7.01.2007

Treatment Plan

I have hit the wall again. I thought I got over it last week. I was super productive Friday, super-duper productive yesterday, and even as I sit here today at 6:12p.m. I am finished with the Paced Program assignments. But I can't help but feel guilty that I'm watching tv instead of studying. So, as reccomended by Sakai, I am posting my self-analysis at this stage in the game as well as a treatment plan. Any and all suggestions are welcome.

WEAKNESSES
1. Evidence- I still don't know a damn thing about evidence. But I think I have a new plan. A commenter has reccomended Emmanuel's MBE book a few times, which I of course bought long ago before I realized I would only have time to read Barbri materials. So I have brought out that book and opened it to the section on Evidence. It appears to have a nice little synopsis of strategies and tactics (hence the title of the book) followed by practice questions with answers and explanations. It is my goal to work through this tonight. Then, for the rest of the week, I will attack at least 17 evidence PMBR questions per day (17 because that makes for a nice even 1/2 hour). By the end of the week, I should be an MBE evidence pro. Then and only then will I attempt to sort through the California distinctions and learn how to craft a remotely decent essay answer. Because I think that's where I got really messed up- trying to learning French and Spanish at the same time.

2. Performance Test- I just hate this thing. I took the full three hours today for the Seaquest problem in the in-class workbook. I forced myself to spend 85 minutes reading, outlining and planning, even though I naturally don't need that much time. I forced myself to take a 10 minute break and then spent my remaining 85 minutes writing. And really really forced myself to write the whole time, spending time at the end to go back and put in more facts. Then I turned to the answers... it appears I did ok on the headings, and mediocre on the facts and analysis. But I'm still really discouraged. Does this portion of the exam just seem crazy and annoyingly unpredictable to anyone else? So my treatment plan here is to read through the information Honisberg has given us in the CA Peformance exam book as well as look at the in-class handout again. But can anyone reccomend a better method to this madness?

3. Essays- I write too much irrelevant shit and don't put in enough facts about what actually is relevant. Suggestions?

STRENGTHS
1. MBEs (other than Evidence and a few other rough patches) are looking good. So far, we've done the released questions for contracts, con law, and torts and I've scored 80% on each of them.

2. Memorization- my flashcard method is working well, although I need to come up with some sort of a rotation system to make sure that I'm going through each subject regularly enough not to forget stuff.

3. Stress level- I don't feel as stressed as I thought I would be on July 1st. But should this actually be a weakness? Am I not stressed enough?

Ok, Sakai- are you happy? I have analyzed myself. My husband gets home from a weekend out of town in a couple of hours, so I should probably knock through the evidence stuff while I still can. This week promises to be rough, despite the light schedule- community property, wills, and trusts- none of which I ever took in law school. Yippee. But I am taking 4th of July off to go and spend it with my family- after all, good sheep do what the Paced Program says to do.
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Anonymous said...

Amanda - I know you don't know me from Adam, but that's the magic of blogging... I was a July '06 Bar taker (and first time passer, thank god!!), and attended the law school where Honigsberg designed our entire legal writing program along with a class designed specifically to address the CA Bar PTs.

Over the course of my final law school semester, we drilled PTs week after week, and it took most of that semester for me to realize I was concentrating too much on the minute details, getting caught up spending 5-10 full minutes worrying about how I was wording my headings in a memo of P&A, or how I was articulating some arcane point of law.

Finally, I realized a couple months later, during the BarBri PT reviews, that I needed to 'back up', or 'back off', so to speak, and address the bigger picture. The graders search your PT first and foremost for some sign that you know how to follow directions. Most problems in PTs boil down to people simply not following those damn instruction memos! Keep concentrating on getting plenty of headings in your PT (on my bar exam, I used the exact language used in the instruction memo for my headings -- word-for-word), and grab the big legal concepts provided in the library packet. Except in extreme cases where you get a library with 10 cases, use EVERY case at least once. I noted during my bar study period, after looking over past PTs from the State Bar website that the bar examiners have been shrinking the size of PT libraries for the past several years (thank god!), so they are much more manageable than older exams. No guarantees they'll keep it that way, but if you get a manageable library, find some way to use everything, even if it doesn't fit perfectly. And definitely stick to Honigsberg's time breakdown for writing the exam, it absolutely saved my life during the bar.

So keep on with your organizing skills for PTs, and let the legal stuff fall into place by itself. My PT legal analysis was nothing special, but I'll tell you, those were two of the tightest, most well organized things I've ever produced -- and I passed.

Good luck!!!

July 2, 2007 at 5:02 PM
Amanda said...

thanks junior- that is helpful- i tend to be a perfectionist which i think is both a benefit (organization-wise) and a detriment (detail-wise) on the PT. I'll try to 'back-off' a little and see if that helps ; )

July 2, 2007 at 5:44 PM

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