FLORIDA BAR - JULY 2014 Forum

[hous]

South Florida, received my letter today.

153/155 - Themis. Definitely reflects how I felt about Themis' Florida material. I thought I killed the essays and bombed the MC, I probably did. I literally only knew maybe 10 Florida MC questions and guessed between 2-4 on the other 90.

I only did about 33% of the MBE question sets because it was my strongpoint in bar prep. I did 100% of the Florida material. I feel like I wasn't prepared for the Florida MC and over prepared for essays.

EDIT: I did 100% of the mbe lectures / handouts. The 33% was just the portion of the practice sets that I completed.

[GatorLaw124]

FL 160/ MBE 157.

Barbri.

[alicrimson]

168 FL/165 MBE. Surprising. I found the FL stuff much less difficult than MBE. Thought that would be a tank fest. Oh, and Barbri.

[hous]

168 FL/165 MBE. Surprising. I found the FL stuff much less difficult than MBE. Thought that would be a tank fest. Oh, and Barbri.

Everyone that took Barbri said the Florida MC section was cake. Everyone else felt they bombed it. I think the scores reveal barbri nailed it.

[OhScalia]

168 FL/165 MBE. Surprising. I found the FL stuff much less difficult than MBE. Thought that would be a tank fest. Oh, and Barbri.

Everyone that took Barbri said the Florida MC section was cake. Everyone else felt they bombed it. I think the scores reveal barbri nailed it.

Barbri definitely nailed it. They bailed me out as my essays were poor yet still got a 160.

[Ranger85]

151/152!

Still no C&F. At least I have "priority."

Is that a thing? If we passed the Bar Exam and are waiting on C&F we are a "priority" for getting cleared? They are just waiting on some more references from me which I had people send out on Tuesday morning(some of them were sent next day air). Does anyone know the day the board meets? I think it might be the last business day of the month, because my results letter dated my status as of August 29th, 2014.

[sherpaorlawschool]

For those of you who took Barbri, how does your MBE scaled score compare to your Barbri midterm score? Assuming a 10-15 point scale, is it better, worse, or about the same? I've seen some Themis folks saying their practice test scores generally reflected their actual score, and I'm curious if the same is true for some of you Barbri folks.

[Hannibal]

For those of you who took Barbri, how does your MBE scaled score compare to your Barbri midterm score? Assuming a 10-15 point scale, is it better, worse, or about the same? I've seen some Themis folks saying their practice test scores generally reflected their actual score, and I'm curious if the same is true for some of you Barbri folks.

My raw on the simulated MBE was 147 and my scaled score on the actual exam was 170, so take that as you will.

[Seminole_305]

For those of you who took Barbri, how does your MBE scaled score compare to your Barbri midterm score? Assuming a 10-15 point scale, is it better, worse, or about the same? I've seen some Themis folks saying their practice test scores generally reflected their actual score, and I'm curious if the same is true for some of you Barbri folks.

On the simulated MBE I scored 115 and on the actual exam I score 158. I attribute the jump to actually focusing on my weak areas.

[neveragain224]

Just got scores today! Took Themis and got a 159 on the Florida portion and a 166 on the MBE. Still waiting to be authorized to be sworn in - letter says that I've now been given priority, so I guess that's a good sign...

[bld2414]

Still waiting...

[OhScalia]

For those of you who took Barbri, how does your MBE scaled score compare to your Barbri midterm score? Assuming a 10-15 point scale, is it better, worse, or about the same? I've seen some Themis folks saying their practice test scores generally reflected their actual score, and I'm curious if the same is true for some of you Barbri folks.

Got a 148 raw score on Barbri Simulated MBE, which was a 96 percentile. I scored 164 on the real MBE that's about 95percentile according to this https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/percent ... s-feb-2014

[WhoMovedMyCakeBatter]

If you don't care about anything else (and trust me, it's long-winded babble) I got a 131 on Florida Part A, a 150 on Part B. FAIL, PASS, PASS, YES for an overall pass. Yahoo!

I created an account just to post this, because man it sure seems like everybody posting passed the Florida Bar with flying colors. I cannot possibly be the only passer who did not have such stellar passing margins.

I've already passed one Bar before taking Florida. An experienced Bar taker knows the best way to practice essays is, after reviewing the subjects a lot, don't waste your time doing practice essays - the real money is in reading the PRACTICE ESSAY ANSWERS, for it is in those answers that you will find out a lot. When reading an essay for a subject, the stuff that comes up that you already know, you'll know it. But the stuff you didn't know, you'll remember it simply because you didn't know it. I mean, it was hilarious for my first bar, the very first essay question was about the same topic as the very first practice essay - I blew the practice essay but aced it on the Bar because of that practice miss. This led to me presumably being money on my Florida essays. I mean straight up, I made a pile of every single topic for FL essay answers, printed out every practice essay provided by the Board of Bar Examiners, and just straight read them 10 times each. That is the best essay prep you could do.

