New college course to help students with Bar Exam?

sandra · 11-30-2007

Does anyone know if other colleges will be offering this kind of class? Is it an alternative to a BarBri or PMBR course?

What do you think?

If I took it would I still need a tutor?

Quote:

A new course designed to help law students improve their performance on the Arizona Bar Exam has been organized for next semester by Professor Michael Berch of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

Passage of the grueling Bar Exam is required before law-school graduates are allowed to practice law and is usually taken late in the summer after graduation.

"This course was put together in response to requests by the third-year law students," Berch said. "They have wanted something like this for a long time. We will look at the past five years of bar exams and, when we find a pattern of questions, we'll be highlighting those patterns."

The free, non-credit course will be taught by Berch and 16 other law professors and adjuncts. It will meet from 3:30-6 p.m. on Fridays, beginning Jan. 18, and requires no registration.

Third-year law students who will graduate in May, first- and second-year students who want a preview of exam preparation, as well as any previous graduates still preparing to take the exam, are all welcome to attend.

Each session will give an overview of a section of the bar, including real property, Constitutional law, evidence, community property, torts, criminal procedure/constitutional aspects, criminal law, contracts, professional responsibility, trusts and wills, civil procedure and corporations, partnerships and other business organizations. A four-person panel will discuss studying for the bar.

Students can come to one session or all.

Professor Alan Matheson said his session will cover the basics of Arizona community property law, including the difference between community property and separate property for married persons; management and control for each spouse; community debts and separate debts; pensions; insurance; division of assets at death and at divorce; joint tenancy and its relationship to community property; joinder; gifts; duty to spouses; and other issues.

"For those who have already taken the community property course, this will be a review," Matheson said. "For others, it will be an introduction to this important area of the law that is on the Arizona Bar Examination at each offering."

Professor Bob Bartels will cover evidence.

"I think it should be possible to identify and discuss some points about how to approach bar-exam evidence questions that will add to the standard bar-review lectures," Bartels said.

Professor Gary Lowenthal will cover substantive criminal law.

"This is one of the core subjects on both the essay and the multistate portions of the bar exam," Lowenthal said. "This course will provide students with a valuable framework for the bar exam, and will give them a strategic advantage when they begin to study for the bar during the summer."

Berch said the course is not intended to replace the more intense bar review courses offered by private companies, but instead would supplement those courses.

"The bar-prep courses are often straight lectures, and I hope these will be more interactive, allowing students to ask questions," Berch said.

The schedule is:
Jan. 18 - Civil Procedure - Michael Berch
Jan. 25 - Real Property - Jones Osborn
Feb. 1 - Corporations, Partnerships & Other Business Organizations - Myles Lynk
Feb. 8 - Studying for the Bar Exam - Art Hinshaw, Chad Noreuil, Rebecca Berch and Corie Rosen
Feb. 15 - Constitutional Law/Arizona and Federal - Paul Bender
Feb. 22 - Contracts - Jonathan Rose
Feb. 29 - Community Property - Alan Matheson
March 7 - Torts - Betsy Grey
March 14 - No class - Spring Break
March 21 - Criminal Procedure/Constitutional Aspects - Carissa Hessick
March 28 - Criminal Law - Gary Lowenthal
April 4 - Trusts & Wills - John Becker
April 11 - Professional Responsibility - John Tuchi
April 18 - Evidence - Bob Bartels

A Uniform Commercial Code course offered by Dale Furnish will be announced at a later date.

mgill · 12-01-2007

My law school offered a similar course, and it was highly effective. However, you will most likely still need a commercial bar prep course or tutor.

Since the course is free, I would highly recommend attending.

allycat · 12-01-2007

My law school offered a course for third years. Wasn't really focused on substantive law but was more focused on the essay writing process and what you need to put down there in the given period of time. We practiced essays every class from actual past bar exams, the prof would grade them and get them back to us. We also did things like set up sample study schedules for when it was summer and we were on our own. It was pretty helpful.

writergallagher · 12-28-2007

The course you describe is not-for-credit. Now that the American Bar Association allows law schools to give bar-preparation courses for credit, more and more law schools are trying it. The schools in New York State that offered for-credit courses in the spring of 2007 showed remarkable improvement in their bar pass rates for the July 2007 bar exam. Particularly successful elsewhere is the Advanced Bar Studies course given by Professor Yvonne Twiss at Capital Law School in Columbus, Ohio. Capital has jumped in the ratings. I have been following that course from its beginnings, because Professor Twiss's students use a book I wrote for the bar exam essays called Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays. It teaches the Under-Here-Therefore(TM) essay-writing method that I devised.

Mary Campbell Gallagher, J.D., Ph.D., President
BarWrite® and BarWrite Press
http://www.BarWrite.com

12-01-2007	#2
mgill New Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 39	Re: New college course to help students with Bar Exam? My law school offered a similar course, and it was highly effective. However, you will most likely still need a commercial bar prep course or tutor. Since the course is free, I would highly recommend attending.

12-01-2007	#3
allycat New Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 12	Re: New college course to help students with Bar Exam? My law school offered a course for third years. Wasn't really focused on substantive law but was more focused on the essay writing process and what you need to put down there in the given period of time. We practiced essays every class from actual past bar exams, the prof would grade them and get them back to us. We also did things like set up sample study schedules for when it was summer and we were on our own. It was pretty helpful.

12-28-2007	#4
writergallagher New Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 1	Re: New college course to help students with Bar Exam? The course you describe is not-for-credit. Now that the American Bar Association allows law schools to give bar-preparation courses for credit, more and more law schools are trying it. The schools in New York State that offered for-credit courses in the spring of 2007 showed remarkable improvement in their bar pass rates for the July 2007 bar exam. Particularly successful elsewhere is the Advanced Bar Studies course given by Professor Yvonne Twiss at Capital Law School in Columbus, Ohio. Capital has jumped in the ratings. I have been following that course from its beginnings, because Professor Twiss's students use a book I wrote for the bar exam essays called Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays. It teaches the Under-Here-Therefore(TM) essay-writing method that I devised. Mary Campbell Gallagher, J.D., Ph.D., President BarWrite® and BarWrite Press http://www.BarWrite.com

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