Ontario Barristers and Solicitors Exam Blog

 I continue coming along, my exam is in 4 days! I have been working with someone else to study. Here are some questions I came up with this morning based on this article I saw in the news: A group of Quebecers is going to court to argue that Mary Simon's appointment as governor general should be invalidated because she isn't fluent in French. The group, led by historian Frederic Bastien, filed a request to Quebec Superior Court this week for a declaratory judgment stating that Simon's nomination violates Charter provisions declaring Canada to be bilingual. The former Parti Quebecois leadership candidate says choosing a governor general who doesn't speak one of the country's official languages is an insult to francophones and a signal that bilingualism doesn't matter. His group is relying on judicial precedent in New Brunswick, where French-speaking Acadians recently challenged the appointment of a unilingual anglophone lieutenant-governor on similar groun...

 As I have begun the slog through the Solicitors exam work - I really understand why some people have trouble with it and might fail. I have been working on Business Law and Real Estate Law. Just those two subjects have so much material in them. Also, I don't think you can just read the Tax Law or Real Estate Law and understand them enough to write an exam. People say they "read the law twice". I don't know what reading this material twice is going to do for me.

 I got into studying Real Estate Law. It's challenging. In the U.S. the Bar Exam has things like  Right now I am reading through exceptions in Canadian law to sub dividing property under s. 50 of the planning act. (This act is in place to prevent people from subdividing their property in a manner that burdens utilities) Big difference right?

I continue to slog through the material. I have basically gotten through all of the material for the Barristers Exam, I am doing practice questions at the moment. I am scoring about 85-90% on practice exams. I am a little perplexed by the fact that I see people online stating that they failed the exams like 2 or 3 times.  Here is an example of things I find online  " The truth is many students fail the Ontario bar, and it is not because they are stupid or did not study. It is simply because the Ontario bar is an enigma — completely unknowable" -  Wela Quan Meanwhile BarStudy.ca Provides this advice Don’t worry too much! This means worry just enough to study but don’t think that you won’t have a legal career or become a lawyer just because you failed the bar exam. People might not talk about the fact that that they failed the bar exam once or twice but it actually happens fairly often and it happens to people who go on to become excellent lawyers. Get to know the materials...

 I've been plugging along, nothing really exciting. I did have the opportunity to help with the University of Toronto Indexing group. I am waiting to get the indexes and summaries from that. I have gotten through a couple of topics. I am on criminal law now. One of the interesting things that a lecturer for Emonds said was that the LSO is looking for you to be able to show that you are competent to practise law. That's why a lot of questions have to do with exceptions, dates, ethics, formulas. This is really apparent in the differences in the material for the bar between criminal law in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. the questions are like  At a defendant’s trial for robbery, the defendant called a witness who testified that he and the defendant were camping in a state park on the night in question.  On cross-examination, the prosecutor asked the witness if it is true that the witness forged his former manager’s signature to gain access to a company expense account....

 I have continued to slog through the material. There is no way to remember all of this. Am I wasting my time reading this material? Should I just be figuring out a way to access it quickly?