Everything about Bar Exam totally explained
A
bar examination is an examination to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice
law in a given
jurisdiction.
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 agencies of individual
states. 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 some 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 law therein), the agency is either the state bar association or a subunit thereof. Other states split the integrated bar membership and the admissions agency into different bodies within the judiciary; in Texas, the
Board of Law Examiners is appointed by the
Texas Supreme Court and is independent from the integrated
State Bar of Texas.
In almost all jurisdictions, the
Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), an ethics exam, is also administered by the
National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), 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:
- Essay questions:
- Essentially all jurisdictions administer several such 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). Some jurisdictions choose to use the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), drafted by the NCBE, for this purpose. Others may draft their own questions with this goal in mind, while some states both draft their own questions and use the MEE.
- Some jurisdictions administer complicated questions that specifically 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 Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (covering sales of goods) that apply throughout the United States.
A majority of U.S. jurisdictions 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), while
California drafts and administers its own performance tests.
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, administer their bar exams only once, in July, since they don't have enough applicants to merit a second sitting. 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.
The MEE and MPT, as uniform though not standardized tests, also must be administered on the same day across the country — specifically the day before the MBE.
All examinees must be present in person, and most states have strict guidelines about what people may take into the examination room, what they may wear during the exam, and when test takers may leave their seats for any reason.
Preparation for the exam
Most law schools prefer to teach students "how to think like a lawyer" but don't prepare law students for any particular bar exam. As one
Harvard-trained lawyer put it:
England and Wales
In
England and Wales, the series of exams taken to become a
barrister is sometimes known as
Bar Vocational Course or BVC.
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.
Etymology: The expression 'call to the bar' is said to have originated from a conversation between two benchers in the smoking room of
Inner Temple. Members sometimes cite 'the conversation' to pupils admitted to Inner Temple. The details of the conversation are said to have been lost. Like
Mornington Crescent 'the conversation' is a
red herring and has no formal content, and often leads to apocryphal embellishments.
Ireland
The bar exams in
Ireland are the preserve of the
Honorable Society of King's Inns, which runs a series of fourteen exams over ten weeks, from March to June each year, for those enrolled as students in its one-year Barrister-at-Law degree course. These exams cover such skills as advocacy, research and opinion writing, consulting with clients, negotiation, drafting of legal documents and knowledge of civil and criminal procedure.
For those who fail to meet the requisite 50% pass mark, repeats are held in the following August and September.
Brazil
In
Brazil, there's a bar examination that occurs in each State in March, August and December. These examinations are organized by
Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, the
Brazilian
Bar association.
Hungary
In Hungary the Bar Examination is called "
Jogi Szakvizsga", can be translated as "Legal Profession Examination". This exam is composed of 3 parts:
1. Criminal Law, Criminal Procedural Law and Penal Law
2. Civil Law, Civil Procedural Law and Economy Law
3. Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Law of the European Union.
After passing these exams the candidate can be a barrister or secretary at the court or at the public prosecutor's office or legal executive or may operate individually at any field of law.
Controversy
Arguments against the bar exam
A statement by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) articulates many criticisms of the bar exam. The SALT statement, however, does propose some alternative methods of bar admission that are partially test-based. This statement was also published in 54 JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION 442–458.
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're 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
Arguments for alternatives to the bar exam
The NCBE published an article in 2005 addressing alternatives to the bar exam, including a discussion of the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program, an alternate certification program introduced at
Franklin Pierce Law Center in
New Hampshire in that year. The article can be found at:
http://www.ncbex.org/pubs/pdf/2005_Volume74/740405/740405_Essay.pdf
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bar Exam'.
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