I am seeking advice, notes, and/or direction from attorneys who have taken and passed the criminal law exam for board certification. Kesquivel@co.chambers.tx.us

i took the test about five years ago, so this may not hold up now . . .

1. do the practice questions that are given out as part of the roundtable discussion at the advanced criminal law course. this helps in two ways. you get an idea of what questions will be like, and it convinces you that the test isn't going to be that hard.

2. study the basic stuff that you always rely upon your TDCAA book for. venue, statute of limitations, appellate deadlines, etc. these are the types of things you take for granted and are good for a few of the questions. outline it if you have to to get it to stick.

3. start thinking like a defense attorney. they grade the papers. and at least one essay will give you the opportunity to provide both prosecution and defense arguments. if you can throw in a couple of ideas that they might think is a clever way to screw with prosecutors, you'll probably get points. (example, i used 38.23 as a possible defense argument to invalidate a search of a locked trunk by claiming it was criminal trespass of a vehicle . . . i know, and i still passed.)

4. get back to basics with search and seizure, federal and state. you see a good chunk of questions on these topics. starting from the ground up makes it easier if you miss a few of the intricacies. conversely, if you focus on esoteric stuff, you may forget to win the easy points by touching first, then second, and then third.

5. study federal sentencing guidelines. many folks say commune with them, but that may be overstating their importance. you won't have to know exactly how many years a person gets under the guidelines, but you'll need to know names for things that trigger upward or downward depatures. (at least you did five years ago, things may have changed since Booker.) there aren't a lot of questions here, but there are some.

6. spend a little time on ethics. the ethics questions were kind of fun for me on this test because there's a clearly right answer. still, you'll get questions on ethics outside of criminal law. reading over the rules a few and comments should be enough (specifically, conflicts of interest).

7. go to the legislative update. there will be a bunch of new laws that are ripe for testing, but don't sweat if you can't memorize everything because it's not THAT massive of a test.

8. read Dan Bradley's article about it in the Texas Prosecutor. it's chock full of great advice, it's a good read, and i believe you can find it on this site.

9. get Dan Bradley's outline. it's good, though parts of it look like it was written in Sanskrit (thanks to the many Xerox transfers.) and, just having it wards off evil failure spirits.

10. relax. i'm sure that you know an attorney that is board certified that you also feel must have bribed someone to get in. if that person can make it, so can you. hell, i did it, that should boost your confidence right there. and if that doesn't work, there's probably a candle for it that you can buy at your local Fiesta.

Read the TDCAA Books, especially search and seizure, confessions, perfect plea and DWI.

Attend the Advanced Criminal Law Course.

Read the TDCAA Case Summaries for the last year.

11. heed all of JB's recommendations. if you can't, consult JB's Pensieve immediately before taking the exam.

My mind is more sieve than Pensieve.

The Prosecutor article is in the July-August 2004 issue. The outline, I confess, was originally from Lindsey Roberts.

The pointers still hold true today.

Lindsey did pass, right?