Bar examination
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A bar examination is an extremely rigorous examination (often two or more days) conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction.
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[edit] United States
Passing the bar exam is typically only one of several steps for being licensed to practice law. For more information on the complete process, see admission to the bar in the United States.
Bar examinations in the United States are administered by government agencies of individual states, except for the patent bar, which is separately administered by the Office of Enrollment and Discipline of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The state agency is invariably associated with the judicial branch of government, because American attorneys are all officers of the court of the bar(s) to which they belong.
Sometimes the agency is an office or committee of the state's highest court or intermediate appellate court. In states which have a unified or integrated bar association (meaning that formal membership in a public corporation controlled by the judiciary is required to practice therein), the agency is usually a committee or office of the state bar association.
Where it is required, the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, an ethics exam, is always administered separately from the state's bar exam. In fact, it is not administered by the states at all but by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which creates it and grades it. The MPRE is offered three times a year, in March, August and November.
The bar examination in most U.S. states and territories is two days long and consists of:
- A number of essay questions that test knowledge of general legal principles, and may also test knowledge of the state's own law (usually subjects such as wills, trusts and community property, which always vary from one state to another)
- Several complicated essay questions that test knowledge of that state's law;
- The Multistate Bar Examination, a standardized, multiple-choice examination created and sold to participating state bar examiners by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The MBE contains 200 questions which test six subjects based upon principles of common law and UCC Article 2 that apply throughout the United States.
The State of Washington administers a two-and-a-half day all-essay exam. The half-day on the morning of the third day is the state's own ethics exam; it does not use the MPRE.
Because Louisiana and Puerto Rico are civil law jurisdictions instead of common law jurisdictions, they do not use the MBE, as the law it tests is irrelevant in those jurisdictions. Instead, they administer only essay questions covering their own law.
Some jurisdictions, like California, also require a performance test as a more realistic measure of actual lawyering skill; the candidate is presented with a stack of documents representing a fictional case and is asked to draft a memorandum, motion, or opinion document. Many jurisdictions use the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), which was modeled after the California Performance Test. But whereas the California Performance Test is three hours long, the Multistate Performance Test — which is designed to complement the Multistate Essay Examination (which some states use) is only 90 minutes long.
The California bar examination is one of the most arduous in the nation, consisting of 6 hours per day for three consecutive days, for a total of 18 hours. The first and third days constitute the written portion of the exam, while the second is given over to the MBE. The written portion contains six one-hour essay questions and two three-hour California performance tests. California used to conduct its own scaling of MBE results, separately from national scaling and based only upon the performance of California examinees. However, California has recently adopted the national scaling of the MBE and applies the national scale, made by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, to its own exam.
[edit] When exams occur
Each state controls when it administers its bar exam. Because the MBE is a standardized test, it must be administered on the same day across the country. That day occurs twice a year as the last Wednesday in July and the last Wednesday in February. Two states, Delaware and North Dakota, only administer their bar exams once in July, since they do not have enough applicants to merit a second sitting in February. Most bar exams are administered on consecutive days. Louisiana is the exception, administering its three-day examination on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also, Louisiana's examination is the longest in the country in terms of examination time, with 7 hours on each day for a total of 21 hours.
All examinees must be present in person, and many states have strict guidelines about what people may take into the examination room, what they may wear during the exam, and when a person may leave their seat for any reason.
[edit] Preparation for the exam
Most law schools prefer to teach students "how to think like a lawyer" but do not prepare law students for any particular bar exam. As one Harvard-trained lawyer put it:
| While I may have learned how to 'think like a lawyer' at Harvard, I had few concrete thoughts. I did not know, for example, the different degrees of murder, and for how many years in prison one could be sentenced for each. I did not know when a contract had to be in writing and when it could be oral. I did not know when a bank was liable for a forged check. In short, I knew about Law but did not know the laws.[1] |
Therefore, to learn the "black-letter rules" actually tested on the bar, most students engage in a grueling regimen of study (called "bar review") in the period between graduating from law school and sitting for the bar. The majority of American law students enroll in classes presented by private companies, e.g. Supreme Bar Review, BarBri, PMBR, or PLI.
Bar review tends to be one of the most stressful and unpleasant experiences which a law student faces before becoming a lawyer.
[edit] Louisiana
The Louisiana bar exam is notable for several reasons. As stated above, it does not use the Multistate Bar Examination; instead, the three day long test includes mostly essay questions on Louisiana law. It is also the only bar exam in the United States not to be conducted on consecutive days; it is given on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of a single week.
[edit] England and Wales
In England and Wales, the series of exams taken to become a barrister is sometimes known as bar finals or Bar Exams/Examinations.
Nowadays these exams are usually taken as part of the Bar Vocational Course at establishments such as the College of Law.
See barrister for further information about qualifying in England and Wales.
[edit] Controversy
[edit] Arguments against the bar exam
A statement by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) articulates many criticisms of the bar exam. The statement can be found at http://www.saltlaw.org/positionbarexam.htm. This statement was also published in 54 JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION 442–458.
[edit] Arguments in favor of the bar exam
The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) regularly provides articles relating to the bar examination process. Typically, they are in favor of it. To see a general collection of the articles available, go to:
http://www.ncbex.org/pubs/bar_examiner/most_recent.htm
[edit] Arguments for alternatives to the bar exam
The NCBE published an article in 2005 addressing alternatives to the bar exam, including a discussion of New Hampshire's Daniel Webster Scholar Program. The article can be found at:
http://www.ncbex.org/pubs/pdf/2005_Volume74/740405/740405_Essay.pdf
[edit] See also
- Bar association
- IRAC for essay tips and strategies.
- State Judicial Exam
- http://www.abanet.org/legaled/baradmissions/bar.html
- Multistate Bar Exam
- 2007 Study Materials
[edit] References
The Louisiana Supreme Court Committee on Bar Admissions.
- ^ Cameron Stracher, Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair (New York: William Morrow, 1998), 15.
