Tips for solicitor exam

[averagelawstudent]

finding it hard to get thru the solicitors material.. I barely understand it 😞  any tips on how to get through it and not fail the exam from others who took 0 courses in business and real estate? 

[luckycharm]

do you use an index?

[Chief Keef]

Feeling the exact same way, this is a complete drag compared to the Barristers material.

[averagelawstudent]

4 minutes ago, luckycharm said:

do you use an index?

yup the uft one, used it for barristers and it was decent but also felt familiar with that material and could sometimes answer questions without looking it up or knew exactly where it was from toc but now I barely understand what’s going on :( 

[Aureliuse]

I did not find my courses in business or real estate help much when I prepped for my solicitors exam, so please don't feel that you are at a disadvantage.

A lot of solicitor exam materials can be visually organized into charts for ease of understanding.

1. Creditor priorities can be organized visually in a vertical chart form - top to bottom (those who get paid first on the top and unsecured creditors on the bottom).
2. Tax formulas can all be organized on one sheet of paper (if you have space, copy the materials' example question into it too so you can 'learn on the spot' if you need to)
3. Limitation periods for each practice area can be organized onto a single page (just make sure you are thorough when prepping this
4. Mortgage enforcement remedies chart/table

I found that how you bound the materials on the test day helps significantly when trying to find a specific answer (I wrote in person):

1. I gave each practice area its own binder.
2. My index/indices were organized in another binder.

On test day, if I am doing the real estate section, I would have my index binder open to my left and my real estate binder open to my right. All other binders are "shelved" like books on the corner of my desk.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Aureliuse
Clarity

[averagelawstudent]

1 minute ago, Chief Keef said:

Feeling the exact same way, this is a complete drag compared to the Barristers material.

yea solicitors is really messing with me it takes me hours to get through and I still feel like I don’t get so much of it 

[averagelawstudent]

8 minutes ago, Aureliuse said:

I did not find my courses in business or real estate help much when I prepped for my solicitors exam, so please don't feel that you are at a disadvantage.

A lot of solicitor exam materials can be visually organized into charts for ease of understanding.

1. Creditor priorities can be organized visually in a vertical chart form - top to bottom (those who get paid first on the top and unsecured creditors on the bottom).
2. Tax formulas can all be organized on one sheet of paper (if you have space, copy the materials' example question into it too so you can 'learn on the spot' if you need to)
3. Limitation periods for each practice area can be organized onto a single page (just make sure you are thorough when prepping this

I found that how you bound the materials on the test day helps significantly when trying to find a specific answer (I wrote in person):

1. I gave each practice area its own binder.
2. My index/indices were organized in another binder.

On test day, if I am doing the real estate section, I would have my index binder open to my left and my real estate binder open to my right. All other binders are "shelved" like books on the corner of my desk.

thank you for this helpful advice! do you think it is useful to try to understand the concepts at large or just get through the material and start practicing with the aids?  for barristers i actually understood the material which made it easier and is what is making me nervous about solicitors

[Aureliuse]

3 hours ago, averagelawstudent said:

thank you for this helpful advice! do you think it is useful to try to understand the concepts at large or just get through the material and start practicing with the aids?  for barristers i actually understood the material which made it easier and is what is making me nervous about solicitors

Understanding the material wouldn't hurt you. It is an advantage. That said, I know some of my friends had "skipped" entire tax chapters and blind guessed those questions on the exam. They still passed.

However, I would encourage you to grasp some basic concepts. You only need a basic understanding of the fundamentals of each area. Urban planning and tax are hard to relate, the concepts are nebulous. But I think you can kind of understand corporate, wills and estates, residential/commercial/leasing real estate, and bankruptcy discharges.

I know it is daunting encountering real estate, estate, trust, tax, corporate, and bankruptcy terminologies for the first time.

https://www.investopedia.com/ is a great resource when it comes to understanding business/commercial terminology. The dictionary (under "Education") definitions should give you a basic understanding of what a terminology means. For example, you can look up "blockchain" and see if you can understand how it is explained.

The Canada Revenue Agency website has some great articles about certain tax terms too.

Alternatively, most legislation/regulations have a "definitions" section which explains what each term under the section/subsection means.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Aureliuse
typo

[chicken]

57 minutes ago, Aureliuse said:

Understanding the material wouldn't hurt you. It is an advantage. That said, I know some of my friends had "skipped" entire tax chapters and blind guessed those questions on the exam. They still passed.

However, I would encourage you to grasp some basic concepts. You only need a basic understanding of the fundamentals of each area. Urban planning and tax are hard to relate, the concepts are nebulous. But I think you can kind of understand corporate, wills and estates, residential/commercial/leasing real estate, and bankruptcy discharges.

