Law and Ethics of Lawyering Sample Exam INTRODUCTORY NOTES These questions have not been thoroughly QAed. Questions on the final exam probably will be a little more precise/refined. The time estimates also may be more accurate on the final. However, in all cases assume that you will have some time stress in the exam. SAMPLE EXAM In any question where you believe that a client waiver or consent is necessary or desirable, you must also enumerate the specific details you would include in the waiver to get the requisite consent, such as the actual and reasonably foreseeable consequences to the client of granting the consent. Where you are representing a client regarding “sales contracts,” you can assume that the contract is for the sale of tangible goods governed by the UCC. Question #1 (30 minutes) A lawyer computes his timesheets as follows: he takes the total number of hours he was in the office, determines the rough percentage of time spent on each client he worked on that day, and then allocates the total number of hours proportionately. For example, if he was in the office 10 hours and worked on 2 clients, one 40% of the day and the other 60% of the day, he would bill the first client 4 hours and the second 6 hours, even if he actually only worked 7 bona fide billable hours that day and the other 3 hours were administrative overhead hours. This way, he avoided having any unbillable time in the office. Is this technique permissible? Ethical? Once you learn of your colleague’s practice, what must you do? What would you prefer to do? What consequences would you expect from any of those courses of action? Question #2 (20 minutes) You represent X in the sale of its business to Y. Your client contact, as well as many of the other employees you are dealing with in the representation, are also angling for jobs with Y post-closing. Therefore, you have some concerns that your client contact is not aggressively negotiating with Y for fear of undermining the potential of being hired by Y. What must you do? What would you prefer to do? What consequences would you expect from any of those courses of action? Question #3 (20 minutes) You represent X. X wants to list you as a credit reference. This means X will have other vendors who are deciding whether to extend X credit call you to ask about if X pays the bills on time and if X has solid financial footing. What issues does this raise? Can you bill for your time spent acting as a credit reference? Question #4 (30 minutes) During the Internet mania of the late 1990s, many public Internet companies were valued on the basis of revenues (i.e., the company’s value was 10X revenues). Knowing this, your client asks for your assistance with a sales contract where your client will be selling widgets to a customer, but in the same transaction the customer will sell other widgets to your client for an identical value. Thus, through this exchange of goods and cash, both companies will recognize equal amounts of revenues and expenses, but the stock price will improve because the company’s revenues will have increased. Virtually every other Internet company is doing the same practices. You are convinced there is no legitimate justification for the transaction other than to “manufacture” revenues. Assume that accountants frown on this practice but some accounting firms will ultimately accept the characterization as revenues and expenses. What must you do? What would you prefer to do? What consequences would you expect from any of those courses of action? Eric’s Tips and Hints: This is very similar to the “roundtripping” story I emailed in class. Question #5 (15 minutes) For the past 2 years you have been spent 90% of your billable time on a single client’s affairs. The client is a public company. You have told your friends the name of this client. Your client is now planning to sell its business and you are working on the transaction. At a social event, a friend asks you what projects you are working on at work. If you answer the question by saying “a merger,” “a sale” or “a strategic transaction,” your friend will likely be able to figure out that the client is selling its business and thus could trade on the stock. How do you answer your friend? What consequences might you expect? A NOTE ABOUT MY GRADING PRACTICES I score each question on a 100 point scale. I categorize an answer into one of several levels—marginally competent (50), competent (60) or very competent (70). Outstanding answers score higher than a 70; poor answers score less than 50. Within this broad framework, I make 5 point grade adjustments up or down when something catches my attention. For example, if an answer was generally strong but missed an essential point, I would normally deduct 5 points and score the answer a 65. Similarly, if the answer was generally competent but had good organization or picked up some subtle points, this answer scores a 65. Because I arbitrarily set 60 as my “default” score, my mean, median and mode for all questions are usually about 60. I do not carry over good or bad feelings from one question to another. Thus, I score each question independently, multiply the score by the applicable percentage for that question, and add the adjusted scores together. There should be little benefit to “shifting” time from one question to enhance another question. After I finish grading everyone’s scores, I use a histogram to set the relation between grades and scores.
MPRE practice questions will help students prepare for this grueling exam. First and foremost, MPRE is an acronym for Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. It’s designed to ensure that law students understand the ethical laws that must be followed by lawyers, or Model Rules as they are known in the legal world. Model Rules are the ultimate focus of the MPRE and are usually federally observed, so most states will require law practitioners to pass this exam. Students can also expect to be tested in case law, court rules, and legal opinions. Summary: Prepare for the MPRE portion of the BAR exam with MPRE practice questions.
