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Hi, I’m a foreign Atty, starting to prepare for the NY Bar exam. I used to think I only need a review of my legal knowledge but I’m finding out that I need more than the review materials. I need to read the basic US textbooks you used in Law school! This is humbling me a lot.
Please share information of what textbook (name and author) that helped you most in Law School for each Bar exam subject. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Textbook for:
Constitutional Law
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law/Procedure
Property
Torts
Contract
Evidence

I can give you a few books if I still have them. I can check. I could just send them in the mail.

Oh my, that’s very kind of you, thank you!

Lawworld19 wrote:I can give you a few books if I still have them. I can check. I could just send them in the mail.

That's very nice of you. Is there a way to private message my address? i can give you mailing and packing fee. Thank you very much!

lawjo wrote:Hi, I’m a foreign Atty, starting to prepare for the NY Bar exam. I used to think I only need a review of my legal knowledge but I’m finding out that I need more than the review materials. I need to read the basic US textbooks you used in Law school! This is humbling me a lot.
Please share information of what textbook (name and author) that helped you most in Law School for each Bar exam subject. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Textbook for:
Constitutional Law
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law/Procedure
Property
Torts
Contract
Evidence

You could search the forum and find out what others in your shoes did.

I’ll save you time now. If you’re taking July 2018, you simply have no time for reading those 1L textbooks. They’re meant to get you to know cases, and you cite them on your final exam (as you would in practice). 1L semesters run for several months, and first year is two of them - the July exam is about 3 months away. Complete waste of time since you’re not citing anything for UBE essays, and you don’t have 8 months to spare.

You just need to know the applicable principles - which are already covered in first-year outlines. For that, there are so many of them out there. You’d want to make sure they are updated (especially for Civ Pro). Since you’re using Themis (I saw your other thread), read and review the “big” outline, as that should cover everything.

Two of your subjects are heavily rules-based. So reading the Federal rules would be very helpful:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre (Evidence)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp
(Civil Procedure)

Also, if you’re not from a common-law country, add the idea of precedence (overlaps over all those subjects) to what you need to know.

Good luck!

My $.02

Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:

lawjo wrote:Hi, I’m a foreign Atty, starting to prepare for the NY Bar exam. I used to think I only need a review of my legal knowledge but I’m finding out that I need more than the review materials. I need to read the basic US textbooks you used in Law school! This is humbling me a lot.
Please share information of what textbook (name and author) that helped you most in Law School for each Bar exam subject. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Textbook for:
Constitutional Law
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law/Procedure
Property
Torts
Contract
Evidence

You could search the forum and find out what others in your shoes did.

I’ll save you time now. If you’re taking July 2018, you simply have no time for reading those 1L textbooks. They’re meant to get you to know cases, and you cite them on your final exam (as you would in practice). 1L semesters run for several months, and first year is two of them - the July exam is about 3 months away. Complete waste of time since you’re not citing anything for UBE essays, and you don’t have 8 months to spare.

You just need to know the applicable principles - which are already covered in first-year outlines. For that, there are so many of them out there. You’d want to make sure they are updated (especially for Civ Pro). Since you’re using Themis (I saw your other thread), read and review the “big” outline, as that should cover everything.

Two of your subjects are heavily rules-based. So reading the Federal rules would be very helpful:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre (Evidence)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp
(Civil Procedure)

Also, if you’re not from a common-law country, add the idea of precedence (overlaps over all those subjects) to what you need to know.

Good luck!

My $.02

Thank you, your $.02 is very helpful. You're right i need to study smart, not just hard. I am postponing my exam for next year, 2019, to have time to read textbooks. I may end up just skimming thru the textbook and proceed to Outlines anyway but i need to get hold of textbooks for confidence issue. Statistics have very low passing rate for non-US schooled attorneys, I need to know what you had in school that i might've missed.
Can you elaborate on the "idea of precedence" that you mentioned?
I do appreciate your time. Thanks!

lawjo wrote:

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:Correction: Since you may not be using Themis, ignore my comments regarding them.

Mods: please bring back editing capabilities. Thanks.

My $.02

b290 wrote:

lawjo wrote:Hi, I’m a foreign Atty, starting to prepare for the NY Bar exam. I used to think I only need a review of my legal knowledge but I’m finding out that I need more than the review materials. I need to read the basic US textbooks you used in Law school! This is humbling me a lot.
Please share information of what textbook (name and author) that helped you most in Law School for each Bar exam subject. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Textbook for:
Constitutional Law
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law/Procedure
Property
Torts
Contract
Evidence

You could search the forum and find out what others in your shoes did.

I’ll save you time now. If you’re taking July 2018, you simply have no time for reading those 1L textbooks. They’re meant to get you to know cases, and you cite them on your final exam (as you would in practice). 1L semesters run for several months, and first year is two of them - the July exam is about 3 months away. Complete waste of time since you’re not citing anything for UBE essays, and you don’t have 8 months to spare.

