See Jane Get Rich

Oh I am tired today.  So tired that I am going go home as soon as I type this up.  This week I focused on writing essays and I am glad I started on them.  I was very afraid of doing them and I felt I didn’t know enough law.  I am so glad I started doing essays and I realize that yes, I don’t know the rule of law precisely enough and I need to memorize a whole lot of it so I can just dump it on the paper really quick.  I am for the most part doing well at issue spotting.

When I look at what I type up every week I feel like I am doing almost nothing for bar preparation.  But, then I have to remind myself that I am not putting everything that I do here like the classes that are either 4 hours or 6 hours long.  Last weekend we have classes Saturday and Sunday for 6 hrs and that swallowed up a lot of time.  I am also doing state subject quizes, and of course reviewing.  But, still I am not doing as much as I can and I should. 

Studying in general I think right now I am at a 75% studying capacity.   At the beginning of week 4 I finally got to a rhythm that works for me.  I no longer take notes in outline form rather in note card form on power point slides because I don’t have time to make note cards and it makes it easier for me to go through the material.  I am also building answer blurbs or model answers that I can start memorizing or become so familiar with it that I will be able to easily recall most of it.  I am not a memorizing machine and if I start memorizing too much then I will forget it by the end of July, but I do need to start memorizing some neumonics now so that I won’t be overwhelmed with the amount of information to memorize in July.      

I need to get way more serious about this bar.  Like waaaayy more!

Goals for Week 5

- Two MPT’s

-One full State #1 Bar Exam

-One full MBE Exam

 -10 Essays

- At least 25 MBE’s in each subject  (100 in torts and close to 50 in contracts)

So, onto what I did this week! 

Essays

Contracts – wrote out one essay and outlined another

Sales – wrote out two essays

Real Property – Wrote out two essays

MPT

Wrote out one test

MBE

Really focused on property this week and on week 5 my focus will be on property and then the week after I need to kick crim law into high gear.

Week 4 MBE

When I logged in today I was really surprised to see Week 3 has gone missing.  I distinctly remember logging in and typing it up in a big hurry.  I don’t know what happened to it.  Hopefully I will come across it again.

Week 2

I am 20% of the way done with my bar prep.  Wow, that is a terrifying thought!  I do not feel as if I am digesting all this information that is thrown at me.  I am a little nervous but I am optimistic.   

MBE – Multistate Bar Examination

My second attempt at doing ten multistate (MBE) questions per day failed for a second time so week 3 will hopefully find me doing 5 questions from each of the six multistate subjects per day.   I was thinking may be I will not be able to meet my goal so I strated with my weak subject (property) and worked my way to my stronger subjects.  I never got  to constitutional law and evidence.  I have forgotten a lot from evidence so I need to focus on evidence come week 3.   The graph below is incomplete because I don’t have the percentage for my contract questions.   I am happy to see I have improved my property percentage to an average of 60% this week. 

State #1 Essays

I did two essays involving civil procedure.  I was crestfallen when I compared my essays with the model answers because my own essay seemed like a complete watered down version of the model answer.  But, that’s okay.  It was only my first.  

MPT – Multistate Performance Test

Aaah….I wish I had time for you.  I hope to do at least 1 MPT next week. 

So, goals for Week 3:

• 5 MBE questions per subject per weekday  = 150 MBE Questionss
• 1 MPT Exam
• 2 State Essays

Week 2 MBE

 June 3, 2010: Updated Contracts information

Before bar exam started (1) my goal was to be in class for 4 hours and then maybe study for 4, (2) do 60 multistate (MBE) questions from each of the six subjects, (3) do one essay and one Multistate Performance Test (MPT).  This is how my goals actually fared.  Lots of studying but I wasn’t able to do all the MBE questions or the essay or the MPT.  Oh-Oh.

Class & Studying

My classed started towards the middle of the week and most of the days prior to class was spenting freaking out about how my books got lost in the mail and how I was going to be behind everyone else in my reading and reviewing.  My books arrived just in time and when the classes started I was just drowning in the civil procedure material.  The volume of material that is thrown at you is just incredible.  Having not gone to law school in the states that I will be taking the bar exam none of this is familiar to me.  But, I have been keeping up with the classes and reviewing the material.  I have been making flash cards to help me review the material but that is a little time consuming.  I may move to printing out the flashcards but so far I haven’t made the move.