MPRE practice questions are a great way to prepare for this portion of the BAR exam, but there are some additional methods and tips you should keep in mind.
Students will take the MPRE on computers at the testing facility. It has 60 multiple-choice questions but only 50 of them are actually scored. The other 10 are referred to as pretest questions and students will not know which ones they are. All questions on the MPRE are distributed into 12 categories and are based on law governing the ethical conduct of lawyers and judges. With that said, students will also encounter questions outside of this context. These are designed to test comprehension of the accepted rules, principles, and regulations under law. The distribution of questions looks like this:
Students who want to take the MPRE must register through the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Once this part of the registration has been completed, students have to schedule the test itself. It’s worth noting that there are no registrations allowed after the cutoff. No exceptions will be made. So register early and make sure that your registration is verified before the deadline. The sooner you register, the more locations and test times you’ll have to choose from. However, these slots will be taken by other students over time so waiting longer limits your options. Another requirement is that you have a National Conference of Bar Examiners account in order to register for the MPRE. Always arrive at the testing facility at least 30 minutes before the test so that you can get the prescreening out of the way. You’ll be required to provide two forms of identification and go through other screening procedures. The test itself is two hours in length. When Will the MPRE Be Administered?The MPRE is generally administered three times every year. That gives students ample time to plan ahead for it. The key is to find a time that works best for your personal schedule. The MPRE is also administered on some weekdays in order to accommodate certain schedules. The MPRE is a test that’s better to take as early as possible since many areas lock the BAR exam behind it. So make sure you take it early enough to give adequate time to take the BAR exam. You should also plan for the unfortunate event that if you don’t pass the MPRE, you’ll have time to take it again before the BAR exam. The MPRE totals 60 questions that are all multiple-choice but only 50 of those questions are actually scored.  With that said, the scoring scale is between 50 to 150 and the passing score is based on the exact jurisdiction. Some places require a score of 85 or higher in order to pass! Here’s a list of the states and their jurisdictional requirements. For instance, answering 30 questions correctly will result in a score of 85. In March 2020, the average scaled score for the MPRE was 95.8. Results of the MPRE can take up to a month to receive. The MPRE is designed to cover legal ethics in order to ensure that law students are prepared for the complexity of life as an attorney. As a result, the exam itself is quite tricky. It’s way more difficult than most people think so don’t let it catch you off-guard! Lawyers will face legal decisions that are not always clear cut. This exam will test a law student’s ability to make ethical decisions that are not always clear cut. Finally, keep in mind that the lessons learned in the professional responsibility class will not always apply since it doesn’t cover all of the questions asked on the MPRE. That’s why finding MPRE practice questions is so important.
There really isn’t a “best time” to take the MPRE since it’s the same difficulty at all times. This isn’t a test where there might be an easier version of it in comparison to others. So to answer this question, you should take the MPRE when you have the time to properly prepare for it. Try to plan it for a time when there’s not other stress vying for attention.
Students will have to show two forms of valid identification to be allowed into the testing facility. The first and last name used for registration must exactly match that on the identification being shown. The primary ID allowed is a student’s government issued identification and it must have your first name, last name, photo, and signature. A driver’s license meets this requirement. The secondary ID must have the student’s first name, last name, signature, and a photo. It’s also worth noting that if your government identification has an embedded or missing signature, you’ll be allowed to take the test as long as you meet all other requirements.
This is an important point because a lot of the questions missed on the MPRE are due to a misunderstanding of two important keywords. “Subject to discipline” and “subject to civil liability” are two entirely different phrases and are sometimes used interchangeably. Subject to DisciplineThis is asking whether or not the legal body violated a rule under the ABA Model Rules. Students should not follow their lessons in professional responsibility class when answering questions with this keyword phrase. The reason is that a lot of law schools will list state-specific rules but these are not always the rules applied to the MPRE test. Only ABA Model Rules are tested on the MPRE.Subject to Civil LiabilityThis keyword phrase is asking questions related to malpractice or any other forms of misrepresentation. Negligence is more of a concern here so keep that in mind when answering these questions.For example, if a lawyer were to swear at a judge in the courtroom but it didn’t actually affect the client, then they would not be subject to civil liability. They would be subject to discipline because they broke a rule, but they never actually harmed a client. Last Updated: 1/24/2022 |
Legal ethics practice questions
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