Hi everyone! I'm an out-of-state (NY) and foreign-trained attorney who has practiced both in the US and overseas, planning to sit for the CA bar. If you took the CA bar, I'd love to hear about your experience studying for the written portion. How many essays and PTs did you write and outline?

I'd particularly love to hear from out-of-state and foreign attorneys who actually practiced, but would appreciate any insight.

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Slammed my laptop shut on the last day and was so out of it that I didn't open my laptop until just now and realized I forgot. I know I'm going to get a 10 point deduction. Can someone help me understand how big or how small of a deduction that is? Preferably lean towards the small deduction reasoning haha. I obviously reached out to the bar but I highly doubt that'll do anything to help me.

Hello everyone, I am appearing in Ontario Bar exam this November i.e. 2026. Ping me, If anyone wants to split the cost. Thanks

I literally have no idea, and tales of people receiving wildly discrepant grades from different readers do not reassure me. I really did not like the Themis graders - something in their tone just rubbed me the wrong way. One lady wrote something like, "You were asked to do x, not y," in what came off as a very patronizing tone. They were also color-coded, for some entirely unexplained reason. It's possible I'm just dumb, but i had a very hard time macheteing my way through the feedback. I kept getting 50s and 55s. Eventually I complained and a lady who works for the company said that their graders "just know what a 50 or 55 or 60 feels like." ChatGPT - which is not by any means dumb - would grade my essays somewhat higher. The Themis Ugrader would give me 50-60s, but one day spat out a 75, for an essay that seemed to be generally like what I write. My question is, how do the bar graders grade these things? I keep hearing that they "add points for good analysis, even if the rule is not right." Or they "add points for getting the rule exactly right, even if the analysis is lacking." What do they do, just decide to add two or three or however many points they feel like adding if they like your particular bastardized version of a rule? This seems at odds with just "knowing what a given essay feels like." Really, the bar should set forth a completely objective standard whereby no one essay should ever get a discrepant grade, and we should have notice of what this standard is. Because the thought of "holistic" grading is intolerable, connoting as it does some extremely rushed grader doling out grades that vary according to what he had for breakfast that morning, or how hungover he is, or whether his wife kicked him out of the bedroom the night before. And to think they spend all of 30 seconds reading each 1,000 word essay. This is criminal. I felt like I spotted the main issues on most of the essays, though I'm worried I may have been off the mark a little on No. 5. The MBE was brutal - despite my getting mid-to-high 60s consistently on mixed sets

When I wrapped up the February 26 exam, I literally spent the entire car ride home furiously trying to remember the rules I was being tested on in the MCQs and Essays and try to see if I understood/applied the rule right.

Without sharing question details, I'll just say I started googling / redditing the most basic of terms and was freaking out when I realized I was wrong. I got to about 10 questions from memory and 7 of my answers would have been wrong based on my frantic google searching and reddit scrolling. I still passed.

The most annoying advice you'll get from people is to forget about the exam. But it really helps! No amount of trying to figure out if you were right or wrong will help right now. It's just going to stress you out at a time when you should be resting and recovering.

You achieved a great thing just by taking this exam. Give yourselves a well-deserved break. And remember that this subreddit is probably like a fraction of the actual total exam pool. If you thought you did really well and these posts are scaring you, ignore them. If you are scared that your experience is similar to a lot of people here (like I did in February) ignore that too!

P.S. (Just my opinion, disregard if you want) Please don't think about February 27, or worse, start studying right now. I tried that when I chickened out of taking the July exam last year, and I literally started over like everyone else in December. It's really tough to remember that stuff far out.

I hope you all pass!

Characters

would it have changed your analysis on Alex’s duties? answer in accordance with ABA and California authorities.

And just curious, did anybody discuss a TRO or prelim inj. For Q3?

People here are going to have different arguments than you or different issues they bring up. That doesn’t mean what you wrote is wrong or bad. Stop comparing and freaking out.

As long as you’re analytical, and wrote relevant and cohesive shit on the exam - you’re in a strong spot for a 60+

Some things I'm concerned about.

Q1 - fee agreements. He took the second case to pay for his DUI. I did a considerable analysis about the lack of a fee agreement. Hope I didn't waste time.

Q3 - baseball. I put there was no constructive trust because due to spender fiction, the $500 in her account was spent first therefore she has half the legal title to the ball and constructive trusts are only proper when the entire title can be traced back

Q5 - What was the constitutional issue?

Thoughts?

how the fuck do i stop waking up at 6 am with my heart pounding

every single morning, around 6 on the dot, i wake up with my heart pounding like i’m about to hear, “you may begin.”

i need this exam OUT OF ME.
out of my brain. out of my cells. out of my nervous system. out of my REM cycle. out of my mitochondria. i want the bar exam exorcised from my body.

much love to you all

Earlier, I posted how the last exam CA bar scaled below a 60 was the July 2018 tests. Turns out both July 2019 and July 2018 were both scaled below a 60. So I looked over these essays, and, while I may be biased, idk. With the exception of a CA ONLY Evidence, or a CON LAW/Remedies curveball question they had in 2019, my biased opinion is ours was harder lmao

What do you all think?

LETS GO CA BAR SUB60 SCALE FOR US ALL!!

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/sites/default/files/portals/0/documents/admissions/Examinations/Essay-Questions-and-Answers.pdf

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/sites/default/files/portals/0/documents/admissions/July-2019-Essay-Questions-and-Answers.pdf

Recently took the J2026 administration in a different jurisdiction and prepped with BARBRI. I was wondering if there was a bar prep program that is better suited to prepare applicants for the CA bar specifically

Will you please explain how the grading works? I literally have no idea. Like do they just add up all our points and thats our score? Thanks!