Multistate (MBE)

My goal was to do 60 every day or 10 from each of the six subjects tested on the multistate.  The good news is that I take them timed and I always come under time.  So, I do 10 questions in under 18 minutes.  Now, the bad news is that it takes me one hour to really do the 10 questions.  What do I mean?  My mentor told me that I should review the answer choice to every question regardless of whether I get it right or not and write down any law that I do not understand.  Before the bar review classes started I already reviewd constitutional law and contracts but not property, torts, evidence or criminal law.  So, for those four subjects there is a lot of law that I either didn’t know or simply forgotten since I took those courses my first year of law school.  So, it takes me 15 minutes to do 10 questions and then another 45 minutes to check my answers, read the explanations and create flash cards.  If I were to achieve my goal of doing 60 questions then I need 6 hours!  I will eventually stop reading over all the answers because that is time consuming.  I am also considering cutting my goal from 60 questions to just 30 questions.   

I need to get about 75% correct in each MBE subject by the end of July.  From the way things are looking, the state subject are super detailed and I am afraid of not performing so well on the state exams so I need to rock out the MBE.  Doing this graph below also made me realize that I really need to do more property questions.  Property was one subject in law school that I did not understand.  I walked out of my property class not having understood the Rule Against Perpetuities but the multistate property isn’t obsessed with what my professor was obssessed with so, I need to stop avoiding property like the plague. 

MBE – % Correct Before Bar Review Class

MBE – % Correct - Week 1 

I can’t belive I haven’t blogged for over a whole month!  Craziness.  What the heck have I been doing?  Studying for the bar. 

Once upon a time, the summer before law school I got the chance to meet with a just-graduated-law-student from my law school about the adventures that were awaiting me as a law student.  I made an appointment with her and she said she can only meet with me for 15 minutes because she is studying for the bar.  When I met with her in person she had on her gym clothes and she kept doing stretches and mini-exercises while I was speaking to her and I thought, “hmm…this bar exam stuff sounds like serious stuff!” 

Then, I forgot about it for another three years and here I am.  The advice I was given was to take it easy until July 4th hits and then study like crazy.  Okay, by taking it easy people meant study like its your job (so, 8 hours).  Now, that I am actually doing this bar review stuff I don’t know how I can get anything remotely done in eight hours.  Some days my bar review class lasts 4 hours and on other days like today it is 6 hours.  Then I need to review my notes, do some multi-state questions, make and review flash cards and bam the day is over!

I am studying at home and viewing the lectures online.  I thought I wouldn’t be self disciplined enough to do it, but I am finding that 3 years of law school has definitely kicked that characteristic into high gear.  However, I have expressly told my summer person that I may be coming back to DC in July if things go south and I need to see other freaked out law students.  

I definitely want to blog througout my bar preparation period so I will have a record of it.

Quick recap: 

(1) Sublease I subleased my apartment to someone who is a little strange but I discovered she was just fine because we had to share the apartment for two weeks since she was so eager to move in and I didn’t want to sleep on a friend’s couck for two weeks.  I required a security deposit for one month.   I have subleased my apartment for April and May.  This saves me $1,500 dollars in rent. 

(2) Finishing Law School Early I did finish all the things I needed for law school early so, I moved out of DC before my classes officially ended but I was done with everything  and I will be going back for exams and will likely stay with a friend.   I have been at home taking a nice relaxing break but also studying some. 

(3) Bar Exam When I subleased my apartment I was at a point where I wanted to walk away from this whole legal thing and go in another direction.  I still want to do this sometime in the future but I owe it to myself to take the bar and give this thing a chance before I jump ship.  Unfortunately, I only came to this realization after I subleased my apartment until the end of June.  My classes will be in DC and they start in mid-May.  One of my friends will let me stay at his place gratis for May.  If I want to continue staying in DC then I need to find a sublease or just crash at school for a month.  I am reconsidering this option and thinking I should just take the class online from home since I don’t have to worry about a thing here.  I have applied and is expecting to sit for two bar exams.  I have started reviewing for the bar today.  I started with torts. 

(4) Internship My internship ended with a trip to the New York office to interview someone.  This trip was so unnecessary but I really wanted to go and my supervisor set it up.  It was a blast.  More importantly, I believe I made solid contacts in almost three offices.  I also made contacts with all the alums working in the organization.  Additionally, I went and introduced myself to the HR people in two offices.  I am still applying for jobs with the organization.  I have recently applied for a position that I feel matches my skills perfectly.  But more on this later.

(5) March Finances – I need to sit down and tally everything up for March but I have been scared to because I know I spent way too much eating out.  It was a whole lot of “we must do dinner since I am leaving town super early and won’t see you again.”  Too many of that.

Unexpected Expense My Sony Viao’s power cord isn’t working for some reason so I have been without my laptop for a few weeks and that has made updating my website difficult since I don’t update my blog from home.  But, now that I am back in the library studying I expect to update my site more often. 

