Recent Articles

Tales from the MPRE

August 12, 2008 05:41

Because my MPRE score expired, I had to retake it.  After spending a couple hours with students about to begin their third year of law school, I have some observations: The MPRE is a weird exam.  It is easy in that you can normally eliminate two wrong answers quickly, leaving you a 50/50 (or at w...

Free LSAT Advice

August 12, 2008 05:16

Prior to and during law school, I was an LSAT tutor both on my own and (at a different time) for one of the large test preparation companies.  I'm not particularly fond of the LSAT.  Rather, I couldn't believe that my performance on a single test that was learnable could erase years of u...

Some Early Reactions to the Bar Exam

August 03, 2008 21:04

Many of the other people who took the bar exam with me last week are now on well-deserved vacations and have an entire month of relaxation before beginning work again.  I, on the other hand, am back working.  The joys of being a practicing attorney.   I don't know whether I passed or not, though I ...

Campbell Law & Teaching the Test

August 02, 2008 06:29

For the unacquainted, Campbell Law (officially, the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law) is perhaps the most well-respected law school you've never heard of. In North Carolina, Campbell is known for producing high-quality attorneys. I have had the privilege of knowing and working with several and...

Self Reflection

August 02, 2008 05:50

I am currently reading Major Dick Winters' excellent book, Beyond Band of Brothers.  Like many people, I am a huge fan of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and am grateful that the experiences of the men of Easy Company have been preserved for posterity.  Major Winters and Colonel Cole Kingseed t...

Starting Over

August 02, 2008 05:36

I recently took my second bar exam, exactly two years after passing my first. Being surrounded by 400 recent law school graduates was a strange experience. Your first time, you're scared. It's understandable. There are urban legends of law clerks who were fired because they failed the first time...

NC Bar -- Update

May 19, 2008 00:04

Bar Review Overview. I've spent the past four Sundays working on flashcards for the North Carolina bar. I'm not a big fan of studying from outlines, so flashcards is the way to go. There's a school of thought that tons of practice questions are the better approach. For the LSAT, I don't think...

Being Unprepared for Oral Argument

April 30, 2008 00:17

By now you are probably familiar with the debacle that a New Orleans attorney made of an appeal before the 5th Circuit. (If not, see here.) While Mr. Phipp's overall behavior is disgusting, I want to make sure to point out one thing that he did right: he admitted that he had not read the case that...

And We're Back . . .

April 26, 2008 04:24

After a solid month of posts, Blawfields fell silent. It was mixture of work picking up and a couple other things that needed to be done. To my great surprise, Blawfields has consistently received visitors -- apparently I hit on a couple topics of value. Either way, I'm going to try and update...

Disposing of Files

April 26, 2008 04:23

While walking home from the metro station last night, I noticed a large stack of boxes filled with file folders and papers by the curb outside the large office building of my local diocese. I didn't stop to look at the materials, but I cannot imagine what records a diocese would keep that would...