Category: Bar Exam

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Oath and Affirmation

Today, March 8, 2012, I took my attorney Oath and Affirmation before the Honorable Thomas Bibus, Judge of the First Judicial District, Goodhue County, State of Minnesota.  What a relief.

I haven’t posted on this blog since November of 2011.  Why?  Because I felt dishonest posting on a blog named “Solo in Minneapolis” when I wasn’t licensed in Minnesota.  You might say:  why didn’t you just blog somewhere else?  Well, I did.  I’ve been blogging as much as I can about family law, estate planning, and probate.  Go check out my blogroll if you care.

Ironically, the last post on this blog was about how, in order to practice law, you have to get through law school first.  I feel like I just went through some kind of right-of-passage which was akin to law school.  I have waited for nearly ten months to be able to actively practice law again.  I left Indiana in June of 2011, bummed around with my wife and new baby boy, and settled in Minnesota in August of 2011.  Due to complications with my bar exam and licensure, I was not able to apply for admission in the State of Minnesota until the end of October 2011.  After that, I waited, and waited, and waited.

Last week, on March 1, 2012, I received my notice letter that the Minnesota Board of Law Examiners had recommended to the Minnesota Supreme Court that I be admitted to practice law in the state.  Thank god.

For anybody out there who has been benched, sat-out-a-year, missed playing time, been hurt, struggled with depression, struggled with life, felt whipped, been tired of bureaucracy, I salute you.  I hope you made it through.  I did.  I don’t know what the world has in store for me, but I know I can move on.

I realized a few things:  (1) I really want to be a lawyer, (2) I’m stronger than I thought, (3) my son is awesome and I love spending time with him, (4) I have a lot to learn about life, the law, and the pursuit of happiness.  Now, hopefully, I can stick to my guns, feel good about my choice of occupation, and go out there and kick ass.

I’ll be posting here more often.  I missed my starting a law firm diary blog.  I’ll let you all know what I learn about being a good Minnesota lawyer.  I hope I can build up a readership again.  I was doing pretty well for awhile, but, alas, nobody visits my nonesense anymore.  I hope that changes.

I’ll part with this nugget:

I, Joseph Matthew Flanders, do swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and that of the State of Minnesota, and will conduct myself as an attorney and counselor at law, in an upright and courteous manner, to the best of my learning and ability, with all good fidelity as well to the court as to a client, and that I will use no falsehood or deceit, nor delay any person’s cause for lucre or malice, SO HELP ME GOD.

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Admission In Absentia

In my seemingly never-ending-quest to become licensed in the state I actually want to practice and start a law firm in, I moved one step closer today.  I appeared before Judge Mark of the Goodhue County District Court, State of Minnesota and swore my oath and pledge for admittance before the North Dakota Bar.  Doing this means I am one step closer to being licensed in Minnesota.  Thank God.

The irony of the whole thing is that I just appeared before a Minnesota judge so he could swear me into the North Dakota Bar when I would prefer to be admitted to the Minnesota Bar but must wait to be admitted by motion, instead.  I know, it is way too complicated and basically makes my life more difficult.

As any of the readers of this blog may know, I am licensed in Indiana and have just obtained licensure in North Dakota.  My ultimate goal is licensure in Minnesota and to do so, I have to request to be admitted by motion.  It’s a lot of work.

But enough about me.  I realize that people want to read blogs for at least some semblance of substance besides a personal diary.  To that end, I am going to include – right now – a breakdown of the necessities to be admitted “in absentia”.  Doing a quick Google search, I was only able to find this explanation for admission in absentia before the Supreme Court of Georgia.

The basic gist for admission in absentia appears to be this:

  1. You must either pass the bar exam or be admitted by motion;
  2. An oath or pledge must be administered to you by a Judge or judicial officer of a court of record in any state;
  3. You must sign the affirmation and the Judge must sign some form of attestation;
  4. The forms must be returned to the jurisdiction where you want to be licensed.

There is often a fee and possibly some other paperwork, but that mostly sums it up.  I talked with several attorneys in Minnesota who told me that they have gone through this process before.  When I began searching for Minnesota judges to admit me “in absentia” to the North Dakota Bar, I received a fair number of response which can fairly summarized as “no, we don’t do that”. Many of the judges or their staffs had questions about whether they had jurisdiction to even administer the oath.  Naturally, this was very frustrating.  I hope you have better luck than I.  However, I called around to quite a few different judges and found a couple who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to administer the oath.  I made an appointment with their law clerk, and the rest is now history.

