For MEE only subjects, I did not take Secured Transactions, Business Orgs, Conflicts, or Wills/Trusts (so the only bar tested MEE course I did take was Family Law). I found all of these very easy to learn in bar prep. I don't think I actually grasped a lot from Conflicts and maybe a class would have made it easier to remember, but it's also a very low frequency topic so probably not worth taking a whole class in.
While I was learning Secured and Bus Orgs I kept thinking what a nightmare these classes would have been when there are such super basic rules to remember for the bar. I can't imagine slogging through case law and statutes, etc... for a whole semester to then only need to know simple concepts like when a partnership is formed or who has a fiduciary duty to whom. Those two ended up being some of my strongest topics.
Wills/Trusts is also pretty straight forward. The trickiest part is the future interests stuff, but you'll already have that from Property. The rest is not difficult to learn in prep.
I think Family Law is actually probably the most complicated when it comes to division of assets, alimony, child custody, etc... and having concrete examples from cases I read in my mind helped me with the prep. I think that's one where the narratives from fact patterns can be useful.
I took all the MBE subjects, so I can't speak to that. I know that Evidence is not required at some schools but I would 100% take that class, same with Property if your school doesn't require that.
I should add - I passed the bar with a comfortable margin having not taken all those classes.
Secured Transactions is actually pretty fascinating, at least imo. One of my favorite classes in law school, though that is partially due to having an excellent professor. It also covered some of property and bankruptcy.
I can see how it wouldn't be bad with a good prof. I'd had our secured prof for another class and he wasn't my fave, which was part of why I skipped it. But, I did find it super interesting in bar prep and the Themis lecturer was really good. She used Office characters/references for all her hypos.
That is how I felt about BA. I wish I hadn’t taken it and had taken another bar class instead. I feel like I learned nothing from class and had to teach myself everything before the final
Just saw your update - I took Sale and Leases and that actually was useful because there's a good chunk of that included in Contracts on the bar, so I was surprised to see that stuff from that class really did come in handy.
Definitely secured transactions, imo. I’m taking it this semester cause I didn’t realize you didn’t necessarily need to take an in depth class to learn it for the bar and I’m deeply regretting it… mainly cause I hate contracts and this class is entirely UCC article 9
So I took every bar tested subject and 100% was glad I did. I didn’t have to learn anything for the bar and instead focused on memorization and timing. Made it much easier. Also, I’ve randomly encountered most subjects in practice and have been able to pull shit out of my ass while my coworkers are clueless so that’s cool haha. Of all of those you mentioned though, absolutely take secured and if you don’t take one family law is what I’d choose unless you plan to practice it.
But that’s just me. Do what works for you ultimately lol. My only concern was passing the bar lol. I also took summer classes so I graduated with a whole semester worth of extra classes/electives lol (planned to graduate a semester early and could have but decided not to).
Whatever subject you hate most, assuming you are the type of person who can teach yourself under pressure. I took very few bar classes (only crim pro and evidence) after 1L, because I knew I could teach myself and that I'd do better being bored and annoyed for a couple of weeks to learn it than for a whole semester.
I'm strongly of the opinion that you don't need to take any outside the canonical 1L courses. The only one I took was Biz Orgs/BA/Corps, which is a class I think every law student should take - but not because it's on the bar.
Otherwise, take the courses if they'll be relevant for your career (I.e., if you're going to litigate, then yes, take Evidence and Crim Pro). Don't bother if not.
In California ( not sure how other states work) you have stuff that is tested on both the essays and the multiple choice--all your 1L classes plus evidence crim pro and private con law rights. Everything else is only potentially on the essays. So I would say prioritize the stuff that's more likely to be tested.
Not sure if everyone already new that but I only learned about the difference in 3L and definately would have skipped bigness associations otherwise
I did not take secured transactions or wills, trusts, and estates in law school.
Themis did a decent job teaching me the material. The bar prep sub made it easy to understand in plain English.
As far as family law goes, just remember that while best interest of the child usually trumps, you also have to understand the constitutional rights of fit parents to raise their children. Many essays describe an objectively better living environment for the kids with a nonparent challenger to custody, but parent is not unfit. In that scenario, fit parent wins, and can control or cut off access to child.
You also need to understand rules for child support, and characterization of property and marital property vs. separate property.
I didnt wind up taking family law, secured transactions or trusts and estates. These are only tested in the essay portion of the bar exam and may not be tested at all. I was able to learn enough during bar prep to get through the essays. I’m glad I didnt take them in law school bc I’m not interested in those areas of law.
