Bar None

The Louisiana Bar Journal recently published an analysis of the changes in the Louisiana Bar Exam and the effect those changes have had on passage rates. The changes, to say the least, haven't been well received by recent graduates seeking admission to the bar.

In fact, for the most recent July bar exam the overall passage rate was just over 50 percent.

Don't misunderstand. Simply because a person graduates from law school and is allowed to sit for the bar doesn't mean they should necessarily be granted a law license. Though my views on the subject have unsurprisingly changed some over the years, a bar exam should test whether the examinee is competent to practice law and nothing more. It shouldn't test the ability to memorize volumes of material. It shouldn't test endurance. It shouldn't test writing ability (or at least not exclusively).

And a bar exam shouldn't be secretive. One of the changes I strongly disagree with in Louisiana's bar exam is that essay testing would be blind, that is the examinees wouldn't know when specific subject were being tested. That smacks of unfairness. We usually don't allow attorneys to be secretive in their dealings with the court or opposing counsel. And when we do -- when ex parte motions are allowed -- there has to be a good reason.

The bar examiners also apparently are now prohibited from reusing old exam questions. Again, that just seems fundamentally unfair. I'm not an advocate of reusing the same questions every year, or two years, or five years. But using similar questions, structured in a similar manner, examining similar areas of law, and publishing the old questions certainly gave examinees a chance to get a sense of what the exam would cover and, perhaps as importantly, lessened some of their anxiety in a pressure-packed situation.

Are there too many lawyers in Louisiana? Yeah, probably. Will toughening the bar exam reduce the number of lawyers in Louisiana? Yeah, probably, but only in the short term. Bar Bri and other bar review courses will ultimately adjust and passage rates will climb again.

So what's the answer? I doubt Louisiana will revert to the old essay-based Monday, Wednesday, Friday bar exam. But I also can see prospective law students, looking at a 50 percent passage rate and ever-increasing tuition, start to look elsewhere for post-graduate education. And that might not be so bad either, if, that is, law schools can still attract qualified candidates. If they can't, then the law schools may well face difficult decisions.

Deep questions. No easy solutions.

Pensively floating.