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California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

nytimes.com

1–10 of 83 posts

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#5

More stupid lawyers. Yay!

California's bar exam is notoriously difficult to pass compared to other states. Whether that nets fewer stupid lawyers here than other states, maybe so, but I know of a few very intelligent people who did not pass the CA exam.

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#6
I do wish the article mentioned if passing rates were dropping till now or they've been the same and this is the breaking point. A specific school's plunge in recent years does make me think this is not entirely good, but doesn't represent the state as a whole.

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#7
post #3

More stupid lawyers. Yay!

No idea what these tests entail, but to me below paragraph is pretty normal: Last year, just 62 percent of first-time test takers passed the California bar exam.

CA is significantly lower re % people who pass than other states

http://www.ncbex.org/pdfviewer/?file=%2Fdmsdocument%2F205

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#8
I was surprised that this article doesn't mention that California is one of the few states that allow graduates of unaccredited law schools to sit for the bar exam. My understanding is that the bar passage rate for graduates of these programs was much lower than that of ABA-accredited institutions.

Edit: I found an article with some numbers: http://abovethelaw.com/2016/11/californias-bar-exam-passage-...

The breakout chart (towards the end) shows that ABA-accredited school graduates passed with a rate of about 60% on the first try, which seems alright, compared to a dismal 30% or less for unaccredited schools.

Edit 2: For comparison, the NY bar passed 67% of first timers, which is a little easier than California, but not dramatically so. Source: https://www.nybarexam.org/ExamStats/2016_NY_Bar_Exam_PassRat...

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#9
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea what these tests entail, but to me below paragraph is pretty normal: Last year, just 62 percent of first-time test takers passed the California bar exam.

CA is significantly lower re % people who pass than other states http://www.ncbex.org/pdfviewer/?file=%2Fdmsdocument%2F205

because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14772630

Re: California Supreme Court Moves to Make Bar Exam Easier to Pass

#10

More stupid lawyers. Yay!

California's bar exam is notoriously difficult to pass compared to other states. Whether that nets fewer stupid lawyers here than other states, maybe so, but I know of a few very intelligent people who did not pass the CA exam.

I seem to recall that most states require you not only to pass their bar exam, but also to have graduated from a recognized law school. California, by contrast, only requires you to pass the exam, but it's much harder than most, since they can't rely on the law school for a certain amount of sanity checking.
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