I'm very skeptical of hiring someone who didn't take a bar exam and pass it. Law is a profession that needs a basic aptitude test. Law schools already admit too many students and take their money. There are already too many attorneys scrambling for work anyway. Get rid of bar exams and it will get worse.
Bar pass rates are an important stat for law schools. If bar passage was no longer an issue, what would prevent law schools from letting more and more students in?
The bar exam doesn’t measure your ability to be a good lawyer. But neither do good grades in law school. I would hire a grad who had diploma privilege but I’d want to see clinic and internship/clerkship experience and references that indicate they are capable
I'm not a partner nor am I in NY, but the only things that would concern me are 2 months off to study at a later date and, more importantly, the prospect of the applicant later taking the Bar if required and not passing.
The bar exam doesn’t test any sort of aptitude. I have a friend who does nothing but bar exam appeals. She’s published a book on what essay scores look like. It’s so ridiculous. You don’t need the bar exam to know whether someone is a capable attorney. Also, the clinical argument is ridiculous as well. I worked through law school. Clinics didn’t fit into my schedule because they were at bad times. Unless you want to switch to a full clinical model, it’s patently unfair. This profession is archaic sometimes.
Since we've already veered a bit off track: the Bar should be administered, if at all, after your first year of law school. If you fail, you can decide whether you'd like to continue on in law school and try again or cut your losses and save yourself the cash.
Also, law school does not need to be three years long, or, if folks insist on it being three years, then it should be blended with undergrad so that undergrad and law school are only 5 years of school total. The whole thing is such a racket (and doesn't prepare you for actually practicing law at all!!).
I think there should be some mechanism from keeping those that aren’t “minimally competent” away from clients and the public. I’m wary of diploma privilege because of the many “bad” law schools out there that accept anyone and exist to basically scam kids out of 300k.
I graduated from a “bottom tier” law school. The school absolutely has questionable admissions practices and admits students that, if by some chance even pass the bar, would do a tremendous disservice to clients and the profession, generally. In a perfect world, we’d be able to allow for diploma privilege, but my own first hand experience tells me this would be dangerous and irresponsible. However, that is not to say the exam itself is not in need of reform. Before I went to law school, I was a teacher, then administrator, and had to pass various exams. Education exams are typically broken up into a more general test and then more specialized ones depending on whatever endorsements you’d like on your license, enabling you to be licensed in that area. Perhaps bar examiners might do something similar. Not everyone intends to be a family law practitioner or do wills and estates. Perhaps we could reserve some of these more concentrated subjects as their own, independent exams. Attorneys wishing to practice in this area would take a subject-specific exam allowing them to be specialized in this field. As it is, the sheer breadth of knowledge required for the bar is outrageous, which in my opinion partially contributes to low passage rates. Anyway, I’m off on a tangent....no to diploma privilege because I know what students stand to benefit from this, and yes to bar exam reform.
Diploma privileges with a mandatory set of CLE courses over the first year that actually test aptitude would make the most sense. The current methodology is so broken, but there are a lot of people who make their livelihoods off perpetuating the myth that the bar exam actually matters. I assure you the likes of Barbri, Themis, Kaplan, State Bar Examiners, etc. are lobbying hard for status quo behind closed doors.
I’d be fine with it, if it’s done the right way. An ideal situation would be to take individuals who are seeking diploma privilege and have them work in the courts in NY harmed by CoVid. The civil courts in NY have been backed up for months prior to CoVid and have gotten worse. More court attorneys may help spread the cases out into different courtrooms and allow new attorneys an opportunity to gain experience. This could be further extended outside of NYC as well. Kinda like how NJ does with law clerks.
Sorry, that you're in this unfortunate situation. As a NY attorney, I would support admitting NYS law school grads without the bar exam. Let's be honest, the bar exam is BS, it has very little to do with practicing law. Maybe it's just me, but as a general rule, I don't answer legal questions from memory... issues are often nuanced and case law changes.
The bar is a test of one’s willingness to work hard, focus and not get paralyzed with anxiety. These factors don’t capture everything it takes to be a good attorney, but it does measure many very relevant factors. If there was no bar, law schools would have a motivation to admit more and more students. The legal market is already over saturated.
I would be concerned if the attorney I hired to represent me never took the bar or at least A bar. You would also always be “that guy/girl” who never took the bar.
Whether it distinguishes good lawyers from bad ones or not, the bar exam is a right of passage, just like everything else in the practice of law. If you don’t go through it, you’ll be missing out.
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I'm very skeptical of hiring someone who didn't take a bar exam and pass it. Law is a profession that needs a basic aptitude test. Law schools already admit too many students and take their money. There are already too many attorneys scrambling for work anyway. Get rid of bar exams and it will get worse.