If you are trying to be admitted to a different jurisdiction in absentia, I hope this post helps you.  Basically, I suggest contacting the Supreme Court of the bar to which you want to be admitted.  Ask them what their admission in absentia policy is.  Then, you hopefully know a local judge who will be nice enough to help you.  I did and now I only have one step left to conquer:  admission by motion before the Minnesota Bar.

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Bar Exam Results Being Released . . . . sloooowly

As Above the Law reports, not every state has released results; however, it would appear that if they haven’t done so already, most states will be reporting the results of their individual bar exams in the near future.  Thank you National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) for slowly releasing the July of 2011 bar exam results to anxious future lawyers, experienced lawyers becoming licensed in a new jurisdiction, and law firm start-ups everywhere.

For me, the post-bar exam wait is over.  I just received my results for North Dakota and . . . . . . I passed!  Not to rub it in for those who might not have been so fortunate, but I also scored high enough to (hopefully) be admitted by motion into Minnesota.  Minnesota is one of several jurisdictions that allow attorneys who have taken the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) to apply for admission by motion with a scaled score of 145.  I achieved that result – barely.  I scored 145.8 according to a phone conversation I had with the North Dakota Board of Law Examiners.   That is .8 good enough for me!

For those of you who may not read this blog, I am already licensed in Indiana and have been practicing there for nearly four years.  Now, pending satisfactory results on my character and fitness review, I will be licensed in three jurisdictions in the near future:  Indiana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. I haven’t decided on whether I will keep my license active in Indiana, but it would be nice to list licensure in three different states on my letterhead and business cards for flanderslawfirm.com.

In any case, I am very pleased with the results and glad that I can move on with my life.  I hope my readers experience the same relief.

Admission By Motion Rules

Every state has admission by Motion rules.  Here is a list of links compiled by the American Bar Association (thank you ABA!) for every state’s admission by motion rules.  (Is it me or is finding out information on admissions on each states rules on admission to practice terribly difficult?  Somebody (maybe the ABA) should make an effort to standardize many of the different rules and requirements for admission in each state.  Taking the bar exam, applying to several states’ bars, and navigating the myriad of timing, deadlines and other requirements for multi-jurisdiction practice is just way too difficult.)

From my review, states that allow admission by motion require either:

  1. practicing law in another jurisdiction continuously for a specified number of years (anywhere from 3-5), or
  2. applying for admission by motion due to a high enough MBE score (anywhere from 135-160).

I did not meet the first option for admittance into Minnesota by motion because I have only been practicing nearly four years in Indiana and Minnesota has a five year requirement for admission on motion based on years of practice.  Ironically, Wisconsin – twenty miles from my home – allows admission by motion based on three years in practice. Such is life.

Here are Minnesota’s rules on admission by motion as listed on the Minnesota State Board of Law Examiners webpage:

ADMISSION ON MOTION

Lawyers may be admitted to the practice of law in Minnesota without examination:

  • By years of practice–five of the seven years immediately preceding the application; or for house counsel, three of the past five years.
  • By scaled MBE score of 145 or higher.  The application must be submitted within 24 months of the date of the qualifying exam being used as the basis for admission.

I managed to achieve the second requirement.  What a relief.  As I posted before, taking the bar exam a second time is not any more fun than the first.  Now, I hope to be admitted by motion and I am awaiting the results of a character and fitness investigation.  I do not have any prior disciplinary actions against me in any jurisdiction. Still, having an investigation into your character is a little unnerving.  However, I understand the process and I think there is a good reason why character and fitness investigations are required.

In any case, I did it.  I’ll be applying for admission by motion to Minnesota and I hope to be licensed in the relatively near future there. Once I’ve done that I can move on with my life, my law practice, and this blog.  I hope to provide much more pertinent (and non-personal) information in the future on this blog about how to start a law practice; but, for now, I’ve met the initial hurdle that makes all that possible.  I hope you did too.

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Starting a Law Firm | Post-Bar Exam Wait

As any readers of this blog know, I am starting a law firm in Minneapolis, MN just as soon as I can get licensed by the State of  Minnesota.  I have practiced for 3+ years in Indiana as both a small firm attorney (10 attorneys) and on my own as a solo practitioner.   However, I have never practiced in Minnesota (my new residence) because I just took the bar exam and I am now playing the lawyer licensing waiting game.

