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nybartony

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NY Bar advice - foreign educated law students without American law degree

Post by nybartony » Sun Nov 05, 2017 2:16 pm

I'll be taking the NY bar in Feb 2018. I am a foreign-educated law student and haven't studied American law before.

I have particular difficulties in studying the MEE. As a non-US law student, I found it more effective to learn the law just by doing past papers instead of revising the condensed outlines. Also revising lecture outlines simply not too helpful...It seems to me that while the UBE tends to recycle certain issues in their exams, new issues not tested before always appear. Also I often can't find the legal principles in my BarMax outlines for quite a lot of issues in the past paper essays.

Anyone has comments as to my approach in revising MEE or how I should tackle a situation of seeing a question that I don't know the law...

pausetildone

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Re: NY Bar advice - foreign educated law students without American law degree

Post by pausetildone » Sun Nov 05, 2017 11:23 pm

I had Barbri MEE book. It has many sets of question, outlined answer, and essay answer. I read questions and answers in every question and understand how to write the answer. I don't know about Barmax. I only had Barmax for mpre.

Once you do decent practice of MBE questions in any bar preparation materials, you probably memorize a lot of rules by practice. I found MEE as the combination of 3+ MBE questions.

Other people may answer better than me.

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JDAdvisingLLC

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Re: NY Bar advice - foreign educated law students without American law degree

Post by JDAdvisingLLC » Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:30 am

Good question. We have helped a lot of foreign-educated law students succeed on the MEE and the MPT. I think it is great you are doing practice questions because this is a great way to become familiar with the highly tested issues.

The best thing you can do is:
-When you come across an issue you do not see in your BarMax outlines, try to write it in your outline in the place that it makes the most sense. That way, when you review your outlines, you will be reviewing these additional laws you have come across.
- I would focus on actively memorizing outlines rather than condensing them. So, for example, cover up the outline and see if you can repeat the law out loud or briefly write it down again. And keep doing this until you have it completely memorized. Or make charts or diagrams for issues you have trouble with. Active review is very helpful for memorization.
- Keep doing practice questions! That is great that you are practicing past MEEs and you should keep this up. Make sure to closely compare your answer to the model answer when you are done. (We recommend comparing your answer to the model and "self grading" it when you are done -- e.g. act like a grader, and write or type in a different color font what rule statements you missed, if you missed any issues (and how you can spot them next time), if any conclusions were wrong, etc.) That way, you will see a lot of improvement.

nybartony

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Re: NY Bar advice - foreign educated law students without American law degree

Post by nybartony » Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:16 am

JDAdvisingLLC wrote:Good question. We have helped a lot of foreign-educated law students succeed on the MEE and the MPT. I think it is great you are doing practice questions because this is a great way to become familiar with the highly tested issues.

The best thing you can do is:
-When you come across an issue you do not see in your BarMax outlines, try to write it in your outline in the place that it makes the most sense. That way, when you review your outlines, you will be reviewing these additional laws you have come across.
- I would focus on actively memorizing outlines rather than condensing them. So, for example, cover up the outline and see if you can repeat the law out loud or briefly write it down again. And keep doing this until you have it completely memorized. Or make charts or diagrams for issues you have trouble with. Active review is very helpful for memorization.
- Keep doing practice questions! That is great that you are practicing past MEEs and you should keep this up. Make sure to closely compare your answer to the model answer when you are done. (We recommend comparing your answer to the model and "self grading" it when you are done -- e.g. act like a grader, and write or type in a different color font what rule statements you missed, if you missed any issues (and how you can spot them next time), if any conclusions were wrong, etc.) That way, you will see a lot of improvement.
This is very helpful advice. Thanks so much!!

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