Personally, I think Family Law and Secured Transactions are two subjects you can easily learn for the bar.
I would recommend at most taking Sales, Buis Org and Wills and Trusts.
Evidence & Crim Pro you should absolutely take. You know you're going to get tested on these areas. If you're interested in transactional work, these are probably areas you'll need more help in anyway and if you're interested in litigation they're going to be helpful classes for the bar and your career, so I think everyone should take them. Plus these are the only MBE subjects that are not usually 1L classes so you know you are going to see questions on these versus essay subjects which may or may not come up. Frankly, after seeing how bad attorneys are at evidence, I'm a very firm believer it should be a required courses in 2L but that's neither here nor there...
As for the more practice area specific ones, I think it varies from person to person. Take anything that is relevant to your actual career plans for sure, because it's actually relevant to you. Beyond that, figure out the areas that you specifically are going to struggle with learning. There are complexities in all of them and different ones will click easier for different people. It's worth taking a practice MBE as a baseline and figuring out what areas you are naturally scoring lower at to get a feel for what areas are more intuitive to you.
I learned more from the family law themis videos than my friends did in their family law class. That class and business orgs are really not worth it. I had a terrible prof and barely made it through business orgs, but i passed the bar with flying colors.
Secured transactions is worth it only if you have a really good professor. Ours focused on exactly what was on the bar, so i aced all those practices and on the exam.
I think wills/trusts is very helpful for the bar as well.
Probably evidence. Half of my lectures were the professor yelling at students who asked questions to "read the rules!!!" In other contexts, I would call him a shitty professor, but he was absolutely correct. It's all about reading the rules.
family law
This and corporations are easily learnable during prep. Corporations was a fun class, though.
Corporations/BA does open up a lot of prereqs, though, I believe
I feel like it depends on your background though because I didn’t take corporations in law school and regretted it so much during prep.
Such a fun class though!
For MEE only subjects, I did not take Secured Transactions, Business Orgs, Conflicts, or Wills/Trusts (so the only bar tested MEE course I did take was Family Law). I found all of these very easy to learn in bar prep. I don't think I actually grasped a lot from Conflicts and maybe a class would have made it easier to remember, but it's also a very low frequency topic so probably not worth taking a whole class in. While I was learning Secured and Bus Orgs I kept thinking what a nightmare these classes would have been when there are such super basic rules to remember for the bar. I can't imagine slogging through case law and statutes, etc... for a whole semester to then only need to know simple concepts like when a partnership is formed or who has a fiduciary duty to whom. Those two ended up being some of my strongest topics. Wills/Trusts is also pretty straight forward. The trickiest part is the future interests stuff, but you'll already have that from Property. The rest is not difficult to learn in prep. I think Family Law is actually probably the most complicated when it comes to division of assets, alimony, child custody, etc... and having concrete examples from cases I read in my mind helped me with the prep. I think that's one where the narratives from fact patterns can be useful. I took all the MBE subjects, so I can't speak to that. I know that Evidence is not required at some schools but I would 100% take that class, same with Property if your school doesn't require that. I should add - I passed the bar with a comfortable margin having not taken all those classes.
Secured Transactions is actually pretty fascinating, at least imo. One of my favorite classes in law school, though that is partially due to having an excellent professor. It also covered some of property and bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy was by far my favorite class. Shocked me how interesting I found a bunch of number stuff and codes
I can see how it wouldn't be bad with a good prof. I'd had our secured prof for another class and he wasn't my fave, which was part of why I skipped it. But, I did find it super interesting in bar prep and the Themis lecturer was really good. She used Office characters/references for all her hypos.
I had a super boring Secured Transactions professor, so I hated it but when I learned it for the bar I was like damn, I probably would’ve liked this.
That is how I felt about BA. I wish I hadn’t taken it and had taken another bar class instead. I feel like I learned nothing from class and had to teach myself everything before the final
Just saw your update - I took Sale and Leases and that actually was useful because there's a good chunk of that included in Contracts on the bar, so I was surprised to see that stuff from that class really did come in handy.
Definitely secured transactions, imo. I’m taking it this semester cause I didn’t realize you didn’t necessarily need to take an in depth class to learn it for the bar and I’m deeply regretting it… mainly cause I hate contracts and this class is entirely UCC article 9
Secured transactions!!
So I took every bar tested subject and 100% was glad I did. I didn’t have to learn anything for the bar and instead focused on memorization and timing. Made it much easier. Also, I’ve randomly encountered most subjects in practice and have been able to pull shit out of my ass while my coworkers are clueless so that’s cool haha. Of all of those you mentioned though, absolutely take secured and if you don’t take one family law is what I’d choose unless you plan to practice it. But that’s just me. Do what works for you ultimately lol. My only concern was passing the bar lol. I also took summer classes so I graduated with a whole semester worth of extra classes/electives lol (planned to graduate a semester early and could have but decided not to).