My wife tells me that I should relax and enjoy my free time.  The problem is that I am not very good at enjoying free time.  I suspect that is why many of us became lawyers in the first place: we can’t let good enough alone and always strive to do just a little bit better.  In an effort to “do a little bit better” I am going to continue to blog and try to have as much internet marketing help as I can before I can officially hang out my shingle in Minneapolis.

As I stated in a prior post about legal blogging for business, it is important to get content up on your blog on a constant basis.  This is work.  I’ll say it again:  legal blogging is work.  This creates the need to be diligent about posting and trying to make posts that are at least somewhat interesting to the public at large (or, at least, all you boring start-up lawyers out there).  The problem lies in the fact that I don’t always know what may be relevant or interesting to my small readership.  I will tell you that I get a lot more hits and responses from legal marketing and legal internet/blogging type posts.  Why?  Probably because that is what most attorneys are searching for when they find my blog – how to market their little firm and make it better.

I don’t know that I necessarily know how to market better than anybody else.  I do, however, know that marketing is a must for starting a law firm.  I did quite a bit of networking as an associate and on my own in Indiana and I can tell you that it works.  This blog is meant to serve as a vehicle for two things:  (1) explaining to younger attorneys how to start up and run a practice and (2) to serve as a marketing vehicle with link-back potential.

In the world of the internet, content is king.  I strive to have good content on this blog and that is probably why I haven’t been posting as much lately – I just don’t have any good content at the moment.  I plan to update this blog with posts about all of my Minneapolis firsts – first client, first office, first retainer check, etc.  But, alas, I have to wait until I get licensed before any of that is relevant.

Thus, in a world where content is king, I will continue to try to blog about prior war stories and my general ideas about starting a firm.  There are some things I can do, such as writing a more detailed legal business plan.  I also need to get all my old office furniture so I can create home office with a virtual office space.  This is all work and it can be blogged about.

Starting a law firm means being patient and staying the course.  It is tough to be patient when waiting to be licensed because the bar examiners take so very very long.  Hopefully I passed and licensure will come.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

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Starting a Law Firm | Bar Exam = Minimum Competency Exam

As I stated in a previous post, before starting a law firm in Minneapolis, MN, I have to take the bar exam in Minnesota and get licensed to practice law all over again.  No, it is not more fun the second time around.

I will admit to being nervous.  I will admit to some paranoia.  I will admit to thinking about the dire consequences of not passing, and wondering what am I going to do with my life, and when will I ever make a living, and can my son be provided for if I don’t earn a living, and so on and so forth.  But, I keep reminding myself this one very important point:  the bar exam is a minimum competency test.  I’ll say it in a different way:  it’s a pass/fail exam.

I don’t know the exact statistics, but I’ll generalize and say that the national passage rate is high.  I’ll even tell you that in the midwestern states (Minnesota) the passage rate is very high.  92% of the first time test takers in Minnesota passed the exam.  Why would this be?  Because, while it is a difficult exam, it really isn’t that difficult to pass.

What is another good thing about this silly exam?  Test takers are competing against other test takers.  Yes, there is a model answer out there.  Yes, it will be better than most test takers’ answers.  Yes, some professor probably wrote it.  So what.  The test takers are not the professor.  The test takers are just like you and me.  Test takers are tired and they are under pressure.  Your fellow test takers also had to cram.  And, even better, I would guess 10% or so of the test takers didn’t study for the exam too much.  Guess what?  You did (or, at least, I did) and you will pass.  I would further venture to guess that those 10% that didn’t study much are the 10% or so who fail the exam.

That is good news for me and good news for all others who have studied.  I don’t know how much studying is necessary, but I do know that I’ve gone through the BarBri study program twice now and it’s tough.  The reason it is tough is not so much the material, it tough because of the time and effort it takes.  The description comparing it to a marathon is apt.  It is an endurance exam and people who want to pass must train.

But, assuming you’ve trained, the odds are that you will be just fine.  Again, you just have to pass.  I would guess that in law school, most student are worried about a certain grade – preferably an A.  On the bar exam, you don’t need an A.  You don’t need a B.  I would argue somewhat that you don’t even need a C.  You just need to pass.