I know it is daunting encountering real estate, estate, trust, tax, corporate, and bankruptcy terminologies for the first time.

https://www.investopedia.com/ is a great resource when it comes to understanding business/commercial terminology. The dictionary (under "Education") definitions should give you a basic understanding of what a terminology means. For example, you can look up "blockchain" and see if you can understand how it is explained.

The Canada Revenue Agency website has some great articles about certain tax terms too.

Alternatively, most legislation/regulations have a "definitions" section which explains what each term under the section/subsection means.

It doesn't matter how much you understand it - I'm sure many do, and they grasp it perfectly. The problem is nothing can be memorized. Even if you do understand it, you're still going to need to search up in the text to find the answer, especially in cases where the question is asking for something super specific. 

Just like barristers, you need to keep nailing down your process of finding the quickest way to locate the relevant information. 

You need to realize that it is okay to not know everything, or have it memorized. All you need to know is that the answer is somewhere in the book, and either (1) the relevant key word to search in the index, or (2) the chapter its in, so you can flip there and find the header that has the answer. Practice that!

[cherrytree]

I found charts to be super helpful study aids in helping me get a better idea of where in which chapter a given concept is located. If you're already using the UofT index, definitely check out the accompanying charts as well if you haven't done so yet. Do practice questions to familiarize with where things are, the concepts seem more daunting than barristers but I'm optimistic that the process and the method still remain the same, perhaps just need more practice given the greater volume of materials.

[MB1850]

On 6/7/2021 at 12:13 AM, chicken said:

It doesn't matter how much you understand it - I'm sure many do, and they grasp it perfectly. The problem is nothing can be memorized. Even if you do understand it, you're still going to need to search up in the text to find the answer, especially in cases where the question is asking for something super specific. 

Just like barristers, you need to keep nailing down your process of finding the quickest way to locate the relevant information. 

You need to realize that it is okay to not know everything, or have it memorized. All you need to know is that the answer is somewhere in the book, and either (1) the relevant key word to search in the index, or (2) the chapter its in, so you can flip there and find the header that has the answer. Practice that!

Agree that the key is to know roughly where to find the material in the book. No one is expected to memorize or understand everything in the book. The only part that I am trying to completely understand inside and out is PR - it's not long (120 pages or so) and understanding this section will give me more time to focus on the other questions in the exam. 

I found the index really helped me for the Barrister Exam - but in my practice tests for the solicitor exam, I'm relying more on the Detailed Table of Contents. Finding the index less useful for solicitor's exam. 

[GlennQuagmire]

Has anybody who has taken the solicitors before not finished the material like they did for barrister and still passed? I was able to get through the barrister material, but highly doubt I will be able to get through solicitor, because of the mix between burnout and boredom. I am debating whether or not to scrap trying to read the materials and just start studying the index now. 

[Jer Dub]

It is taking me a solid week to get through Business Law...the tax law section might as well be Mandarin. 

[plainview]

Can anyone confirm that the split of questions on the Solicitor exam is roughly 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 for each topic? I’ve heard from someone this is the case, but find it odd considering Business and RE questions are ~320 pages each and Estates is only ~150  

[yunglawyer]

The split of questions is more-or-less reflective of the section length, not evenly split.

[Abella Swan]

On 6/11/2021 at 3:50 PM, GlennQuagmire said:

Has anybody who has taken the solicitors before not finished the material like they did for barrister and still passed? I was able to get through the barrister material, but highly doubt I will be able to get through solicitor, because of the mix between burnout and boredom. I am debating whether or not to scrap trying to read the materials and just start studying the index now. 

Damn bored and burnout out - there is no better way of describing how Im feeling

[luckycharm]

9 hours ago, Abella Swan said:

Damn bored and burnout out - there is no better way of describing how Im feeling

I've been through that. The Bar exam is meaningless.

[GlennQuagmire]

The LSO really needs to critically analyze the goal they are trying to achieve with administering these exams instead of blindly trying to mimic the licensing process in the USA. In the USA, although not a perfect mechanism, the bar exam actually makes more sense (and it's administered in a better manner IMO, in states like New York). Law schools in the USA are, unless I'm mistaken, WAY less regulated than Canada, so to ensure basic competence, they administer the bar so that the market isn't flooded with grads who went to what many consider degree mill schools. 

In Canada, law schools are heavily regulated and apparently all of high quality. I don't know much about other schools besides the one I attend, but that is the general sentiment. Therefore, based on the reasoning of why the bar is a somewhat useful screening mechanism in the USA, it would make no sense for Canadian jurisdictions to administer it for graduates of Canadian programs. 

