FE1 Exam Thread (Mod Warning: NO ADS)

sid4lev

vote4pedro wrote: »

With three days to go till kick off I'm having a minor freak out here as I've completely confused myself over mens rea for murder.
So just a quick question re Mens Rea in criminal. What is the leading authority re: intent? The way I have things worked out is as follows:

Hyam said foresight could be inferred if serious injury was probable, then
Maloney comes along and requires near overwhelming probability to infer intent,
Hancock then deemed Maloney unsafe and restores Hyam as the leading authority.
In Ireland we still go by requirement of "probability" for murder, as per Hyam, whereas in the UK they've gone for a stricter test since then of Nedrick requiring the defendant to be "virtually certain" to infer intent.

However, all that case law makes my head hurt, and I've convinced myself I've gotten things muddled up somewhere along the way, so...do we follow Hyam and require injury to have been probable to infer foresight, or is it the Maloney/Nedrick approach of overwhelming probability?

you pretty much have it spot on there mate...as far as i can tell anyway. There hasnt been an authoritative decision in Ireland for a while so "technically" i think we still follow Hyam. Conor Hanly has recommended that we adopt the Woolen approach (which basically endorsed Nedrick). Best of luck

dee8839

I'm in my final semester of college and hoping to stick around campus for the summer and study for my first 5 FE-1s this October. I want to do Company, Equity, Property, Criminal and Tort.

But I don't know anyone else studying for their first sitting at the same time as me (the rest of my course, or at least the ones I know, are going for accountancy, safer option these days!) and I don't know anyone who sat the exams before so I'm totally left floating.

What should my first move be? Should I try to get the manuals from study courses such as Griffith first? I have most of the textbooks from my undergrad. Am I supposed to literally know these inside and out?! I'm so daunted by this!

michael_23

being college educated (non-law), how likely is it that one could take all 8 FE1's in one sitting and pass?

jtothesums

Hi. I've heard of 2people who passed all 8exams in one go previously. One did them in 2001 and the other in 2004.Both had a law background and highly motivated people from what i know of them. I came off the back of a 2:1 degree in law & business and only passed 2 of my first 5. Exams have gotten harder definately since then.Its not impossible to pass 8 on your first attempt but I cannot imagine the work that is involved. I've struggled at times doing 2 or 3 but I'm working full time so maybe its different. Only you know your capabilities so if you think you are able for it then give it a shot. The earliest you could be in Blackhall in Sept 2010 so why not do 5 in October and 3 in April 2010.You have a better chance of gettting 5 than 8 obviously and splitting them into two sittings isnt going to cost you a year in terms of starting in the law society.Have you an apprenticeship lined up?Very difficult to find at the moment and if you dont then all your work for the fe-1's will have been in vain as you need to have one before you can start in Blackhall

Quaver

It is possible to do the 8 of them in one go, but bear in mind that it's a huge commitment and will involve a massive amount of work. Also bear in mind the timetable for the October/November exams, its up on the Law Society website, and the exams are one after the other over a week and a half, so it would be extremely tough both mentaly and physically.

paulanthony

Hi there. I will be taking 5 FE-1s in October 2009 and 3 in April 2010. Does anyone have any recommendations of particular combinations to take the 5 and 3 in to balance out the more difficult with the easier ones. Bearing in mind the timetable for Oct 2009 is all on consecutive days.

Is it best to pick Tort, Constitutional, Equity, Criminal and Contract in order to leave a days recovery / cramming in between or to pick a good combination of subjects which complement each other?

Thanks in advance.

Paul

r14

michael_23 wrote: »

being college educated (non-law), how likely is it that one could take all 8 FE1's in one sitting and pass?

Hi,

I did all 8 fe 1s in the last sitting and got them. It is such a relief to get them all done in one go. Having said that it ruined the whole summer and took a lot of hard work. Basically started studying 3 months before the exams and didn't stop.

It is certainly not an impossible feat. I know 7 people who got all the fe1s in the last sitting (all law grads). If you don't have a law degree I think doing a course is an absolute must (and pretty handy even if you have a law degree).

The only downside is that they have changed the schedule of the exams for the next sitting so you won't get a break in between exams. That's going to be an absolute killer. If you think you are up for putting the work in then there is no reason why you couldn't get them all in one go.

r14

paulanthony wrote: »

Is it best to pick Tort, Constitutional, Equity, Criminal and Contract in order to leave a days recovery / cramming in between or to pick a good combination of subjects which complement each other?

