8 Weeks Until the California Baby Bar Exam

Hello,

Welcome to the latest issue of our weekly FYLSX Newsletter. In this issue, we consider:

A. Exam Study Strategy: Outlining Practice Essays
B. Essays In-Depth: UCC Merchant Firm Offer
C. Newsletter-Only Discounts
D. Next Issue Preview

A. Exam Study Strategy: Outlining Practice Essays

As we've discussed in previous newsletter issues, increasing the frequency of full, complete practice essays during your FYLSX preparation can yield tremendous benefits. Practice essays enable you to actively engage, self-test, and review the legal concepts that will ultimately be tested on the California baby bar exam. In addition to full, complete practice essays, another exam preparation technique to consider is practice essay outlining.

Practice essay outlining can be an effective tool for your FYLSX preparation. Practice essay outlining mimics the approach you would take to complete a full, complete practice essay but in an abbreviated fashion. The simple difference with practice essay outlining is that you omit the writing out of the full, complete answer. Instead, with essay outlining, you stop the process after an outline of your answer is completed and then review whether your issue spotting, organization, and overall approach were on target for the essay. The obvious advantage to this essay preparation technique is that you can complete the entire exercise in approximately 30 minutes (e.g., outline and read the question in 20 minutes and review your results in 10 minutes).

When employing essay outlining, there are several caveats to keep in mind. First, to be effective, the outline you create with this approach should be a complete, skeletal version of a full, written answer. Each issue in your outline should include the key points of law and key facts that impact the application of the tested legal concept. Second, do not rely upon essay outlining to the exclusion of full, written practice essays. Essay outlining should supplement full practice essays and not replace them. Third, learn from your mistakes. Just as with practice essays, critically evaluate your practice essay outlines and incorporate missed issues or misapplication of the law into subsequent review sessions.

B. Essays In-Depth: UCC Merchant Firm Offer

Our Essays In-Depth feature is an abbreviated excerpt from our Essay Solution: Workshop or one of our subject-specific Torts, Criminal Law, or Contracts FYLSX workshops. This feature is designed to identify common mistakes individuals make on their FYLSX essays and provide solutions to correct such mistakes. If implemented, these solutions will result in higher scores on your essays. This week we discuss common problems individuals face when discussing the issue of UCC Merchant Firm Offer in a Contracts question.

1. Common UCC Merchant Firm Offer Problems

In our experience, there are three common problems individuals make when dealing with Merchant Firm Offer on a FYLSX essay: 1) missing the issue entirely, 2) misstating the law, and 3) incomplete analysis. First, some individuals will simply overlook the issue of Merchant Firm Offer, when applicable, and omit the issue entirely from their essay answer. Instead, these same individuals will tend to focus upon the the issues of Offer and Acceptance while ignoring the UCC-specific issue of Merchant Firm Offer. Second, another common mistake individuals make is providing an incorrect Statement of the Law* for Merchant Firm Offer. As a regularly-tested issue, a well-prepared examinee should be able to easily recall the elements of Merchant Firm Offer. Lastly, although individuals may cite the elements of the Merchant Firm Offer rule correctly, or well enough, many individuals will then fail to apply all of the stated elements in the Analysis* of the issue.

2. How to Easily Solve These Common Problems

Now that we've identified these common problems, let's consider some relatively simple solutions that will immediately improve the effectiveness of your Merchant Firm Offer issue discussion. First, anytime a Merchant makes an Offer that extends anytime into the future in a fact pattern, this should be a red-flag to consider the possibility of including the Merchant Firm Offer issue in your essay. Second, possess knowledge of the elements of the Merchant Firm Offer Rule whereby you are able to recall, recite, and write the elements of the rule. Third, since the Merchant Firm Offer rule is an "all or nothing" rule (i.e., in order to apply, all elements of the rule must be met), make sure that your Analysis* of the Merchant Firm Offer rule includes the consideration and application of each and every element of the Rule to the pertinent facts.

3. Putting It All Together: A Model Approach for UCC Merchant Firm Offer

Considering these common problems and their solutions, here is a workable framework to prepare for UCC Merchant Firm Offer issues:

• Issue Recognition:* Unless excluded by the call of the question, anytime a Merchant makes an offer to buy or sell goods that extends to some time into the future, consider the applicability of the Merchant Firm Offer rule (note, often the amount of time into the future will be ambiguous or unstated in the fact pattern).
• Statement of the Law:* "A Merchant Firm Offer is created when there is a) an offer by a merchant to buy or sell goods, b) in a signed writing, c) that will be held open for the stated time, or a reasonable time, not to exceed 3 months. Such an Offer is irrevocable by the Merchant even for lack of Consideration."
• Analysis:* Ensure that all elements of the Merchant Firm Offer rule are reflected in your analysis of the issue. Avoid the common tendency of omitting one or more of the elements, all of which are necessary for the Rule to apply.

*Please note, the above-asterisked concepts are fully defined, explained, and illustrated in our FYLSX Essay Solution on-demand workshop, which is available as a stand-alone program or included as part of all of our 1-on-1 FYLSX essay preparation programs.

C. Newsletter-Only Discounts

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D. Next Issue Preview

In our next issue, our Essays In-Depth feature will address problems individuals frequently encounter when dealing with the issue of Voluntary Manslaughter as part of the larger issue of Murder in a Criminal Law essay. If you have any questions about this newsletter or any of our programs, then please feel free to Contact Us.

Study Smart,

-the BarReviewSolutions.com Team