If you are like me and you are anxiously awaiting passage and licensure so that you can start a law firm, I wish you luck.  If you are not like me and you just want to pass, I wish you luck.  I wish everybody luck, but, if you have trained for this exam, you don’t really need luck – you just need to pass.  Remain positive and focused and work hard.  The exam itself is gruelling, but, if you train, you can show your minimum competency and get on with the rest of your law practicing life.

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Starting a Law Firm | Studying for the Bar Exam Part II

Starting a law firm means that you have to pass the bar exam in your particular jurisdiction.  For most, passing the bar exam means that you are required to sit through mind-numbing bar review lectures for about two months.  After passing the bar exam, character and fitness interview, and being admitted into your jurisdiction’s bar, you can open your own law firm.  Caveat:  if considering starting a law firm right out of law school, please read my post on getting legal experience first.

As I posted previously, I am taking the bar exam for the second time in the last four years. I feel that I have a little different perspective on taking the bar exam because I’ve already done it and I am going through the study process a second time.  Hopefully, I can benefit my readers by sharing whatever knowledge I have gleaned about passing the bar exam.

One of the discussion points that I wanted to bring up is passing the Multistate Performance Test (MPT).  The Multistate Performance exam tests the taker’s legal knowledge and ability to complete legal reasoning.  The MPT is the portion of the exam that is most similar to what young attorneys will do in the real world.  For example, the MPT is akin to a partner in a law firm coming up to you and giving you a problem and a case file that he or she wants you to write a legal memorandum or other legal document on. The assignment is similar to what I suspect a lot of law students did in their first or second year of law school to satisfy their legal writing component.

The MPT typically gives you information that is similar to a case file you will receive from a partner in the real world or when starting a law firm.  The bar examiners will give you a letter, a short memorandum, maybe a legal opinion, a library, some law, and a smattering of other information. Basically, you will get:  the facts, the laws, and instructions on how to apply the law to the facts to answer a legal problem.  The MPT will have different writing projects which vary the approach on how to apply the law to the facts.  Sounds simple right?

Of course, the MPT is only 90 minutes long and it bears no resemblance to what a private practice lawyer is likely to do in the real world.  If you are starting a law firm, you need to be concerned with what to do in the real world.  However, when you do pass the exam and work as an law firm associate, you will be expected to work quickly and efficiently.  In most cases, you will also not be able to bill a client for five hours of your time for writing a simple legal memorandum to a partner.  Clients don’t like paying those kind of bills – you are an attorney and they expect you to already know the law and how to use it.

In my opinion, the MPT is probably the most useful portion of the bar exam in terms of what it is like to be an attorney in the real world.  If you are reading this blog about how to start a law firm, then you should know that MPT gives you a good example of the kinds of initial critical thinking you will have to do on a specific legal issue.  If you hang out your own shingle and somebody actually walks in the door, you need to be able to meet with that person and know how to deal with his or her legal issue.  Of course, you need to know how to draft and file legal pleadings, cut checks, pay bills, and a myriad of other tasks.  But, at the end of the day, you need to be an attorney and think in a critical fashion.  I think the MPT does a good job of meeting this important real world task.

Starting a law firm is all about gathering useful information and discarding useless information.  That applies to every area of the practice of law – whether it is critical legal thinking or learning how to effectively manage your time so that you can ethically bill your clients.

 

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Starting a Law Firm | Studying for (another) Bar Exam

As I have posted previously, when starting a law firm, you need to be licensed.  No brainer.  How do you get licensed?  You study mind-numbing information that is mostly irrelevant to the day-to-day obligations of running a solo law practice.

My perspective on the requirement of being licensed to practice law is a little different because I am already licensed in one jurisdiction (Indiana) while trying to be licensed to practice law in another (Minnesota & North Dakota).  I find the situation ironic and mildly amusing.  One one hand, I am running a small, but profitable, law practice out of my home.  On the other hand, I am studying for the bar exam (again) to try and learn legal principles I’ve never used in practice.  It is truly an odd feeling.

But, this blog is not supposed to only be about my journey to start and build a law firm.  No, this blog is meant to try and help anybody out there who has questions which I may be able to answer while they go from zero-to-hero (or some variation thereof).  Today’s question is how to study for the bar exam twice.