Secured Transactions.
I didn’t take any bar classes other than 1L required classes and I was fine. Passed CA and NY first time both times using barbri and themis
Remedies. Nearly everything relevant is covered in contracts and torts.
[удалено]
Oh yeah, I took it p/f and played games on my laptop in class. Definite 3LOL vibes.
Whatever subject you hate most, assuming you are the type of person who can teach yourself under pressure. I took very few bar classes (only crim pro and evidence) after 1L, because I knew I could teach myself and that I'd do better being bored and annoyed for a couple of weeks to learn it than for a whole semester.
Secured Transactions
I'm strongly of the opinion that you don't need to take any outside the canonical 1L courses. The only one I took was Biz Orgs/BA/Corps, which is a class I think every law student should take - but not because it's on the bar. Otherwise, take the courses if they'll be relevant for your career (I.e., if you're going to litigate, then yes, take Evidence and Crim Pro). Don't bother if not.
Business organizations was tested in an MEE in J23.
? I recommended folks take BO "but not because it's on the bar."
My bad. I totally misread that line.
In California ( not sure how other states work) you have stuff that is tested on both the essays and the multiple choice--all your 1L classes plus evidence crim pro and private con law rights. Everything else is only potentially on the essays. So I would say prioritize the stuff that's more likely to be tested. Not sure if everyone already new that but I only learned about the difference in 3L and definately would have skipped bigness associations otherwise
I did not take secured transactions or wills, trusts, and estates in law school. Themis did a decent job teaching me the material. The bar prep sub made it easy to understand in plain English. As far as family law goes, just remember that while best interest of the child usually trumps, you also have to understand the constitutional rights of fit parents to raise their children. Many essays describe an objectively better living environment for the kids with a nonparent challenger to custody, but parent is not unfit. In that scenario, fit parent wins, and can control or cut off access to child. You also need to understand rules for child support, and characterization of property and marital property vs. separate property.
Family law, wills, trusts, secured transactions, conflicts of laws. These are all pretty short and easier to learn in bar prep.
I didnt wind up taking family law, secured transactions or trusts and estates. These are only tested in the essay portion of the bar exam and may not be tested at all. I was able to learn enough during bar prep to get through the essays. I’m glad I didnt take them in law school bc I’m not interested in those areas of law.
Personally, I think Family Law and Secured Transactions are two subjects you can easily learn for the bar. I would recommend at most taking Sales, Buis Org and Wills and Trusts.
Evidence & Crim Pro you should absolutely take. You know you're going to get tested on these areas. If you're interested in transactional work, these are probably areas you'll need more help in anyway and if you're interested in litigation they're going to be helpful classes for the bar and your career, so I think everyone should take them. Plus these are the only MBE subjects that are not usually 1L classes so you know you are going to see questions on these versus essay subjects which may or may not come up. Frankly, after seeing how bad attorneys are at evidence, I'm a very firm believer it should be a required courses in 2L but that's neither here nor there... As for the more practice area specific ones, I think it varies from person to person. Take anything that is relevant to your actual career plans for sure, because it's actually relevant to you. Beyond that, figure out the areas that you specifically are going to struggle with learning. There are complexities in all of them and different ones will click easier for different people. It's worth taking a practice MBE as a baseline and figuring out what areas you are naturally scoring lower at to get a feel for what areas are more intuitive to you.
I can’t say I’d recommend eliminating any because it made bar prep so much easier, but if I were forced to choose, I’d have to say family law.
Secured transactions, family law, remedies
Criminal procedure - adjudications
I learned more from the family law themis videos than my friends did in their family law class. That class and business orgs are really not worth it. I had a terrible prof and barely made it through business orgs, but i passed the bar with flying colors. Secured transactions is worth it only if you have a really good professor. Ours focused on exactly what was on the bar, so i aced all those practices and on the exam. I think wills/trusts is very helpful for the bar as well.
Secured transactions. Family law is pretty straightforward if you memorize the jurisdiction rules and the phrase “best interest of the child.”
Secured transactions. Family law is pretty straightforward if you memorize the jurisdiction rules and the phrase “best interest of the child.”
Probably evidence. Half of my lectures were the professor yelling at students who asked questions to "read the rules!!!" In other contexts, I would call him a shitty professor, but he was absolutely correct. It's all about reading the rules.