BUT DAMN THAT FLORIDA MULTIPLE CHOICE WAS HARD AS CRAP! I legit was only sure on 16 out of the 100. Another 10 were good guesses. Truth is, over 60 I had no freaking idea. I spent months believing I failed the exam because of the multiple choice, only to be told this is how everyone feels. I guess it must be!

I just wanted to rep for the people that passed and didn't ace the exam. 131 on Florida - not great! But it doesn't matter, I get sworn in anyway. There must be others out there! Even if this forum self-selects for people that are "smart" I mean, I can't be the only one who failed Part A! Don't get me wrong, a super high bar score is badass, not saying it's bad in any way. But not everybody can have one, come on people, out of the woodwork!

[Hannibal]

haha yeah TLS is a bad place if you want to feel like you've got your shit together. The OCI thread was full of people saying if you didn't wear cap toe shoes (as a guy) then you're pretty much throwing jobs away.

Congrats on passing another bar!

[bld2414]

Has anyone been sworn in yet? Do you need something from the mailing to be sworn in?

[clebert]

I took Themis as well and got: 156 Florida / 166 MBE

I was shocked to do that well on Florida because I was getting very low scores from my Themis advisor on my practice essays (15 was my lowest, and 33 was my highest), and I truly had NO IDEA what the answer was on most of the corporations FMCs and swear that half of the corporations law they tested was nowhere to be found in the Themis outline or lectures.

I previously took the full bar exam in Minnesota using BarBri in July 2001, and I took the essay portion only in South Dakota in February 2002 just relying on my studying with BarBri from July and not really studying any more. But those are two of the easier states. South Dakota is supposed to be the easiest state of all.

So Themis came through for me. They claimed that their goal was to prepare students to pass "easily" so I guess that ended up being true.

But now I'm wishing I wouldn't have spent so much time studying! I hauled those &#*@ green books to Hawaii and back and all around the contiguous US, too! Haha!

Just got scores today! Took Themis and got a 159 on the Florida portion and a 166 on the MBE. Still waiting to be authorized to be sworn in - letter says that I've now been given priority, so I guess that's a good sign...

[alicrimson]

Has anyone been sworn in yet? Do you need something from the mailing to be sworn in?

I was sworn in today. A form with the oath and a place for a notary signature comes in the mail. You need to send this in for your bar number. So, you're either going to have to wait or get sworn in by someone who has these forms on hand. I know some state attorney/pd type places have them. So do some judges or schools that do a big swearing ceremony. Unfortunately, we won't have bar numbers for 3-4 weeks after swear in. Fortunately, we can still practice, we just have to write pending instead of a bar number.

[Hannibal]

Has anyone been sworn in yet? Do you need something from the mailing to be sworn in?

I was sworn in today. A form with the oath and a place for a notary signature comes in the mail. You need to send this in for your bar number. So, you're either going to have to wait or get sworn in by someone who has these forms on hand. I know some state attorney/pd type places have them. So do some judges or schools that do a big swearing ceremony. Unfortunately, we won't have bar numbers for 3-4 weeks after swear in. Fortunately, we can still practice, we just have to write pending instead of a bar number.

WE LAWYERS WOOP

[twenty 8]

After hearing about the lower than normal pass rates it was especially good to learn that all of our new hires passed. We can throw a celebration without the awkwardness of excluding someone.

[pricesquire]

I registered just to: (1) add a data-point, and (2) ask a question.

Data point:

FAIL PASS PASS NO

So, the good news is: I passed (via the Overall Method)!!! - I'll never have to take that stinkin' test again.

Used Kaplan's online prep. No live classes, just prerecorded videos & book work.

I felt terribly underprepared for the FL section, and lo and behold, I failed the FL section!

Luckily I crushed the MBE!

No idea what's holding up my app though, as my letter didn't really explain, other than saying "if your application is in order, you'll be given priority" -- and something about :apps take 6-8 months to process" - didn't submit my app until April, so assuming it's just a timing issue.

That said, is there ANY way to check online regarding an application status? Assuming the answer is no, but this is the place to ask!

[silky bruh]

Did they give us an envelope to return the oath in? I can't remember, don't want to send it to the wrong address if I can help it.

[Hannibal]

Did they give us an envelope to return the oath in? I can't remember, don't want to send it to the wrong address if I can help it.

They did in mine.

Got my bar number today in an email.

[fsunoles88]

Does anyone know when the Florida Bar member website will be updated showing our names on there? And when we will receive our Bar card? I submitted my oath on 9/26.

[hous]

Does anyone know when the Florida Bar member website will be updated showing our names on there? And when we will receive our Bar card? I submitted my oath on 9/26.

I was told its generally a week to receive the bar card. We should get them at any moment.

I submitted mine around the same time and I haven't received an email with my number. Did anyone else receive that email?

[fsunoles88]

Does anyone know when the Florida Bar member website will be updated showing our names on there? And when we will receive our Bar card? I submitted my oath on 9/26.

I was told its generally a week to receive the bar card. We should get them at any moment.

I submitted mine around the same time and I haven't received an email with my number. Did anyone else receive that email?

I haven't received anything in my email. I didn't even know the Florida Bar corresponds via email.