My perspective on studying for the bar exam again after a four year layoff is a little different from the first time test taker.  Foremost, the focus should be on studying and memorizing lots of information for the multi-state examination or the MBE.  The MBE is the real bear and it needs to have the most time spent on it.  (Caveat:  this is only my perspective from my own experience and from speaking with former exam takers). Focusing on the MBE means two things (1) know the substantive area of law and all the elements VERY WELL, and, (2) do as many multiple choice questions as you can.

If you can focus on these two things, and you successfully graduated from law school, I think you can pass the bar exam.  Furthermore – and this is a cliche I’ve found to be true – studying is a marathon and not a sprint.  I am currently training for a half-marathon and I know what that means.  It means work.  It means sticking to a routine and doing things over-and-over-and-over again.  It means not missing runs (MBE test) when you are scheduled to make those runs (MBE tests).

Now, the rest of the bar exam is not a cake walk.  You have to know the substantive law of your jurisdiction so that you can pass the essay portion and the MPT.  This means going to lectures and taking notes and not blowing stuff off.  As long as you have done this, you should be fine.  The essays are relatively straight forward law school type questions.  One interesting change is that the bar examiners now allow people to take the essay and MPT on their laptops in many jurisdictions.  This should be an interesting wrinkle, but I believe it is most likely for the best given how sloppy many peoples’ hand writing must be.  I know mine is terrible.

I’ll post more on these subjects as I go through the process, but those are my initial thoughts as I dive back into bar exam studying.  So, if you thinking about starting a law firm and how to start a law firm, think first about being licensed.  Think first about the bar exam.  Think about it a lot and go through the paces.  You’ll be fine.

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Starting a Law Firm | Experience

Starting a law firm is not easy and it isn’t for the faint of heart.  My first recommendation to all graduating law students is that starting your own law firm after law school is not your best bet for making it as a solo attorney.

Experience is the key to hanging out your own shingle.  Why?  Because, law schools don’t do a very good job of preparing lawyers for the practice of law.  How do you get experience?  For starters, you need to be licensed in your particular jurisdiction.  After that, in general, most graduating law students do one of two things: (1) they get a job in private practice, or (2) they get a job in the civil or government arena.

Getting a job in private practice. 

Hopefully, you can find a job as an associate in a law firm after graduation.  Your first job will make a big difference on the kind of experience you obtain.

If you start a job with a large firm, you are not likely to have client contact right away and you, therefore, won’t need to worry as much about the procedural minutiae of practicing law.  Conversely, if you get a job with a small law firm, you are more likely to get practical experience quickly.

After you get your first job, my recommendation is to get as much client and courtroom contact as possible. You should also ingratiate yourself with an older attorney.  Establishing a mentor relationship can prove invaluable.  After that, if you work hard, and keep your nose to the grindstone, you may be ready to start a law firm.

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Starting a Law Firm | Bar Review Course

Taking the bar exam is not fun.  Taking it twice is really not fun.  As I’ve already posted, I’m taking the bar exam again and hope to admitted in Minnesota.

In the effort to start a law firm, I have to actually move to the area and take the July, 2011 bar exam.  Yay!  So, in preparation, I am signing up for BarBri review again.  Double yay!

My justification for using BarBri again is that I took it once before and passed the Indiana bar exam.  Some might ask:  Since you passed 1 bar exam, can’t your just study your self and pass another?  The answer:  Maybe?  As an attorney, I am very risk adverse and the way to control risk is to do what you know works.  So, the answer is BarBri – I signed up today.

Which gets me to the point of this post.  I spent $2,615.00 at the special alumni rate to take the full course, plus the mobile upgrade.  I get a significant discount on the tuition as an alumni, but I am in Indiana so I need to sign up for the mobile option because I don’t want to move to Minneapolis for two months.

And there is a catch – the BarBri mobile has a $295.00 upgrade fee and a $200.00 refundable deposit fee for a IPod Touch.  There goes my alumni break.  I get to watch the lectures and get materials on the IPod Touch they are going to ship to me.  So, being an alumni is starting to look less good.

I would be ok with the obvious Apple-in-bed-with-BarBri deal, but I’ve already got a Google smart phone.  Why can’t they send me the software to the phone I already have and like?  Well, because Apple wants to make money silly.  I would even be ok with that, but now I am wondering how fun it will be to watch BarBri lectures on a 3.5 inch screen!  This could be seriously bad.  If any of you have taken the BarBri courses before, you know how awful those lectures are.

That pretty much ends my rant.  Check out this funny video on how wonderful BarBri is.