It really depends on which subjects you feel most comfortable with but I would definitely advise taking equity and land together as there is a good bit of overlap between them.

paulanthony

r14 wrote: »

It really depends on which subjects you feel most comfortable with but I would definitely advise taking equity and land together as there is a good bit of overlap between them.

Thanks for that. I will be a law graduate - but may be a bit rusty on some of the earlier subjects as it will be 4 years since I have studied them.

It makes sense what you say about land and equity with estoppel etc.

I have heard that Tort and Company are difficult, is this true? If so would I be better leaving one (or both) of them until I am only sitting 3 next March?

I have generally been most comfortable with more caselaw based subjects so I would probably prefer Tort, Constitutional, Equity etc over Company or EU

r14

I found Tort and Company difficult, mainly because they are really really boring and so hard to study for.

EU can be very tricky and long so it might be an idea to do it with some "easier" ones. The longest ones to study for are definitely tort and constit so separating them might make it an easier work load.

The exams are all hard and all take lots of work so it doesn't make a huge amount of difference which ones you do first. At the end of the day you have to pass all of them. I'd tend to try to do some of the ones you find hardest first so you have a second shot at them if things don't go well.

Dandelion6

r14 wrote: »

It really depends on which subjects you feel most comfortable with but I would definitely advise taking equity and land together as there is a good bit of overlap between them.

And contract. Huge overlap between equity and contract.

vote4pedro

Hmm, just noticed there's no mention of parking in the info pack thing we got sent out.

Someone please tell me that parking in the RDS will be grand!?

johnfás

Sorry didn't see your comment last night - I went to bed very early!

But for anyone else yes you can park down at the RDS. They charge 6 euro though - scabs.

Criminal wasn't too bad today - some of the questions were very busy though!

marbar

so what are the employment prospects at the min for getting an apprenticeship?
i was going to start the exams in april but had the life frightened out of me by people in the industry saying that there was just not enough work for too many people right now.

thoughts?

johnfás

marbar wrote: »

so what are the employment prospects at the min for getting an apprenticeship?
i was going to start the exams in april but had the life frightened out of me by people in the industry saying that there was just not enough work for too many people right now.

thoughts?

There aren't enough jobs and there are far too many people looking for them. However, that does not mean that you wont get an apprenticeship, just means it is very difficult to get one and you will be lucky to secure one.

Beyond that, I think anyone who tells you either to definately proceed or definately not proceed is talking nonsense because there are some people who will fall on their feet and some who will not. It is an individual judgement.

Robbo

johnfás wrote: »

Criminal wasn't too bad today - some of the questions were very busy though!

There was a couple of Kitchen Sink-ers in there but I was reasonably happy with it.

page1

First time to sit it, i was surprised by the amount of issues in the problem questions. How tough of a marker is he, i only answered 4.5 questions, didnt know the second part of my last question but ran out of time anyway.

vote4pedro

Yeah I was happy enough with it, got 4.5 good answers (I think) and 0.5 pure waffle in bullet points. Hopefully enough for a pass overall? I was about to do question 8, the problem question with the bloke locked in the boot, but my god there was a lot going on in that!

orangecake

dee8839 wrote: »

I'm in my final semester of college and hoping to stick around campus for the summer and study for my first 5 FE-1s this October. I want to do Company, Equity, Property, Criminal and Tort.

But I don't know anyone else studying for their first sitting at the same time as me (the rest of my course, or at least the ones I know, are going for accountancy, safer option these days!) and I don't know anyone who sat the exams before so I'm totally left floating.

What should my first move be? Should I try to get the manuals from study courses such as Griffith first? I have most of the textbooks from my undergrad. Am I supposed to literally know these inside and out?! I'm so daunted by this!

I don't think you need to know your textbooks inside out, particularly if say you have the Courtney Company Law book, that would be pretty difficult! The best approach is to get a hold of a Griffith/Indeprendent Colleges manual (my own preference would be Independent) and use that as your main text. Use your college text books to supplement the manuals, if you have a couple of extra cases that you won't find in the manuals that can set you apart from the hundreds of other people using the manuals. Also, I think the examiners reports are invaluable, especially for courses like criminal or equity where they give a lot of detail on what kind of answers they expect, cases they were looking for etc.