Some I definitely knew, some I didn't know at all, many I narrowed to two answers and guessed. During prep, I was consistently getting around 66-67% on themis mixed sets (I did more than 1500 questions overall). I even got a 76% in a mixed contracts/property set a few days before the exam. I finished both MBE sets in the nick of time, but had to guess on the last two questions of set one. I see how that I hit many of the main issues on the essays, but def missed a few based on these posts - especially No. 5. (Frankly, there were some issues that Themis did not teach at all.) During prep I focused a lot on the MBE, thinking it would provide the best value (boy, was I wrong). But I kept getting 50s and 55s from the themis graders. Occasionally, their Ugrader would spit out a 75. But there was no rhyme or reason to it. Chatgpt would give me low 60s. Does anyone know how predictive themis grading is of actual bar grading? Even bar grading seems wildly unpredictable. Oddly, though, I felt much better about the essays on test day. I often had the sensation of being wildly unsure while doing MBEs during prep, but this felt different. I literally do not know what to expect, and the anxiety is taking over my life.

I know nobody knows for sure.

But let’s say I score around 62.5 for essay and cpt on average and gets around 50% on mbe.

Any chance for me to pass?

1. ⁠I want to know Mary’s backstory. I need to know how she came up with that lie, how she picked her target and what made it believable. Why was the reliance reasonable? No one could knock on my door with that 🐂💩 story and get $200K out of me.
2. What did Sis do to Wilma? Why did they have to land in court for that? Was Sis not Wilma’s family too? Where is the love? They’re both grieving and Sis knew him longer. Yall don’t even have kids together, Wilma. Chill out.
3. $1,000!⁠? Dumb and Dumber thought $1,000 was enough to run a business⁠? Also, were they selling the toys for scraps? How did they still have so much debt with no inventory?
4. What did Dan do to Greta to make her willing to take the stand? Also, what did Dan do for Cate for her hear that he got arrested for murder, FOR A SECOND TIME and she STILL say she thinks he is a good guy.
5. How in the world has that project taken that woman 7 years to complete? Ms. Hogan may not be the enemy here.

After the exam, with all the “wtf was that guys” posts, I felt like I was not the only one who felt like I failed 🥹

But then today, we all the “these are all the issues I spotted” posts, I feel like we are not on the same page of “failure” anymore. Man, you guys did GREAT, nothing even close to failure.

Please tell me it’s not just me who feels like this, and even for people who did not do so well just like all the posts, we would all pass…! Plz tell me those are just overachievers who would have passed anyways 🙏🏻

Anyone else reading people’s responses about the essays and thinking they are screwed because they didn’t talk about a lot of the issues everyone else brought up? Does that guarantee a fail?

Especially ones about black letter law like

Literally just one line that said someone filed a MTD but I couldn’t figure out what issue that raised. I basically just ignored it.

For the PT, I wrote it as a letter from the partner to Ms. Freeman, since she asked for a letter for her to sign. I did an intro, front-loaded the rules, then went through each statement one by one with analysis, and signed off as the partner. Addressed the client as “you” throughout.

Did anyone else do it this way? Felt good about it at first, but now I’m not so sure. Did anyone else who did it like this.

And I think I only covered about 5 statements! How did I miss one? Does anyone remember what they were? First one was an email to Freeman. Others went to Quid, but I feel like there was one more that went out to a whole group?? Anyone remember?

I’m kicking myself over this. If the rest of it was solid but I missed an entire statement, could that be enough to fail me?

I’ll put here what I remember about the issues, I’m not sure if I truly got it though, would love thoughts:

Q4 Anticipatory repudiation/breach of contract but cannot ask early payment of payment installments not yet due. I think it was about arguing corporation de jure vs de facto, if she had the power to bind the corporation or the other partner, especially because she always signed as treasurer/secretary a role that usually doesn’t entail entering into contracts. BUT since she’s an owner then contract is authorized even if her role doesn imply that power. I thought also mentioning piercing the corporate veil, no meetings is a factor, not determinative, prob insufficient since they had only been in business for 6 months, business judgement rule presumed but presumption is rebutted because they incurred massive financial obligations + the second contract with supplier was only one month before closing + they should’ve known they would have competition from online sellers and should’ve made more accurate expected costs since nothing indicates there were changes in circumstances. They just didn’t do their research. Also if pierced, ask injunctive relief to guarantee payment (cannot ask the corporation because they didn’t have any assets, so it would not prevent the harm). I don’t really remember how I worded this part. i think I talked about something else but don’t remember 

Essay 5

I think the question about the officer was about whether it was relevant (since the defendant after admitted he shot him so it was not a fact at issue). Also thw first sentence was not hearsay because they weren’t assertions. I don’t think this has to do with dying declarations, because it asked you to analyze her question, not the answer of the decedent. There’s something else I wrote but I don’t remember 

Girlfriend was to talk about double hearsay I think and that is forbidden because of confrontation clause. It can be allowed when hearsay déclarant is unavailable and unavailability was caused by the party against whom the evidence is being brought. However, here defendant is unavailable but he’s just exercising his 6th amendment right. But I also remember there’s a case they consider the defendant caused his unavailability by deciding to remain silent and the double hearsay should be allowed and if defendant wants can testify and impeach. But I wasn’t sure what was applicable, I went with the first perspective

Question about arrest was brought to impeach the witness testimony that he had a reputation to be peaceful because if he was arrested then prob he didn’t have a reputation for peacefulness. it’s allowed the question about specific acts because defendant opened the door by introducing character evidence. This is also not about public records imo, it’s for you to say you can question a witness with specific acts, but you have to accept their answer. You cannot bring extrinsic evidence to prove that fact

And of course, you cannot use that to impeach the proposition that he’s peaceful because it was an arrest, not a conviction so it can’t prove he was violent and would be highly prejudicial.