The next day wasn’t quite as long. The MBE is a six-hour exam (200 multiple-choice questions), while the Wyoming essay section is a four-hour exam (10 essay questions). The down side was that there was no break.
I arrived fairly early to find lots of people there. There were many people who were taking Colorado’s Bar as well as Wyoming’s, and they made their first appearance. After checking in, I took my laptop and my little packet of goodies from the day before to a free area in the big room. The setup was fine, with enough space and power.
Those of us using computers for the exam (the Wyoming Bar uses ExamSoft) had already performed several steps to have the software on our PCs. Or at least most of us had. There were a number of people who had problems with their computers, and I think some of them had the problems because they did not follow all the prefatory steps as instructed. Either way, my PC worked fine, if a bit slow due to being underpowered—a perennial issue with my little laptop.
The question packets were the same as those given to the handwriters. Consequently, there was a lot of scratch paper attached to each question. I seem to recall finding that occasionally useful for briefly outlining my answers, but given the time constraints, that was a rare luxury.
As far as the topics go, I was ready for pretty much anything. There were wide rumors that the exam tended not to have Water and Oil & Gas questions in the same sitting, also that it tended not to have Commercial Paper and Secured Transactions in the same sitting. Both these rumors were proved wrong, as we had all four subjects. Others included CrimPro, CivPro, Family, Trusts and Estates, Torts, Evidence, and Contracts (If I’m wrong, anybody with a better memory can correct me). As I’ve mentioned, I’d already decided to skip any Oil & Gas question, but it turns out the question was really easy. Of course, I still didn’t think I could have done as well as the other topics given my deliberate lack of preparation in that subject, so I skipped it anyway.
I was glad to see that the questions pretty much duplicated the practice essays. Each subject is fairly broad, but the practice essays seemed to focus on a few aspects of each topic. So while I knew the overall topic fairly well, most of my studying had been on a few parts of each topic, and I was a bit worried about getting a question outside that comfort zone. No worry necessary. Each real question essentially tracked the practice questions on that subject.
For the most part, I found the questions relatively straightforward. There was a significant variance in difficulty. The CivPro question was primarily oriented on personal jurisdiction, and was fairly textbook. It didn’t take that long to write. The Torts question, however, was an absolute beast. The fact pattern raised all kinds of crazy stuff, and it could have kept anyone occupied for the better part of the entire test time. As a result, when I decided the order I wanted to answer questions in, I put Torts last. By the time I got to that question, I had a pretty good amount of time left, and just went crazy on that question until I ran out.
That afternoon, I had food and a couple drinks with a couple friends, went home early, and slept. The following Monday, I closed on my new house, which I’d been in the process of buying during my studying period.
Tomorrow: I am a lawyer!
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