Bring up the subject of the bar exam, and most practicing attorneys will cringe in memory. Bring it up to newly graduated law students, and the reaction may be closer to a heart attack. This article will discuss the Michigan Bar Exam, its subjects, grading and pass it.
Instructions
Practice, Practice, Practice
1. The first step is to have all the requirements to pass the exam: be at least 18, have gone through at least 60 credits of college and complete law school.
2. The Michigan Bar Exam consists of one full day of testing on the Multistate Bar Exam and one day of Michigan essay testing. The MBE consists of 200 multiple questions, while the Michigan essays have fifteen essays. Each day is a full day, with the state essay portion being tested first.
3. The questions on the MBE are centered around contracts, property, torts, criminal law, constitutional law and evidence. Because of time constraints, you will have less than two minutes per question, so it is important to do thousands of practice questions so you can breeze through the simple questions to save time for the more difficult ones. Buy as many practice tests and questions as you can and practice starting two months before the exam for at least two hours a day.
4. The Michigan state questions could potentially be on civil procedures--both state and federal, conflicts of laws, contracts, constitutional law, creditor's rights, criminal law and criminal procedure, corporations, partnerships and agency, domestic relations, equity, evidence, Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, sales, negotiable instruments and secured transactions, articles of the Uniform Commercial Code, torts (and no-fault), real and personal property, wills and trusts, and worker's compensation. Try to create your own outlines for each of these subjects and study those intensively. Practice a few essays a week on each of the subjects.
5. Each essay in the state portion of the exam is worth 10 points, for a total of 150 points. The essays are graded by a lawyer or law professor who will also be proctoring the exam. The multistate has a total of 200 points. Each section is weighted: the essay portion is scaled to be out of 200, and the multistate is scaled to account for difficult exams and test questions. Those with combined scores above 135 will pass the exam, with the formula adding the scaled essay and MBE scores and dividing by 2.
6. The most important thing to do to pass the Michigan bar is to study multistate questions for several hours a day. If you are at all worried, sign up for one or two classes. It might seem like a waste of time or money, but it is a lot better than studying for another round of the test.
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