In relation to the people wondering what combinations to do together, I haven't looked at the Sept/Oct timetable, but if it was me I would try and give myself as much of a spread as possible in terms of breaks in between exams. I know some subjects go nicely together like equity and land, but I would sacrifice that to have a break between exmas. Having done the Criminal exam this morning I would love to sleep solidly for about 24 hours. If Company was tomorrow I don't know how I'd face it!

vote4pedro

Hmm, balls, I only advised people in the problem questions re: their liability, not how long they may have gotten for each offence. Thats not a deal breaker, right?

johnfás

vote4pedro wrote: »

Yeah I was happy enough with it, got 4.5 good answers (I think) and 0.5 pure waffle in bullet points. Hopefully enough for a pass overall? I was about to do question 8, the problem question with the bloke locked in the boot, but my god there was a lot going on in that!

Yea it was a whopper! I did it because I reckoned that given there were so many issues at play in it, the mere identification of most of the issues would mean one would score fairly well. I counted, (i) Conspiracy (ii) False Imprisonment & Assault (iii) Arson (iv) Criminal Damage Endangering Life (v) Causing Serious Harm (vi) Defences (vii) Liability of Accomplices... was a struggle to get all of that into 35 minutes!!

johnfás

vote4pedro wrote: »

Hmm, balls, I only advised people in the problem questions re: their liability, not how long they may have gotten for each offence. Thats not a deal breaker, right?

I wouldn't think so. I would guess the core points go for the identification of any possible charges, including the requisite mens rea etc, and any other issues which might arise such as defences. I would guess the maximum penalties imposed would just be brownie points. I fitted a couple of them in but on the basis that some of the questions involved so many charges I just said the maximum penalty for one of them - like in question 8 I said the maximum penalty for causing serious harm is life but I didn't outline penalties for the other offences I raised.

nehemiah

johnfás wrote: »

Yea it was a whopper! I did it because I reckoned that given there were so many issues at play in it, the mere identification of most of the issues would mean one would score fairly well. I counted, (i) Conspiracy (ii) False Imprisonment & Assault (iii) Arson (iv) Criminal Damage Endangering Life (v) Causing Serious Harm (vi) Defences (vii) Liability of Accomplices... was a struggle to get all of that into 35 minutes!!

Arson....dammit!!

Robbo

nehemiah wrote: »

Arson....dammit!!

If there's a whiff of a match, you have to barrel in with arson. Always.

La.m

Hey did anyone put down attempted murder in q8?

I kind of went with Hyam where "just trying to scare" was murder when they died since death was highly probable, why wouldn't "just trying to scare" be enough for attempted murder since (to me anyway) a natural and probable cause of locking someone in a boot and setting it on fire is death so intent for murder could be there!

U can prob tell I'm looking for reassurance! I know I fecked up in another question where I said the mens rea of Causing Serious Harm was intention only not intention and recklessness, so I really need for this not to be completely wrong!

michael_23

Thanks for the response, jtothesums, Quaver, r14

I'v read alot on here and other websites about how difficult it is to secure an apprenticeship. So forgive me for what seems like a silly question but how does one go about getting an apprenticeship??

Is it simply a matter of writing to a number of solicitors?

Also, what makes the process so diffuclt? is it simply a matter of low supply, high demand? Are there any other factors at play?

sid4lev

Are you serious? Where have you been?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055434330&page=10
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=27367&page=41
Read through these threads for all you need to know. They are very informative but I would strongly advise against reading them if you wish to keep your spirits up.

If you dont want to read them, all ill say is 4 from 70 in my class have apprenticeships, first class honours or not. The situation is quite frankly dire. nuf said

michael_23

Cheers,

I'm new to the area. Considering a change in career direction. Thanks for the links though.

vote4pedro

Hope Company went well for whoever had it today, I've been very glad of the day off to try and get through a bit more of the Constitutional course. I'm leaving out most of the "insitutions" part of the course, just covering Sep of Powers, Dáil Elections, attorney general and judicial review. Hopefully those and all the Rights will be enough to survive 5 questions.

Quick question for anyone doing Freedom of Expression, is it necessary to go in to the detail that the Griffith College book goes in to re: defamation... would FoExpression question really require bringing in all of those ECtHR decisions, or for FoE am I better off just sticking to Public Order/Morality/Security of State/Contempt of Court and knowing a bit about Reynolds v. UK in defamation?

kgalway

Im a final year LLB student and intending to sit the FE1's in October. I would love some advice on prep courses...i.e are they beneficial? what are the best ones or really can you just do the work yourself if you get the reading packs? which leads me on to my next question, a shop in Galway used to sell copies of the Griffith packs but they aren't any longer. Does anyone have an idea of any other shops that do this? I know I can always get 2nd hand but Id love them to be as up to date as possible!
Also, Does anyone know why the timetable for the exams has changed? i.e. Why they're every day now not every second?!!!