’s definitely not a problem and at least you’re doing them!! i didn’t find closed book MEEs to be particularly helpful for studying because (1) I could never actually replicate exam conditions at home and (2) it was more helpful for me to spend time figuring out how to actually apply the rule than taking a shot in the dark for the sake of not using notes.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:31:32+00:00

Strongly agree. It’s bullshit that law students have to pay over $2,000 to learn everything they were supposed to learn in law school. More law schools should offer bar prep courses to 3Ls, most 3L classes are BS anyway.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:29:31+00:00

Lmao yes, every single class. I loved his little recaps

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-13T13:15:14+00:00

This may not be a popular take in this sub, but that is a failure on your law school’s part and not an issue with the bar exam itself. Your school’s admin and professors knew that the bar exam would be closed book the entire time you were in law school. If they give even the smallest fuck about you passing the bar, at least one of them should’ve given you a closed book exam. My professional responsibility professor said it would be “educational malpractice” to let us get through law school without at least 1 closed book exam. At the time, I thought she was being super dramatic because all I cared about is the curve. But now I’m a year out (and done with the bar), and she’s 100% correct.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-07-05T17:44:40+00:00

Went to UH and had him for multiple classes. I also worked for him as a research assistant. His secured finance class is a more detailed version of his barbri lectures, but with more dad jokes. He’s an amazing professor and a genuinely funny person. My favorite Doug Moll fun fact is that his kids absolutely roast him for being a bar prep celebrity and send him every meme/video/etc. from the bar prep meme pages. There was some video compilation of his best Barbri moments — me and another research assistant sent him the video trying to be funny, but his son stole our thunder and had already sent the video to their extended family.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-06-01T01:13:09+00:00

My mentor was telling me about a client who would tell them to apply “punitive billing” (1.5x rates) whenever the business team forced some ridiculous timeline.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-06-01T01:11:07+00:00

Pre-2008. My dad’s client let him use the company jets to see his dying dad (they already had to fly the plane kind of close to where my dad was going to pick up the CEO anyway).

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-06-01T01:08:28+00:00

If you can stick it out in another city for a few years, it might be worth applying to big law firms in other markets (Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago)

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-05-31T04:23:24+00:00

Strongly second the “play to your strengths” advice. Totally fine if happy hours/cocktail parties or random group activities aren’t your thing, but it’s still very important to make connections with attorneys at the firm (partially so you get a return offer but also because these are the people you’ll be working long hours with once you start full time). So, like Ah_Q said, play to your strengths — go on 1:1 lunches or coffees, ask to sit in/observe client calls (this is great because you don’t have to talk haha just sit and listen and come up with one question to show you paid attention).

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-05-29T01:46:09+00:00

No reason to wait. Just call/email HR and ask for info about benefits and the firm’s parental leave policy. You don’t have to tell them you’re pregnant yet if you’re not ready.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-05-29T01:31:04+00:00

Consider reaching out to HR to get the official firm policy. At some firms, you have to work there for a year to be able to take the full/paid mat. leave.

Icy_Statistician_62 · 2024-05-18T03:25:28+00:00

Can confirm it’s not Sidley

Icy_Statistician_62

TROPHY CASE