Ray's J.D. (Juris Doctor)

2L: NWCULaw 2L Plan:

IMPORTANT NOTE!:

Do as well as you can in 1L, work hard, get the job done, but STOP at the end of 1L and FOCUS every ounce of energy you can on the FYLSX.

75% of first timers and 84% of repeaters will fail the exam every time because the California Bar curves the grades to make that reality.

Do not start 2L until you PASS the FYLSX. If you pass the first time out - you have lost the least amount of time, get back into studies. If you fail the FYLSX three times and you started 2L, you have lost the most amount of money and time... do not do it.., PASS the FYLSX first, THEN go into 2L!

An obvious point on this is that if you continue right on into the 2L year, you are really studying for the FYLSX as well as studying the 2L subjects... you are doing twice the work, but if you do not PASS the FYLSX, all the effort you put into 2L might be lost - why risk that?!?

If I had it to do all over again, I would not have started 2L until I passed the FYLSX.

The 2L Plan:

This is updated to meet the evolved program that I have tweaked through the start of the 4L year. The old program works fine, it is how I got this far (currently in 4L (January 2017)). This plan is better, more effective and efficient! Plan of Attack:

Fleming's Outlines (if you are at NWCULaw):

Contact NWCULaw (assuming you go there) and ask for the password for the 2L outlines from Fleming, then call his office and request the outlines - they are included in our tuition, so order them up front... but the Fleming material is really REVIEW, so go into the plan of attack below, and I'll come back to Fleming later... by the way, his VIDEO lectures are on the school eJuris site!

California Bar Essay Book:

Read the single page introduction for each section of the book. Agency and Partnerships is part of Business Associations, and Criminal Procedure is part of Criminal Law and Procedure, for the main part of the short outlines in this book, for Business Associations, feel free to skip over Corporations and just hit the Agency and Partnership aspects, Corporations is covered in 3L. For Criminal Law and Procedure, just read it all anyway, it won't hurt here.

Just read the one page introductions and move on to the Gilbert's Introduction pages, don't read the whole outline yet.

Gilbert's Law Summary's:

Read the INTRODUCTION pages for each Gilbert's, and then for each chapter in Gilbert's. Do not go into the meat of the material, JUST read the introduction pages for the entire book, and then the individual chapters - this is short reading, and there is a reason why I want you to do this - to get all four subjects into your mind without forgetting a lot of anything!

Go back and re-read the Intro pages from the California Bar Essay Book - what this does, is get you to focus on what is most important - but don't even think about it, just read them and come back to the Gilbert's Capsule Summary.

Gilbert's Capsule Summary:

During 1L and 2L, I skipped over this resource, I now embrace it, because of the California Bar Essay Book!

Read all four of the Gilbert's Capsule Summary's - do not get lost, just get your eyes across every single word and keep moving. The idea is to move quickly through the books - the really important stuff will be covered over and over again, but if you must look something up, just use the sub section number of the Capsule Summary and go to the main outline (same sub section number) and read about what you wanted to see... do not get lost in the book, it is important to move fast here.

The introduction pages above was fast reading, the Capsule Summary's take longer to get through, but are still pretty quick.

Once you get these done, re-read the Intro pages from the California Bar Essay Book, and let's dive into that.

California Bar Essay Book:

This time, I want you to read the main outline sections for the four subjects, skipping over Corporations in the Business Associations section (you hit that in 3L). And for Criminal Law, just read the whole thing anyway... while your focus is on Criminal Procedure, reading the whole section is fine.

This is short - focused reading... we need "more," the Gilbert's are the "more."

Important Note:

During this whole process of reading, participate online with the Discussion Boards, and - if you can - attend the online live classes, because we get extra credit up to one full letter grade for participation... you want that extra credit!

Gilbert's Main Outline Section:

Now go back to the Gilbert's and read the giant section, called the Main Outline. This is going to take you longer, but it will not be so bad, because you have a decent understanding of the really important stuff, and a lot of this will be looking very familiar to you now! At this point, if you see something you want to look up, do so, but do not waste too much time with it, get your eyes on all the words, look over the charts and graphs, enjoy the tips and such, but keep moving!

Do not forget to keep up your participation on the Discussion Boards! You WANT that extra credit!

California Bar Essay Book:

Let's go over the rest of what is in this book here.

Using a 2L subject of Remedies, let's see what we have - it is the same for every subject...

Table of Contents: Useful to look over.

Introduction Page: You should have read this a couple of times by now!

Issues Checklist: You should have been skipping over this, and this is the point to inform you of what this is... it is the minimalist version of the issues that are most important, this list will be very important to helping you LIMIT the amount of data you have to master!

