NALA CP common mistakes
NALA CP · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Civil Litigation: Calculating a discovery response deadline from the date the request was drafted or mailed rather than the date of service, and counting calendar days when the rule requires court days.
Candidates memorize the number of days (for example, 30) but not the trigger event or the day-count method. Under FRCP 6(a) and many state analogs, the counting method changes for short periods and for court-day orders.
What to do instead
Use a deadline worksheet with two columns: trigger event/date of service and day-count method. Exclude the trigger day, include the last day only if it is not a weekend or holiday, and verify against local rules before calendaring.
Civil Litigation: Using interrogatories to demand document production or treating a request for admission as a document-production device.
Discovery tools are studied as isolated definitions, so candidates do not attach each tool to its permitted purpose, numerical limits, and response obligations under rules such as FRCP 33, 34, and 36.
What to do instead
Build a one-page matrix listing each tool, its purpose, numerical limit, response deadline, and consequence of nonresponse. In scenario questions, first identify the tool's purpose before selecting the procedure.
Contracts: Applying UCC Article 2 to a service or construction contract, or applying common law to a sale of goods, without first classifying the contract.
Candidates jump to a remembered rule, such as the firm-offer rule or statute of frauds, before identifying the subject matter and the parties' merchant status.
What to do instead
Use a three-step gate: (1) goods versus services using the predominant-purpose test, (2) merchant versus nonmerchant, and (3) common law versus UCC. Only then analyze formation, statute of frauds, and remedies.
Contracts: Treating a condition precedent as a promise and concluding that the party breached instead of recognizing that the duty never became due.
Conditional language such as 'provided that,' 'on condition that,' or 'if' is read as a covenant. Candidates do not separate events that trigger a duty from duties themselves.
What to do instead
Highlight conditional words in every clause and rewrite each as 'X must occur before Y is due.' Then state the correct consequence: nonoccurrence excuses performance, while breach of a promise supports damages.
Corporate and Business Organizations: Assigning management authority to shareholders or personal liability to directors without stating the corporate formality or fiduciary duty involved.
The roles blur because shareholders, directors, and officers appear in the same documents. Candidates memorize labels without an authority-and-liability matrix.
What to do instead
Make a chart with columns for shareholders (vote, elect directors, amend bylaws), directors (policy, fiduciary duties), and officers (day-to-day management, agency). Add liability rules and required formalities such as board resolutions, bylaws, and certificates.
Criminal Law and Procedure: Using 'probable cause' and 'reasonable suspicion' interchangeably when analyzing a traffic stop, frisk, or arrest.
The standards are learned as vocabulary words rather than as rules tied to a specific seizure stage and scope.
What to do instead
Draw a stage timeline: consensual encounter (no seizure standard), investigative stop (reasonable suspicion), frisk (reasonable suspicion plus armed-and-dangerous), arrest (probable cause), and search warrant (probable cause plus neutrality). Match each fact pattern to the stage before naming the standard.
Estate Planning and Probate: Distributing intestate shares per capita when the will or statute requires per stirpes, or omitting the surviving spouse's share.
Candidates memorize 'per stirpes' as 'by blood' without drawing the family tree, and the spouse's share is state-specific and often overlooked.
What to do instead
Always draw the family tree and label deceased descendants. Apply the jurisdiction's intestacy table, then test the result by asking whether a predeceased child's issue take that child's share.
Real Estate and Property Law: Recording a deed and assuming that recording alone defeats a prior unrecorded interest under a notice or race-notice statute.
Candidates conflate recording with priority and do not check bona fide purchaser status or the type of notice involved.
What to do instead
Use a priority checklist: Was the interest recorded? Did the later purchaser pay value? Did the later purchaser have actual, inquiry, or record notice? Then apply the jurisdiction's race, notice, or race-notice statute.
Legal Research: Answering a research question from a secondary source or search-engine snippet without pulling and citing the primary authority.
Secondary sources are easier to read and appear authoritative, so candidates skip verification in the statute, regulation, or case.
What to do instead
Follow a hierarchy: use secondary sources only to locate the issue, verify the rule in the official code or reporter, and check validity with a citator. Cite primary authority unless the question specifically asks for commentary.
Legal Research, Writing, and Ethics: Giving a client a legal opinion or advice instead of explaining the attorney's conclusion, or disclosing confidential client information to a third party.
Role confusion and the pressure to be helpful lead candidates to ignore ABA Model Rules 5.3 and 1.6 and the unauthorized-practice limits on paralegals.
What to do instead
Script responses: 'I can explain the process and the attorney's conclusion, but I cannot give legal advice.' Route substantive questions to the supervising attorney and keep client information within the supervised legal team.