2017 July Illinois Bar Forum

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cron1834

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by cron1834 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 7:35 pm

RCinDNA wrote:
cron1834 wrote:I agree IEE was pretty messed. Kinda shit the bed on it (along with two MEEs for that matter...), but ppl I talked to were also bewildered.
IL bar is just trolling the bar prep companies at this point.

Anyway, in retrospect, definitely could have been worse. The absolute worst thing that could have happened would be walking in and not having at least 3-4 essays where you knew wtf you were doing.
Yeah, agree. I definitely blew it on one IEE and two MEEs... but probably got enough points for a Day 1 score above the 20th percentile. With a good MBE, you can do that shitty and still pass overall. That's what I'm telling myself...

RaceJudicata

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by RaceJudicata » Tue Jul 25, 2017 7:52 pm

All things considered, think today was fine. Tough, but fair (except the IEE question we are all talking about). Genuinely concerned about how I can go six more hours tomorrow. I am WIPED.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by Suprman37 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 7:56 pm

futago wrote:
Suprman37 wrote:Well, that's over.
Well, halfway over anyways.
I did the one day exam. It's over for me and I'm glad.

IEE question 2 was ridiculous. Attorney ethics rules? Improper bolstering? What??

That was the worst MPT I've done, and I've done about ten. Almost half of the library was worthless. Reading the calls of the questions, you only needed the ordinances, statutes, and one case to answer without just stuffing in fluff.

Don't even get me started on [random Latin words] theory of conflict of laws.

On this other hand, JD Advising nailed those predictions.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by Nebby » Tue Jul 25, 2017 8:17 pm

RaceJudicata wrote:All things considered, think today was fine. Tough, but fair (except the IEE question we are all talking about). Genuinely concerned about how I can go six more hours tomorrow. I am WIPED.
Sleep well

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Steve2207

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by Steve2207 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 8:42 pm

RCinDNA wrote:
cron1834 wrote:I agree IEE was pretty messed. Kinda shit the bed on it (along with two MEEs for that matter...), but ppl I talked to were also bewildered.
IL bar is just trolling the bar prep companies at this point.

Anyway, in retrospect, definitely could have been worse. The absolute worst thing that could have happened would be walking in and not having at least 3-4 essays where you knew wtf you were doing.
The worst thing would be to have your computer mess up, and have the whole morning exam ruined. Wait that happened! Illinois "workaround" for the Windows Creator 10 Update was a sham, and it just cost me my last attempt in this pathetic State.

I think its time for me to move onto to another jurisdiction.
Last edited by Steve2207 on Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

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RCinDNA

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by RCinDNA » Tue Jul 25, 2017 8:53 pm

Whoah. All isn't lost since most of the morning was BS anyway. Show up to the MBE and see how you do.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by Stalemated » Tue Jul 25, 2017 9:38 pm

Steve2207 wrote:
RCinDNA wrote:
cron1834 wrote:I agree IEE was pretty messed. Kinda shit the bed on it (along with two MEEs for that matter...), but ppl I talked to were also bewildered.
IL bar is just trolling the bar prep companies at this point.

Anyway, in retrospect, definitely could have been worse. The absolute worst thing that could have happened would be walking in and not having at least 3-4 essays where you knew wtf you were doing.
The worst thing would be to have your computer mess up, and have the whole morning exam ruined. Wait that happened! Illinois "workaround" for the Windows Creator 10 Update was a sham, and it just cost me my last attempt in this pathetic State.

I think its time for me to move onto to another jurisdiction. At least one that isn't so broke that it has to flunk half of the State Bar takers just to try to raise money to bail itself out.
My laptop kept trying to push that update this week. Thank God I set it to restart on Saturday.

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cron1834

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by cron1834 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 10:20 pm

My Mac froze up while uploading the MPT. I was freaking out. Thank goodness it was during lunch and the lady had time to fix it.

Handwriting must truly suck.

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virgoyum

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by virgoyum » Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:48 pm

Well the MBE decided to up their game and create little baby sized MEE combo questions masquerading themselves as 200 multiple choice questions.

F*ck you NCBE

:( :( :(

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RCinDNA

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by RCinDNA » Wed Jul 26, 2017 10:47 pm

I think the bar examiners are just bored.

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virgoyum

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by virgoyum » Thu Jul 27, 2017 1:31 am

RCinDNA wrote:I think the bar examiners are just bored.
Like forreal. Civ Pro questions all gussied up when they really just wanted to focus on Choice of Law. Then that constant "east coast west coast" beef between state law and federal law. Then oh let's really mess with them, was it Torts or was it Crim Law? We're not going to tell you but tell us of what the witness is said is admissible. And just for good measure let's pretend the people care about Judicial Notice? They tried to make us care. I still don't care. :evil:

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cron1834

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by cron1834 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 2:16 am

How many experimental questions were devoted to civ pro? Like all of them?

