Customer Reviews

The Finz Multistate Method

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

California non-ABA law students relief is here! If you're enrolled in one of the 15 non-ABA approved correspondence law schools in California and you're looking for supplemental study materials then first go through California baby specific books such as Fleming's Fundamentals of Law Essay Examination Writing Workbook Volume 1 (Torts, Contracts and Criminal Law) (Fleming's Fundamentals of Law, Volume 1) Study Partner Baby Bar Exam Writing: Torts, Contracts, Criminal Law (Study Partner Exam Writing), Multistate Bar Examination and Multistate Examination Workbook: Contracts/ucc, Criminal Law, Torts, Professional Responsibility (Fleming's Fundamentals of Law, Volume 1) and when you are totally burnt out on spriral-bound mail-order books that are written for California non-ABA law students and after 9 months you will burn out on those spriral bound books, then start studying The Finz Multistate Method. California non-ABA law students keep in mind that Finz Multistate Method is a general review it was not written for the Baby Bar Exam. Of course if you are in a ABA approved law school then study whatever books are approved by your instructors-students in ABA approved law schools are not required to take the Bany Bar Exam.

Everyone does the BAR/BRI questions, lot of my profs pulled their questions from this. However, word to the wise, some of the questions stretch the logic behind the law!!!

This is a "must have" for a first year law student as a supplement and it is worth every dollar you spend on it, much better than most of the others out there. Small issue however; once in a while, the proof reader must have taken a coffee break. For example, one of the first questions in Contracts mixes up the two main characters. However, it is still an excellent study guide and a true value when a student needs to practice for an exam.

Overall Finz was a good *secondary* source for me as I studied for the CA Bar. However, that said, the book is somewhat dated(© 2004). You will find that some of the questions use older legal terminology, and a few explanations are in direct conflict with Barbri's 2007/2008 outlines. In some instances the law has slightly changed, so be sure to use this book primarily as a secondary source so you can identify these subtleties. For example, Joint tenancy w/ the right of survivorship is never spelled out like you will find in most MBEs today, but rather Finz simply refers to them as joint tenancies. And this is just one example. In addition, I found several errors throughout the book and a few clearly wrong explanations, but if you know the law beforehand then this should only be a slight annoyance. Finally, the answer choices are a bit easier to eliminate than what I found on the Bar. And some questions tend to strech the law and facts a bit too thin.

The MBE is not an easy exam! The NCBE changes the style and format of the exam on a regular basis. On all of the more recent exams, there are not multiple questions based on the same fact pattern, nor are there questions with Roman Numerals. Additionally, the questions on the book seem to be on the short side. Overall, this book is not representative of the current MBE format.

There is NO better source for law concepts than Finz. Dr. Finz is the single best source for all law concepts, especially Tort. I've listened to authors and read other authors; some are bad, some are ok, some are quite good. But nobody comes close to Finz in terms of completeness, accessibility, and clarity. My friends, you can't go wrong with Dr. Finz.

As the others here said, this book is great preparation for the MBE part of the bar exam, yet, I felt that the actual exam questions tended to be a tad more difficult than the ones in the book (the four answer-choices seemed to be even more similar to each other than in the book). Still, I mainly used the book to prepare and had a score of 90% in the exam.

I love this book. It takes a lot of information and study to prepare for the FYLSE. The varity and complexity of the questions gave me a chance to really test my knowledge of substantive law and the explanations for each answer helped me to understand why I got an answer right or wrong. I was also able to set time limits with the questions to test my test taking skills and the example MBE exams in the back of the book were execellent exam-taking tools. I would recommend this book to anyone preparing for the FYLSE!

In addition to BarBri's study schedule (I tried to keep up, but not always possible) and books, I used Finz Strategies & Tactics to increase the my speed for M/C questions for the Cal Bar exam. I bought this book my first year of law school and greatly regret I didn't use it until I had to study for the bar. It may have improved my GPA greatly because I sucked so bad at M/C questions.

I charted my progress using a simple spreadsheet, tracking how many minutes, how many questions I answered and how many questions I got correct. I did improve over time, from the start of studying until exam time. It is not the end all be all, but the last three weeks before the bar exam, I sat down in three hour intervals, probably four or five times and did as many questions as I could - I shot for 100 questions for every three hours, just like the exam. This book had enough questions to help me get from 40% right to 72-75% right. Worth the price.

This study source should only be used to supplement the study of mulitstate subjects. The query format often deviates from those used in the actual test, but nevertheless the exercise helps to reinforce knowledge of the topics.