July 4, 2006

Bar: Sigh

Happy Fourth of July. I'm home. Exhausted, but happy to be home, despite the holiday of studying.

I take a small bit of pleasure in the knowledge that at least the poor folks at BarBri are working too. I received an emailed response to yet another essay.

Fail.

At least I'm failing in the same way. I'm actually gratified to see that I think I've identified my problem correctly. This grader actually came right out and said,


"ADVERSE POSSESSION IS A BIG ISSUE HERE - YOU NEEDED TO RECOGNIZE THAT, AND GIVE EACH OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR IT A HEADING, AND AN IRAC TREATMENT."


Oh. Right. Silly me. I only gave it a general heading and two paragraphs. I wrote this essay back when I thought "BIG ISSUE" meant something that could go either way and was worthy of discussion. I thought they were looking for issues that were actually interesting to discuss, like something that would actually change the outcome of the case or go to court instead of settle.

But now, I'm slowly getting the point. "BIG ISSUE" means a big black heading in the BarBri outline towards the front of the topic. If I see one of those, I am to devote much time to its discussion, even if it's apparent from the facts that the issue is truly a non-issue.

Slowly, slowly, my practice exams are metamorphosizing into outlines with blanks filled in by a monkey with a typewriter. It's too bad a monkey isn't on the list of crap you're allowed to bring into the exam.

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