You just need to know the applicable principles - which are already covered in first-year outlines. For that, there are so many of them out there. You’d want to make sure they are updated (especially for Civ Pro). Since you’re using Themis (I saw your other thread), read and review the “big” outline, as that should cover everything.

Two of your subjects are heavily rules-based. So reading the Federal rules would be very helpful:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre (Evidence)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp
(Civil Procedure)

Also, if you’re not from a common-law country, add the idea of precedence (overlaps over all those subjects) to what you need to know.

Good luck!

My $.02

Thank you, your $.02 is very helpful. You're right i need to study smart, not just hard. I am postponing my exam for next year, 2019, to have time to read textbooks. I may end up just skimming thru the textbook and proceed to Outlines anyway but i need to get hold of textbooks for confidence issue. Statistics have very low passing rate for non-US schooled attorneys, I need to know what you had in school that i might've missed.
Can you elaborate on the "idea of precedence" that you mentioned?
I do appreciate your time. Thanks!

I do think that all you need are 1L outlines for learning 1L subjects, But if you insist on deeper understanding, you can get the Examples & Explanations series covering those subjects. I used them for some of them and they were amazing in clearing up uncertainties. They’re also a nice read, and they’re reasonably priced as opposed to casebooks (which can go to $100-200 each).

The other problem with reading casebooks is that they basically are meant for, and most effectively used, the law school classroom environment. Since you won’t be in such a situation, it would be akin to learning surgery only by watching medical TV shows. You can probably figure out some basics but you won’t get very far out of context.

As for precedence, I hate citing Wikipedia, but in your case, it’ll shorten this post

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent

You don’t explicitly use its implications on the bar exam except on the MPT memos, and maybe Con Law - but it’s fundamental to Common-Law legal practice.

An LLM presumes you know 1L stuff (in the US) so there’s no coverage of it there. That’s why some states require that foreign applicants get a JD, or go through the 1st year. The bar exam is explicitly on the law school 1L, with skills that are only obtained either in law school (essays, MPT) or applying to it (MBE, via the LSAT, SAT, ACT, etc.) Many foreign applicants don’t find this out until literally studying for the first time, and voilà, you see the pass rates.

My $.02

As others have said, don't spend time reading 1L textbooks, they won't help you with this exam. It is very different than a law school exam. Since you are postponing your exam, I suggest looking to iTunes U. Several law schools have full courses on 1L topics and you can use these to get at least a small sample of 1L courses and topics.

lawjo wrote:Hi, I’m a foreign Atty, starting to prepare for the NY Bar exam. I used to think I only need a review of my legal knowledge but I’m finding out that I need more than the review materials. I need to read the basic US textbooks you used in Law school! This is humbling me a lot.
Please share information of what textbook (name and author) that helped you most in Law School for each Bar exam subject. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Textbook for:
Constitutional Law
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law/Procedure
Property
Torts
Contract
Evidence

Just failed the NY Feb 2018 MBE 123.6 Written 113.17. Studying as of today!!! all suggestions welcomed!

IwiLLdoIt wrote:Just failed the NY Feb 2018 MBE 123.6 Written 113.17. Studying as of today!!! all suggestions welcomed!

I can give you a very good assessment of where you went wrong if you fill out this form:
https://seperac.com/scoreform.php

I regard this free score report as a quid pro quo - the information in the report helps you better understand your problem areas while the data helps me better understand the exam. For example, I use this data to determine the scale for each exam and then make score calculators.

IwiLLdoIt wrote:Just failed the NY Feb 2018 MBE 123.6 Written 113.17. Studying as of today!!! all suggestions welcomed!

Foreign educated. Graduated law school 15 years back. Passed Feb 2018 NY bar exam by 13 points. Failed Feb 2017 (took exam on a whim) by 36 points and July 2017 by 10 points.

I signed up with Barbri but never could keep pace with the program. What worked for me well was making own outlines (from Barbri lectures and Conviser), practising MBE midterm and refresher and going through Barbri MEE and MPT practice books to get a good understanding of issue spotting. Bought S&T as well as Critical Pass but never found time to use them.

I also signed up with Bar tutor Alisa Geller (www.hitthehighbar.com), who was instrumental for my success. She helped me learn how to approach and answer the MPTs and essays the proper way, as well as helped me gain confidence with MBE. I had very limited time to study (due to hectic work schedule and family responsibilities). Alisa helped me create my own study schedule, and not only helped clarify complex legal rules, such as RAP, but also helped me get into the habit of answering MBE questions correctly and on time.

What I really liked about Alisa is that not only she's knowledgeable but also she has a keen understanding of what my weaknesses were and helped turn them into my strengths. She was very patient with me and never kicked up a fuss or charged me overtime even though several of my one-on-one one hour study sessions with her often went beyond one hour. I can't say the same for a Barbri tutor, who I had the unfortunate experience of getting to know.

If you're foreign educated and/or a retaker like me and taking the NY bar exam, I would suggest that you Alisa a try. She tutored me in person but I think she tutors via Skype too, if you're not residing in NY/NJ.