The bar exam should be abolished.
Why?
Well, the bar exam is an example of a system of oppression, originally designed to keep “undesirables” (non-White, non-male) out of the profession.
The legal profession was not intended to allow women and people of color to be part of it. The bar exam was designed to keep us out and thus should be abolished to “achieve full and equal participation in the justice system, and a competent, ethical, and diverse legal profession.”
During the MBE portion of the uniform bar exam (the “UBE”), test takers have less than 2 minutes to answer each question. This type of questioning does not reflect what lawyers do in the real world. In the real world practice of the law, we are able & usually required to consult various legal sources to reach a conclusion. Without doing this, you will likely come to an inaccurate conclusion which could very well result in costly repercussions.
Not only does the test itself encourage bad lawyering, but preparation for the bar exacerbates privilege gaps between students. Most students treat studying for the bar as if it were a full-time job. They will spend 7-10 hours per day, everyday, for 2+ months studying.
In order to study full-time, many students take out private loans or rely on the financial support of their family. But this isn’t a reality for many bar takers, especially the underrepresented.
As a first-gen Latina law graduate, the realities of the bar exam were daunting. I could not afford to stop working and couldn’t tell my mom that my contribution to our household expenses would have to stop for a few months as I studied; it was a luxury I could not afford.
Instead, I had to continue working full time and it took me 3 times to pass the bar.
The application fees are extreme, often costing over $1,000 + bar prep courses begin at around $2,000 on top of that.
Plus, who can forget the mountain of debt most law students graduate with – over $150,000!!!
Shouldn’t graduating law school account for something? An exam that lacks real-world simulation of the legal profession doesn’t seem to do anything except serve as a gate keeping mechanism.
Hopefully the NextGen exam format leads to much needed change.
Please check out https://www.californialawreview.org/online/abolish-the-bar-exam?format=amp