Anyways, back to studying for the solicitor exam (Giggidy). 

[Quintessential_Gambini]

Charging the yutes $4500 to take part in an in-person, Command F exercise should be criminal.

Although speed law could become a lucrative billing category for clients that need questions answered in 90 seconds flat.

 

 

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

You don’t pay $4,500 for the exams. You pay $1,500 for the exams. The other three grand goes to subsidize your colleagues who couldn’t find jobs and are completing the LPP, since the LSO was not willing to increase fees for practicing lawyers to make up for massively increased costs from running the LPP or charge those enrolled in the program for the cost of it. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[Civil2Common]

I realize this thread is getting a bit old now but, in the future, if it can be of any help to others writing the solicitor exam, I prepared by:

1. Reading most of the material once and tab them (tax stuff I more or less skimmed, and didn't really bother fully assimilating the calculations - if I didn't "get" tax law from the mandatory class I took, it wasn't the bar mats that would help me, in my case).

2. Re-read the ethics/professionalism material (this likely varies every year, but my solicitor exam was surprisingly ethics/professionalism-heavy and I have no doubt that my handle on that material helped me pass on the first shot).

3. Did two timed practice exams, while using the indices, also tabbed alphabetically (In my case, I purchased OLE and Ontario Bar Prep - of course it doesn't need to be these two, and I understand that they aren't exactly the cheapest prep material, but doing practice exams, or at least practice questions really help with getting familiar in searching through the indices, as well as allows you to practice with a team sheet. Practicing with a team sheet was indispensable in my case because I am a VERY slow test taker in general).

With all the above in mind, I will also state that the only courses I had previously taken that were pertinent to the solicitor exam was business law. I had never taken any courses concerned with Wills & Estates or Real Estate. My first time seeing that material was while studying for the exam.

This is just what worked for me though, and of course everyone is different. In the end, I think that as long as you take the time to prepare/practice, you should be fine. If not, failing the exam is not a reflection of your abilities as a lawyer. You will get it next time, just don't give up! 

[OntheVerge]

Caveat: I wouldn't necessarily recommend this method of studying, but it worked for me as I passed Solicitor on the first try. I didn't even get through reading all the materials, understood even less, and retained almost nothing. I hadn't taken a single class in law school that pertained to the Solicitor exam. So instead I focused on improving my familiarity with my indexes by doing as many practice exams as possible. I started without timing the exams and taking as much time as I needed, then 3 days before the exam started doing timed exams. 

And for any questions that needed anything beyond the most basic math, I just guessed and moved on. These were going to be the time wasters for me and I was concerned about spending so much time trying to figure those out that I'd run out of time and wouldn't be able to finish the questions I had a better chance on. When I actually wrote the exam, I finished with about 5 minutes to spare and was able to go back and look up 3 questions I had flagged as "maybes" that I then found the answer to. 

All in all I'd say don't get hung up on trying to learn the information. It's easy to fall into the rabbit hole but that's not really the exercise. Use the indexes and learn where to find the answers to the questions as fast as possible. 

[cherrytree]

On 8/4/2021 at 3:00 PM, OntheVerge said:

Caveat: I wouldn't necessarily recommend this method of studying, but it worked for me as I passed Solicitor on the first try. I didn't even get through reading all the materials, understood even less, and retained almost nothing. I hadn't taken a single class in law school that pertained to the Solicitor exam. So instead I focused on improving my familiarity with my indexes by doing as many practice exams as possible. I started without timing the exams and taking as much time as I needed, then 3 days before the exam started doing timed exams. 

And for any questions that needed anything beyond the most basic math, I just guessed and moved on. These were going to be the time wasters for me and I was concerned about spending so much time trying to figure those out that I'd run out of time and wouldn't be able to finish the questions I had a better chance on. When I actually wrote the exam, I finished with about 5 minutes to spare and was able to go back and look up 3 questions I had flagged as "maybes" that I then found the answer to. 

All in all I'd say don't get hung up on trying to learn the information. It's easy to fall into the rabbit hole but that's not really the exercise. Use the indexes and learn where to find the answers to the questions as fast as possible. 

To add on to this from the perspective of someone who did get through reading all the materials, I saved a lot of time on searching for the answers because I had the benefit of highlighted keywords in my materials. If you are naturally a decently quick reader who is very good at skimming and scanning for key words under time pressure, perhaps it doesn't make a huge difference for you whether you use highlights or not. If you are not so confident on your abilities there, going over the materials once-through just to get your highlights in was super helpful on the exam. I would also recommend not skipping or glossing over any comparatively shorter sections in your materials, because the amount of questions on the exam pertaining to any given section is NOT necessarily proportionate to how many pages the given section takes up.