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dans1006

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by dans1006 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 9:47 am

There were quite a few questions where I was like, "Ok.... :D ok... :) I see what you're getting at... :o wait... what? :( What the hell... :? are you fuggin'.... :x wait... :roll: ... I got this... :wink: ... shit :oops: ... no I don't. :cry: "

Guessed and moved on.

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cron1834

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by cron1834 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:20 am

I was taken aback by how many questions I had down to a 50/50 guess. On practice sets I generally knew things or I didn't. There was still a lot of that yesterday, but I felt like every other question was a 1/2 situation for me.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by maybenotmaybeyes » Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:51 am

I can't even function after this. I thought I was so prepared and totally hit a wall on this

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by maybenotmaybeyes » Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:57 am

I totally skipped one essay? I can't believe this. Ran out of time when I got to the second Illinois portion essay. Total bullshit. But finished everything else.

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ndbigdave

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by ndbigdave » Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:40 am

Felt like I should check-in.

Having gone through the IL Bar once before (February 2017) I didnt feel like anything was a "surprise" per say - and the MBE generally felt in line with what I was doing on Adaptibar (frankly thought most of the MBE questions had shorter fact patterns). Of the three (3) MBEs I have taken this is the one I felt like I had the most "yes, this is the right answer" questions on, but that isnt surprising - I did minimum practice for my first and second exam (no joke I did 180 questions for my first exam, and maybe 400 the first time while never really reviewing answers) I scored a 141 and then a 139 on my two previous MBEs so my hope is that the number creeped up at least a bit (nothing crazy, but id hope at least a point or two on the low end).

That all being said, I dont KNOW exactly how I did on the MBE because there were definitely a handful of "WTF questions" where I was really guessing and then more than a handful that I had worked out to being 50/50. What gives me hope is the fact that there did feel like there were more that I "knew" (as compared to previous MBE tests) and the fact that I did far more practice this time around (I did 1,240 adaptibar questions and only 100 of which I did not review). I have every reason to believe that my scores should be relatively close to my practice sessions (the end of which had me between 66% and 70% with Civ Pro questions dragging down my overall %).

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ndbigdave

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by ndbigdave » Thu Jul 27, 2017 12:03 pm

cron1834 wrote:
RCinDNA wrote:
cron1834 wrote:I agree IEE was pretty messed. Kinda shit the bed on it (along with two MEEs for that matter...), but ppl I talked to were also bewildered.
IL bar is just trolling the bar prep companies at this point.

Anyway, in retrospect, definitely could have been worse. The absolute worst thing that could have happened would be walking in and not having at least 3-4 essays where you knew wtf you were doing.
Yeah, agree. I definitely blew it on one IEE and two MEEs... but probably got enough points for a Day 1 score above the 20th percentile. With a good MBE, you can do that shitty and still pass overall. That's what I'm telling myself...
Agreed. And that is what I am banking on (relatively strong MBE and dragging myself across the line with the essays).

I totally bombed the February 2017 essays after having a quite strong showing on the Michigan July 2015 essays (I consider legal writing/analysis a relative strength) so I was shocked to see how poorly I did.

Prior to the test I ran math based on the February 2017 results and it made me feel far better.

My baseline was the 133, a "passing" scaled score for Illinois along with the "average" scores across the board on the IEE, MPT and MEE.

The scores can be found here: https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/feb-201 ... ent-charts

When I ran the math the "average" student scored approximately 62% of the available points and scored a the 133 or right around it, perhaps +/- 1 point.

As I am not banking on the written portion, but instead an "OK" MBE score, I knew that I could likely score somewhere in the mid 50% and still achieve a score high enough, when added to my MBE to pass.

I feel more confident today then I did before the bar because I felt great about the MPT, and though I know I blew portions of the IEE there were other parts that I think I did very well on. The MEE is a mix as well, I felt like I had something competent to say on all the subjects with a few that were in my wheel house (Civ Pro, Cim Pro/Evidence) and upon review did a decent job with the Torts (abnormally dangerous activity) analysis. The con law question was surprising, and I know i messed up part of it, but I also know I got other portions straight away, the Wills question was interesting but again I think I got the key components correct.

Pivoting a bit here...

What I thought was most frustrating was the character limit. On about 4 of the 9 essays and the MPT I definitely had to go back and sacrificing some formatting and style in order to get things under the 4,600 limit which really pissed me off - it also cost me time from writing and analyzing because I was busy trying to delete things and make things fit. The biggest quirk is when I went back through the essays during the last few minutes and ExamSoft informed me that essays were "over the limit" by a certain amount of characters and the program just unilaterally deleted said amount of characters (so I had to remember perhaps what my last few words were) even though when I left the essay I was at the maximum character limit (or just under) - WTF ExamSoft! How could the character counter be "off" and then screw me like that? Thank god I could fix it, but it added a level of unnecessay stress and last second changes to make it fit - just totally unnecessary

Rant over.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by gatorade_potato » Thu Jul 27, 2017 12:21 pm

cron1834 wrote:How many experimental questions were devoted to civ pro? Like all of them?
Yeah agreed—there was SO much civ pro on there. I guess silver lining is that every time I didn't know the answer to one of them (which was...often), I just assumed it was experimental :cry:

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by shecallingme » Fri Jul 28, 2017 4:32 pm

What was the rule for the jury instructions during deliberation? I know it doesn't matter at this point, and all of that, but I can't find the answer online. It's bugging me.

