Holy crap. I guess I’ll have to dust this blog back off and start posting again.

The Kaplan class was actually really good for learning the material, but it was inadequate test preparation. The questions on the actual MPRE were different, and more difficult than the Kaplan practice tests.

So, for you November MPRE takers, if you’ve just been rockin’ Kaplan… just be aware that the exam is harder than that.

Wow, pretty upbeat intro line, huh? When I was much younger, I destroyed my right shoulder playin’ spotes. Years of drumming and guitar strumming really “helped” my shoulder out as well. Now it looks like it’s time to pay the piper (and by piper I mean orthopaedic surgeon). My shoulder and neck have been killing me the past month, making it really difficult to sleep comfortably. So that’s been a lot of fun.

Oh, and did I mention it’s hunting season? Yeah, not deer hunting, or duck hunting, or wabbit hunting… Job Hunting. In the past two weeks I’ve sent out a few hundred applications and hopefully I’ll get a few interviews out of it. I’m targeting the Pacific Northwest, Nor Cal, and San Diego. Most of the jobs I’m going for use the Symplicity online submission system. It ought to be called the Complexity system. I’ve got to say, I’m fairly tech savvy, and I find Symplicity to be the clunkiest most inefficient system I’ve ever used. For all you new 1Ls, my advice would be to storm your career services office at the first opportunity and demand they teach you how to use it. Seriously.

Graduating early has pros and cons. A huge gigantic con is that for the larger firms and agencies and courts, you’re “off-track”. For you entering 1Ls, just know that law school runs on very set, concrete, cyclical tracks. Deviate from them at your own peril… I know I am.

By leaving early, I lose the opportunity for a Spring 2010 internship. Or a post-grad summer clerkship with a firm. On the pro side of the equation, I’m not taking on an extra semester’s worth of debt. I’ll also be taking the California Bar in February, which if everything goes well, will let me sit for the Oregon bar in July.

Now, all the utterly insane job search extravaganza that makes up 2L and 3L September….

So really, it’s up to you faithful readers (all 2 of you based on my latest analytics) to cough up the car. That’s how this internet thing works right? I post something and people give it to me?

In actually “Purpose of the Blog News”, orientation was today. I’ll post a recap of it tomorrow. Then, the rest of this week is my entire summer vacation, and starting on Monday, back to school for the last semester of law school.

Exciting. And scary.

Because I've got dancing feet.

This jacket and tie go with the shoes for Saturday night dancing.

One can never have too many tiebar eyelet collar shirts.

I'd like one of these

I'd like one of these too. Just the little 13 please.

One of these to tie it all together

And one of these to stay in touch with you all.

This would be helpful for getting around town without poisoning your grandchildren quite so much.

j

The Dyson ball Animal vacuum is strong enough to clean up after a dog and two cats. A dog, two cats, and a law student? Well, get me one and let's find out.

Then I took the MPRE.  Let’s just say that I lost the battle against ethics.*  Fortunately, everyone seems to feel the same way, so hopefully I did better than I thought, and also the curve is low.  Otherwise, I’m moving to Washington.  The worst part about the MPRE are the “pre-test” questions.  The MPRE is 60 questions long, but only 50 count.  You need to get about 70% right to feel assured of a passing score, so 35/50.  So you can only miss 15.  I think that I missed 20.  Now, if ten of those were out of the “pre-test” questions, then I’ll wind up with a 40/50 and be scott free.  But if I happened to get every single pre-test question right… well… then I’m screwed.

In five weeks, we’ll see how it all turned out.  But a part of me is already prepared for Nov. 7, 2010 MPRE II: Revenge of Ethics.

*and if you think that is what the MPRE is, you probably did as poorly as i.

#1 ATFQ.  Answer the Flemish Question.  To answer the question correctly, you must answer the correct question, n’est pas?  So, if your prompt tells you that you’re a judge, be a judge.  If your prompt tells you that you’re a defense attorney, don’t be a judge!  If the prompt tells you to defend someone, don’t just pick one defense, use all possible defenses.  If the prompt tells you to analyze one statement for libel, then why talk about slander?  You can’t get points for answering the wrong question.

#2 Never Concede.  If real defense attorneys conceded points as readily as exam takers do, the jails would be bursting at the seams with the innocent.  If you concede a point, and you’re wrong, you just wasted all those points, and if you’re right you get 0 points because there were none there.  If you don’t concede a point and you were wrong, you get 0 points because there were none there, and if you’re right you get those points.  Pasqual’s Wager people.

#3 Remember that you’re playing a game where the goal is to rack up points, you’re not having a debate.  In a debate, one unbeatable answer wins.  In a point gathering game, one unbeatable answer gets points for that answer and leaves the rest on the table.  Don’t stop.

#4 Finish the thought.  If you’re a judge and you’re presented with a motion for X, then don’t just tell me that you rule in favor of plaintiff or defendant, tell me what happens next.  If you conclude that a fact fits an element, don’t just tell me that it does, show me how.

Because the boycott is ongoing, it was in the news today. The comments that the public left on that article were very interesting. Most of the comments came from the “Yes on 8″ crowd, and the majority of them followed the basic thesis of: “Liberals only like freedom when it goes there way, this boycott is a form of reverse discrimination and intolerance against a straight Christian.”

I am very interested in whether those people understand the difference between supporting a law which denies people a right, and a boycott, which is about money. I also wonder how many of the same people went up in arms when parts of the Baptist church tried to boycott Disney over gay issues. Now, I have no problem with partisanship. There’s nothing wrong with being blatantly for one thing and against the other thing. However, I do very much despise people who are partisan, but then complain that other people are acting in a partisan manner. If you think it’s ok for a business person to donate to a political cause because he has the right to express his opinion and support his beliefs… then how can you oppose other people who refuse to give that person money?