Dean of Stanford Law School (and just about everyone else) flunks California Bar

Page One story in the Wall Street Journal this morning (which I've already managed to lose) on how much harder the California Bar exam is than nearly all the other states. More than half fail including, this year, the just-retired Stanford Dean (who had already passed the Bar in two other states but is now working for a California firm). Apparently the California Bar is 20% longer and a lot more than 20% harder than most of the other states.

There should be an award or trophy named for Maxcy Filer, mentioned as having passed the Bar on his 48th try, at the age of 60. (He took it the first time at 35.)

 

Maybe the California bar exam's harder and longer (no, not that kind of harder and longer ) because CalBar wants to make sure that none of those who were so much more easily able to get unaccredited-but-still-bar-eligible JDs in California will nevertheless get screened-out if they still don't get it even after law school. Maybe we could think of the screening process as matter that's neither created nor destroyed: It just shifts from the law school application to the bar exam.

 

In Addition I think its an industry, the schools and the CalBar.
On one hand they graduate people with unaccredited degrees, then these people have no choice but pay and retake the exams as many times as needed in order to pass, what is the value of such degree without the CalBar?

Is there anything similar in the State of NY?

Learner

 

Belly up at the Bar, boys.

 

Look at it THIS way

My impression is that, over time, certain California ABA schools have first time Bar pass rates that are more or less in line with national averages.

Although the February 2005 exam WAS particularly nasty, it appears that over time graduates of the four UC schools, Stanford, and U.S.C. have about a 75% first time pass rate. In Stanford's case, even higher.

Certain top tier out of state schools also have very high first time pass rates, though there aren't usually enough graduates to draw any clear conclusions.

Other California ABA schools do much worse but most regularly exceed a 50-60% first time pass rate and their repeaters seen to pass fairly regularly as well. This IS low but there are a lot of private law schools in California. If you have a B.A. and have or are willing to borrow the enormous sums involved, you can get into one or another of them.

Certain anomalies exist...Western State lost its provisional ABA approval (since restored) in large part because its first time pass rate ran around 40% Whittier is on probation for the same thing. These schools are probably not alone, truth be told.

Then there's good old CalBar accredited LaVerne, turning in a 70-80% first time pass rate with stunning regularity! And sure enough LaVerne will receive ABA provisional approval by May 2006 (my prediction).

I've been tempted to take the California Bar exam myself, just to see if I could pass it. But what's the point? I'm sure as hell not going to MOVE there; I love the state but I don't care for cutthroat competition at my time of life!

 

The link here is subscribers-only. There's more information here and here .

jon

 

Additional ruminations

For some reason, February Bar exams have a bad reputation even among first time takers. Obviously, repeaters have already failed ONCE; one would expexct their overall pass rate to be fairly low and most of them take the February Bar exam becasue it was the previous July exam that they failed, but the pass rates for first time takers in February ALSO tend to be low. I don't know why.

It doesn't surprise me that an academic lawyer would have trouble passing a Bar exam. Here in New Mexico, we have a special limited Bar exam exemption for law professors to supervise clinical students. PRACTICE is not the same as THEORY and, maybe more important, scholarly writing is radically diffefent from practice writing. And remember, it is the Bar itself that formulates (or at least adopts) and grades the questions.

The single best law professor I had (who went on to become Dean of Cornell Law School, BTW) once said that he would never trust himself to actually practice law. He didn't feel competent to do so! I don't BELIEVE that he ever took a Bar exam but I could be wrong.

(He died recently; I said kaddish for him. He was a fine man and an outstanding teacher. I owe him a lot.)

 

One last point

Appellate law practice is essentially what law school prepares the student to do. Appellate lawyers like Dean Sullivan have a lot more in common with academics than they have with trial advocates or non litigation counsel. But guess which groups make up the vast majority of the Bar?

The legal education model is not as stupid as it sounds, though. An American legal education does its job rather well, in fact, though it DOES tend to rely too much on private firms and government agencies to give the new lawyer the practical training he needs to be competent.