navin70

Great board, found some helpful hints here. I've been a practicing lawyer in VA since I passed that exam the first time in February of 1997 (took the BarBri course, studied full time for a solid 2 or 3 months).

Recently relocated to FL and planning to take the February '08 exam. I have the luxury of not working until the exam, but now have two kids (full-time single parent) and lack the time for a course. Want to do self-study for the Florida exam, but am overwhelmed by the vast amount of materials out there.

Any recent Florida takers (and passers) who can give me some advice? Anyone used baroutlines.com for Florida, how are they? What about the Walton and Emanuel book on Strategies and Tactics for the MBE, which I'm considering buying? Any recommended materials for the Florida-specific questions?

Thanks for your time, any help will be greatly appreciated!

Category: FL - Florida Bar Exam

sweetlg

Although it was in 1997, but the whole issue-spotting/organizational skill still apply! So I am sure this time around will be a LOT easier.

Walton and Emanuel book on Strategies and Tactics is great! So is Baroutlines.com! I almost think they are better than Barbri.. almost b/c after all you don’t have a professor to call when you run into problems. However, they are both a more condensed and clear version of Barbri. For example, Walton and Emanuel covers MBE questions in the exactly same format that Barbri does, but I find the explanations and the strategies easier for me to understand.

Baroutlines.com’s outlines, for example, point out exactly what you need to state in the beginning of each essay, the rule statements you need to put down when you spot certain issues, and the examples that can help you with the application part of the essay.

Anyway, looks like you know exactly what you are doing, so good job and good luck!!

sspp

I was curious, Navin, if you ended up using Barbri, Emanuel, or Baroutlines? Did you think the one you used was good? bad? Why?

Thank you

navin70

SSPP,

Ended up buying the Barbri mini-review book, the yellow FL essay testing books, the Barbri multistate testing books and Emmanuel's Strategies and Tactics for the MBE. Also bought baroutlines.com, found them somewhat helpful as a framework, but did find a few errors that needed correcting. As I write this on 4/1, am two weeks out from the results, which are expected on 4/14. So, I'll be able to let you know how effective my studying was, and whether the materials were sufficient, in a couple of weeks. One big obvious difference between my VA studying in '97 and my current FL studies was that I made all my own outlines back then, and made very few of my own this time around. The process of creating your own outlines, while definitely time consuming, makes a huge difference compared to simply reading outlines someone else created, and that's my biggest worry as I await the results.

I'll let you know how things went in a couple of weeks.

navin70

Hey everybody,

Just a quick post to say FL results are in today (4/14), and I passed both sections. Don't know how close it was, haven't gotten my actual score reports, but obviously I don't really care, I passed.

Two bar exams 10 years apart, and hopefully never again.

Good luck to all!!