Life and law school has officially started getting very crazy.  This time last semester I stopped blogging but  I am going to continue blogging at least once a week since I don’t have as many exams this semester. 

I have listed my apartment on craigslist so I can sublease it.  I want to sublease it for part of April until July.  I have listed the apartment and got several responses.  I gave a skype tour to one interested party who was located in Boston.  I had three people who wanted to come and visit the place.  The first person came to visit on time.  The second person discovered upon plugging in the address to Google Maps that its awfully close to her ex and would rather not be that close.  The third person never showed up at the time he said and when I called him he was still visiting another place and just didn’t want to come up.  So, that’s one out of three for actual show up.  The first person however, wants to move in like now and they seem a little strange.  I told her than she can stay but she would have to share the apartment with me for the next few weeks and we can split the rent.  I am waiting to hear back from her about that.  

I have asked for a security deposit equal to a month’s rent and I have emailed her a sublease agreement.  This is the first time subleasing and I really hope I don’t get burned.

Spring 2010 Financial Goals

2. Roll over 401(k) from my holiday job to a Roth or transfer it to my brokerage

One of my Spring financial goals included rolling over the 401(k) I contributed to during my holiday job this past Christmas break.  I contributed 50% of my paycheck which was a grand whopping total of $527.00!   I was planning to do a direct rollover but since I was no longer an employee and my funds were less than $1k the Big Box Retailer, my former employer, closed out my 401(k) and cut me the check in February.  

Since the check was in my name, I could no longer do a  direct roll over and opted to do an indirect roll over.  This constituted of me opening a traditional IRA account with my broker/dealer and depositing the check with them within 60 days.  So, I opened an account on Friday and this morning I went over and deposited  my whopping $527 in the IRA.  The IRA had a minimum of $500 and I was so glad to have had enough to meet the minimum and continue to put that money towards retirement.  Although it is a very tiny amount, I am sure my $527 will grow mighty in 30+ years!

The Interviewer will see you now

By far the most fun and excruciating part of my externship is the fact that I get to play a significant role in hiring my replacement.  It is fun because I get to look at resumes of other students and conduct interview.  It is very different being on the opposite side of the table.  It is also excruciating because there are so many to choose from and they all seem very qualified.  I am getting a lot of resumes from law students and MBA’s.  Some students are very easy to eliminate and it’s usually the MBA students.   Law students are more likely to do targeted cover letters and be explicit about why they are interested in the position whereas MBA students tend to have poor writing skills and one even had a misspelling in an email response to me.   I wish I could take back the interview invitation.  This experience has given me a first-hand look at what it’s like to be the interviewer.  It is a good review for me and has reminded me of the importance of paying close attention to detail and being truthful on my resume. 

I went through all the resumes and ranked the candidates.  Today happened to be the day I interviewed the #1 candidate with significant financial regulatory work experience and an alphabet soup of degrees that included an MBA and JD as well as being close to completing an LLM in securities regulation.  The #1 candidate’s resume listed him as being fluent in three languages and claimed to have the ability to speak four other languages.  It was unlucky for him that I happen to be able to speak one of them.  At the end of our interview when we were having casual conversation I told him that I admired his repertoire of language skills and switched over to one of his claimed languages and asked him “how well do you speak the language?”  He responded in English by saying that “I” speak it well except I asked him how well “he” spoke the language not how well I speak it and his response was in English.  I thought maybe the abrupt switch to another language may have confused him so I asked him one more time and he, again, in English, talked about how he picked up so many various languages.  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Have you ever exaggerated on our resume and gotten caught?

I am almost done with law school. 

For the past couple of days, I have been focusing on getting as much work done as possible so that I can free up some time to focus on my path after law school.  I have been working hard to finish all the work that I have control over.   So far, I have done all the reading for corporate taxation, securities regulation II and broker/dealer.  I have finished doing accept/reject forms for law review articles that I had to read.  If I can finish my final paper for my externship class then I am done with all law school work that I can control.  I am aiming to finish everything that I have control over by tomorrow so Friday, March 19th.   

Now, the things I can’t control. 

I have a group project for broker/dealer.  I have reached out to my group about finishing the project earlier and we are targeting April 9th.  I am waiting to get two major assignments for corporate taxation.  I can’t make the assignments come any faster.   I will have several article submissions from the team I am supervising for law review.  Thankfully, I don’t need to do individual article feedback anymore and can focus on giving team feedback which will be less time consuming.  I also need to finish up my externship.  I am going to speak to my boss about finishing up a little earlier.   

I want to be completely done with law school by Friday, April 9th.