Accuracy of JD Advising February 2018 Michigan Bar Exam Predictions

Accuracy of JD Advising February 2018 Michigan Bar Exam Predictions

In this post, we discuss the accuracy of the JD Advising February 2018 Michigan Bar Exam predictions. We also discuss which issues surprised us! On the whole, we are happy to report that many of our predictions for the February 2018 Michigan bar exam were completely accurate.

Accuracy of February 2018 Michigan Bar Exam Predictions

Full Michigan Bar Exam Questions Predicted by JD Advising

We were pleased that we accurately predicted the following questions on the Michigan bar exam:

Constitutional Law: Not only did we predict that the confrontation clause was coming up (albeit, we thought it would show up as a Criminal Procedure question), we also did a little research and decided that if it was tested, the question would probably be based off of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision called Ohio v. Clark. We were so confident about this, we even wrote our own mock bar exam question based on the facts of Ohio v. Clark (in that case, a teacher asked a student how he got bruises on his face and he replied “Dee Dee” [a nickname for his mom’s boyfriend]). We were thrilled to see the confrontation clause tested and we were thrilled to see it based on this exact Supreme Court case!

Our students were well prepared to answer this question, having literally just completed a nearly identical mock bar exam question a week before the exam!

Workers’ Compensation: We accurately predicted that two issues would be tested: preexisting condition and disability. We also gave students a question to practice right before the bar exam that tested the preexisting condition issue. These exact two issues were tested on the workers’ compensation question on the bar exam. JD Advising students should have been well prepared to answer them!

Criminal Procedure: We told students to review the confrontation clause and Miranda rights. Lucky for them, both were tested! (The confrontation clause was tested in the Constitutional Law question and Miranda was tested in the Criminal Procedure question.) Students were happy to see Miranda rights come up in the Criminal Procedure question!

Corporations: We told everyone to review “shareholders right of inspection” as it was our prediction of the topic that would be tested if Corporations was tested (though we suspected Agency or Partnership may be tested in place of Corporations). We advised students review the February 2015 and July 2010 exam. This is exactly what ended up being tested.

Personal Property: We predicted that the Personal Property question would have a gifts issue and a bailment issue. We gave plenty of these questions to our students to practice. These issues are exactly what ended up being tested on the Michigan bar exam.

Topics in Michigan Bar Exam Questions Predicted by JD Advising

For these questions, we did not predict the entire question, but we predicted topics within the question:

Trusts: We thought validity of a trust and an oral trust would be tested. These issues were both tested. (This question was combined with Wills.) We also gave these issues to students on our mock exam.

Conflicts of Law: We did not think Conflicts of law would be coming up, but we predicted that if it did come up, the issue would be contractual interpretation in a choice of law dispute. A forum selection clause issue ended up being tested. While this was not our formal prediction, it was on the one-page Conflicts of Law “cheat sheet” that we tell students to learn. (It is also in our How to Pass the Michigan Bar Exam one-sheet, just as several of these issues are!)

Creditors’ Rights: We thought creditors rights or commercial paper would come up and we invented a wage garnishment question for our students to practice prior to the exam. Garnishments was a prominent issue on the creditor’s rights question that came up on the exam!

Real Property: We thought tenancies would be coming up in Real Property and it did! Specifically, the rights of co-tenants was tested.

Topics that Did Not Surprise Us

Though these topics were not formally predicted by us, our students were very well prepared to answer questions on these topics:

Torts: Torts had a standard premises liability issue with an open and obvious argument. Our students were well prepared to answer this standard Torts question, which is also a Michigan bar exam favorite.

Family Law: Though the topic of dividing marital assets was not surprising, this topic was just recently tested in July 2017 so we did not think it would come up again this exam! We do think students should have been very well prepared to address this issue, however.

Evidence: We thought impeachment was coming up, but did not guess the exact issues presented by the Board.

The questions that did surprise us? Contracts is always hard to predict and this (difficult) Contracts question was no exception. Criminal Law was also surprising to us as possession is not tested frequently or recently. Civil Procedure did not test a super surprising topic (preclusion) but we did not formally predict that this issue would be coming up.

Want to learn our predictions for an upcoming bar exam? Sign up for our Michigan bar exam seminar here! Spots fill up quickly so we recommend early application!