Bar pass rates are an important stat for law schools. If bar passage was no longer an issue, what would prevent law schools from letting more and more students in?
I’m not on any sort of hiring committee lol but 3 years of law school is more than enough. It’s a haze. An arbitrary racist and classist haze.
You found the bar exam to be racist?
I agree with tax attorney. Also even though the bar doesn’t actually teach you what you need to know for practice, it does teach you about stamina!!
The bar exam doesn’t measure your ability to be a good lawyer. But neither do good grades in law school. I would hire a grad who had diploma privilege but I’d want to see clinic and internship/clerkship experience and references that indicate they are capable
I’ve said for years we should do this! One of the best attorneys I know struggled to pass the bar.
Chief
I'm not a partner nor am I in NY, but the only things that would concern me are 2 months off to study at a later date and, more importantly, the prospect of the applicant later taking the Bar if required and not passing.
Chief
It’s 2020, there should be a way to test aptitude short of stuffing 1000 people in the same room. I’m not into the diploma privilege
Rising Star
The bar exam doesn’t test any sort of aptitude. I have a friend who does nothing but bar exam appeals. She’s published a book on what essay scores look like. It’s so ridiculous. You don’t need the bar exam to know whether someone is a capable attorney. Also, the clinical argument is ridiculous as well. I worked through law school. Clinics didn’t fit into my schedule because they were at bad times. Unless you want to switch to a full clinical model, it’s patently unfair. This profession is archaic sometimes.
Chief
Since we've already veered a bit off track: the Bar should be administered, if at all, after your first year of law school. If you fail, you can decide whether you'd like to continue on in law school and try again or cut your losses and save yourself the cash.
Also, law school does not need to be three years long, or, if folks insist on it being three years, then it should be blended with undergrad so that undergrad and law school are only 5 years of school total. The whole thing is such a racket (and doesn't prepare you for actually practicing law at all!!).
I think there should be some mechanism from keeping those that aren’t “minimally competent” away from clients and the public. I’m wary of diploma privilege because of the many “bad” law schools out there that accept anyone and exist to basically scam kids out of 300k.
I graduated from a “bottom tier” law school. The school absolutely has questionable admissions practices and admits students that, if by some chance even pass the bar, would do a tremendous disservice to clients and the profession, generally. In a perfect world, we’d be able to allow for diploma privilege, but my own first hand experience tells me this would be dangerous and irresponsible. However, that is not to say the exam itself is not in need of reform. Before I went to law school, I was a teacher, then administrator, and had to pass various exams. Education exams are typically broken up into a more general test and then more specialized ones depending on whatever endorsements you’d like on your license, enabling you to be licensed in that area. Perhaps bar examiners might do something similar. Not everyone intends to be a family law practitioner or do wills and estates. Perhaps we could reserve some of these more concentrated subjects as their own, independent exams. Attorneys wishing to practice in this area would take a subject-specific exam allowing them to be specialized in this field. As it is, the sheer breadth of knowledge required for the bar is outrageous, which in my opinion partially contributes to low passage rates. Anyway, I’m off on a tangent....no to diploma privilege because I know what students stand to benefit from this, and yes to bar exam reform.
Diploma privileges with a mandatory set of CLE courses over the first year that actually test aptitude would make the most sense. The current methodology is so broken, but there are a lot of people who make their livelihoods off perpetuating the myth that the bar exam actually matters. I assure you the likes of Barbri, Themis, Kaplan, State Bar Examiners, etc. are lobbying hard for status quo behind closed doors.
I’d be fine with it, if it’s done the right way. An ideal situation would be to take individuals who are seeking diploma privilege and have them work in the courts in NY harmed by CoVid. The civil courts in NY have been backed up for months prior to CoVid and have gotten worse. More court attorneys may help spread the cases out into different courtrooms and allow new attorneys an opportunity to gain experience. This could be further extended outside of NYC as well. Kinda like how NJ does with law clerks.
Sorry, that you're in this unfortunate situation. As a NY attorney, I would support admitting NYS law school grads without the bar exam. Let's be honest, the bar exam is BS, it has very little to do with practicing law. Maybe it's just me, but as a general rule, I don't answer legal questions from memory... issues are often nuanced and case law changes.
The bar is a test of one’s willingness to work hard, focus and not get paralyzed with anxiety. These factors don’t capture everything it takes to be a good attorney, but it does measure many very relevant factors. If there was no bar, law schools would have a motivation to admit more and more students. The legal market is already over saturated.
I would be concerned if the attorney I hired to represent me never took the bar or at least A bar. You would also always be “that guy/girl” who never took the bar.
Whether it distinguishes good lawyers from bad ones or not, the bar exam is a right of passage, just like everything else in the practice of law. If you don’t go through it, you’ll be missing out.
The bar exam is silly. Diploma privilege with a supervised practice requirement is every bit as good.