Memorization Attack Sheet: You should have been skipping this too. It is painfully confusing until you can see and understand how wonderful it is! If you MASTER this section, you should be very well set for your exams! You can use this in conjunction with the Issues Checklist to make sure that you have the most important issues locked down, and to help prune out the lessor vital data.

Outline: You should have read this five or more times by now... but don't worry, it is short, and by now, you should be able to understand all of it too - feel free to read through it, for all four subjects a number of times to really lock things in! (for Remedies, it is ONLY 12 pages!)

Remedies Issues Checklist: This section is one you need not have even looked at yet, but it, in conjunction with the above Memorization and Issues lists, really demonstrate what the bar is testing us on! Really use this with the above to focus on the most vital issues, because, thankfully, the HUGE issues are worth the most points, and those little out of the way issues are not worth many points at all!

Essays and Grids: For the first answer or two, they give you a model answer - beyond that, they give you an answer grid (which they give you on all of the essays) You can use these grids to help you develop your own definition sheets... focus on the huge issues, and learn the "close" issues, and you should be fine.

Ray's Definition Sheets:

For 2L, I never got the chance to create my Definition Sheets - and I paid a price for that, but I will be creating them during my 4L year. Criminal Law from 1L merges in with Criminal Procedure from 2L. Agency and Partnerships merges in with Corporations from 3L. I am not sure how I will address them, but I will keep the FYLSX Definition Sheets as a stand alone item... I will probably offer up my Definition Sheets as a stand alone full item AND break them out as each year of school as well. I did complete them for 3L, and they are pretty good, but could be shorter!

It is in my schedule to work on them all during the 4L year, and publish them as soon as I can.

Projects:

We have to complete a few projects, and now that you know something, it is a good time to jump on those.

Vocabulary:

The Clancey's Outlaws ARE the Vocabulary Assignment at NWCULaw, the Outlaws are available as PDF files on the eJuris site. I copy and paste those into a new document, then I clean up the Definitions and edit them as best I can. This creates my template for completing the assignment.

What the school wants, is an EXAMPLE or EXPLANATION of the term, not a new definition! Several students have had their assignments kicked back to them because they gave a new definition, this is not a fast assignment, you do not want to have to do it twice!

After the school supplied, and my edited version, of the definition, I skip two lines and write up my Example / Explanation of what the term or issue means. I have never had anything kicked back to me, so I am doing it right.

Complete all four subjects and submit them all at the same time... follow the eJuris website instructions.

Case Briefs:

Every year, this project DRAGGED at the start, but as I get moving, it speeds up, and for 3L, it just flew fast! I don't know why, but I credit my use of my template to how fast I was able to get them done! I will publish my template online soon. It is easy to use, I just need to actually make a clean copy of it.

Now, I suggest NOT getting Case Books or Case Brief Books - so how do I brief cases? I use Wikipedia, Google Scholar and the Internet in general... if it is really a solid case, it will be in Wikipedia, if is it a lesser case, it should still be on the Internet somewhere. If you are really good with Lexis Nexis (I almost never use it!), feel free to go there as well.

Almost all of my cases are from Wikipedia - it just gives me background that the Case Books and Case Brief Books do not provide!

Fleming's Outlines and Videos:

Fleming's material is REVIEW, and while you are gearing up for the Mid Terms and Finals, it is a good time to review. Feel free to watch all of the video's online, and use the outlines that you ordered from Fleming's office while you watch them, they are quite helpful.

Once you have gone over all of that material, feel free to jump into the Mid Terms!

Mid Term Exams:

There are two types, College Style Essays and Bar Style Essays... I only discuss the Bar Style Essays, as I figure you will know how to write a College Style Essay by now.

The Bar Style Essays are in the Syllabus, they are Open Book and have no time limit... do yourself a favor and READ the Bar Style Essay Fact Pattern once or twice EVERY SINGLE WEEK up until the point in time that you are going to actually work on them - this way, you will have had the insight of what you are looking for LONG before you get there! The Mid Terms SHOULD be a tad easier for you, then they had been for me - because I always waited to even look at them until I started to work on them.... MISTAKE on my part!

Read the fact patterns once or twice per week until you are going to work on them!

When you do the Mid Terms, do them open book, and take your time to fully understand what you are writing. Be confident in what you submit, and try to submit them around month eight or nine of your "year," because you want to know enough to do a solid job on them, but you need to get them in to the school in time so that you get the feedback from them - to apply to your efforts on the Final Exams.

Now, if you wanted to re-review Fleming's materials, between Mid Terms and Finals is a good time to do that.

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