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cron1834

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by cron1834 » Fri Jul 28, 2017 4:41 pm

At this point I don't want to know. Hopefully whatever fictional rule I wrote was correct by dumb luck.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by futago » Fri Jul 28, 2017 5:02 pm

ndbigdave wrote:
What I thought was most frustrating was the character limit. On about 4 of the 9 essays and the MPT I definitely had to go back and sacrificing some formatting and style in order to get things under the 4,600 limit which really pissed me off - it also cost me time from writing and analyzing because I was busy trying to delete things and make things fit. The biggest quirk is when I went back through the essays during the last few minutes and ExamSoft informed me that essays were "over the limit" by a certain amount of characters and the program just unilaterally deleted said amount of characters (so I had to remember perhaps what my last few words were) even though when I left the essay I was at the maximum character limit (or just under) - WTF ExamSoft! How could the character counter be "off" and then screw me like that? Thank god I could fix it, but it added a level of unnecessay stress and last second changes to make it fit - just totally unnecessary

Rant over.
Me too! I guess it comes from not writing out the essays during bar prep, but I hit the limit on the majority of essays plus the MPT, which really threw me for a loop. I had to spend a lot of time deleting stuff to add more important stuff.

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ndbigdave

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by ndbigdave » Fri Jul 28, 2017 6:02 pm

shecallingme wrote:What was the rule for the jury instructions during deliberation? I know it doesn't matter at this point, and all of that, but I can't find the answer online. It's bugging me.

I checked online. Jury instructions are REQUIRED to go to the jury.

Whether or not the court reads the instructions prior to closing arguments, the court should read the instructions to the jury
after closing arguments and must distribute a written copy of the instructions to the jury. Cite: Ill. S. Ct. R. 239(e)

The portion regarding Voir Dire relates to an amended rule from 1997 that changed the language from may to shall though the rule still allows the trial court judge a lot of discretion depending on the complexity of the case and issues to be presented.

Attorneys directly questioning prospective jurors. Prior to May 1, 1997, voir dire examination in civil and criminal cases was governed by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 234. After that date, rule 234 was amended for civil cases and rule 431 was adopted for criminal cases. Rule 431 modified rule 234 in the following ways (additions are underlined, deletions have a line through them): (go to link as my copy + paste doesnt reflect the struck through lanague, the passage you will want is on the top of Page 66).

https://www.illinois.gov/osad/Training/ ... Jurors.pdf

I based my answers off of what I could remember from Michigan law (it is where I am licensed and have practiced) and I couldnt recall off the top of my head any rule requiring instructions to go into the jury room (though all judges I know did it) and I was very aware that the trial court judge had significant discretion in controlling the flow of trial and could forclose lawyers from asking questions in voir dire those judges who didnt let attorneys do it were usually unpopular but had all the authority in the world to do so.

Hope this helps.

PS - Dont fret about getting things wrong here, multiple points available, and conclusions can be wrong, if you had some logic in the analysis you may still pick up a few points to avoid getting a "1" on the eassay, you can easily overcome getting a "2" on an essay.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by shecallingme » Fri Jul 28, 2017 8:00 pm

Thanks a lot for the thorough response. I'm licensed in another jurisdiction as well so I don't feel the life and death like the first time. But this question was bugging me.

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Re: 2017 July Illinois Bar

Post by rahulg91 » Fri Jul 28, 2017 10:21 pm

ndbigdave wrote:
shecallingme wrote:What was the rule for the jury instructions during deliberation? I know it doesn't matter at this point, and all of that, but I can't find the answer online. It's bugging me.

I checked online. Jury instructions are REQUIRED to go to the jury.

Whether or not the court reads the instructions prior to closing arguments, the court should read the instructions to the jury
after closing arguments and must distribute a written copy of the instructions to the jury. Cite: Ill. S. Ct. R. 239(e)

The portion regarding Voir Dire relates to an amended rule from 1997 that changed the language from may to shall though the rule still allows the trial court judge a lot of discretion depending on the complexity of the case and issues to be presented.

Attorneys directly questioning prospective jurors. Prior to May 1, 1997, voir dire examination in civil and criminal cases was governed by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 234. After that date, rule 234 was amended for civil cases and rule 431 was adopted for criminal cases. Rule 431 modified rule 234 in the following ways (additions are underlined, deletions have a line through them): (go to link as my copy + paste doesnt reflect the struck through lanague, the passage you will want is on the top of Page 66).

https://www.illinois.gov/osad/Training/ ... Jurors.pdf
lol what the hell. this seems so nuanced, was it covered by barbri/themis?

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