Posted on 04/22/2015 10:40:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The correct answer is false. Instead of ensuring that all legal practitioners are competent, the bar exam (and its long prelude, law school) merely creates an artificial barrier that keeps many people from competing in the market for legal services.
That has two main consequences. First, some people who could earn a pretty good living as attorneys are prevented from doing so; they have to look for work in other fields. Second, some people (quite a large number in fact) are unable to afford legal help when they need it because few of those who do overcome the barrier to entry can accept cases that won’t pay them enough to cover their heavy costs.
But back to the competency question.
Whenever special interest groups seek to stifle competition so those in the group can earn more, they try to justify their restrictions as consumer protection measures. That is exactly what Erica Moeser, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners told New York Times writer Elizabeth Olson for her March 19 article “Bar Exam, the Standard to Become a Lawyer, Comes Under Fire.” Moeser declared that the bar exam “is a basic test of fundamentals that has no justification other than protecting the consumer.”
Not so, responded law professor and former dean Kristin Booth Glen, who observed that the bar exam “only shores up the guild mentality that there should be a barrier to prevent the legal market from being flooded during times when fewer jobs are available.” She’s right. In truth, that was the original reason why the legal profession began pushing for high barriers to entry back in the 1920s. The rhetoric was about “raising standards” but the motive was to limit competition in the field.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The divorce bar is a whole separate breed of ba$tard$. And women divorce lawyers are the worst (or best, maybe). Totally inhuman.
Lawyer: "Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?"
Witness: "By death."
Lawyer: "And by whose death was it terminated?"
Engineers and doctors take professional exams, as do accountants, and hairdressers. This is normal for professions where the risks are great if the professional screws up, and a written exam can verify that the person has some key concepts thoroughly nailed down, and be able to use it properly.
Yes, a bad attorney will wash out of a job, but not until after he has screwed up somebody’s business, or lost their child custody battle, or cost them their freedom. An exam is a reasonable precaution, under the circumstances.
I will say, though, that, at least back when I was in law school, I learned that Wisconsin does not require a bar exam, if you graduated from one of their state’s law schools. So, in that case, the person’s record and work is standing for them. In all the other states, it’s bar exam + degree + professional responsibility exam. (Except in CA, you can take the bar without a degree, after apprenticing for a few years with a lawyer, but almost nobody does that because lawyers seem not to want the hassle of apprentices.)
“I do not believe California allows sitting for the bar exam without law school any more.”
****
Few do it. One that I know of is Michael Ehline, a retired U.S. Marine. He became a California attorney using the California State Bar Law Office Study Program (and no prior college).
What’s good about requiring law school is that a person who spends all that time and money is not going to treat the Bar admission lightly, if they lose that, they throw all of that away, it’s like requiring a big down payment, because they knew if a person defaults, they will lose all of that money they put in with nothing to show for it.
I disagree.
The problem is that the bar exam doesn’t test smarts and the practical practice of law is more of an exercise in understanding where to find information as opposed to recalling thousands of useless nuances of law.
I have been a practicing attorney for 20 years and I will be the first to admit that the bar exam has no bearing on intelligence or one’s ability to practice law. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known didn’t pass the bar exam on the first try.
I would prefer to see licensing be based upon a mandatory internship system rather than a bar exam. Require three years of law school and 1-2 years of hands on internships. Couple that with an ethics background check.
We are required to do a one semester clinical internship at one of the school’s pro-bono clinics, but from what I understand, this is an unusual requirement. However, more schools are requiring experential education in their programs.
/johnny
The heart of his argument:
Consider another professional field – accounting. Individuals who want to be known as having achieved a very high level of knowledge can take the CPA exam and advertise their CPA status if they pass. However, it isn’t illegal for a person who has some accounting knowledge but isn’t a CPA to work as a bookkeeper. Individuals with some knowledge can offer their services in the free market and find jobs commensurate with their abilities.
Suppose that accounting had the same licensing system as the legal profession, so that only CPAs were permitted to do any work having a connection with accounting – would that be better? Would businesses and organizations be “protected” against the possibility of incompetent work?
Certainly not. In fact, the non-profit organization I work for has employed non-CPAs to handle our work. Before hiring them, we checked for evidence of their capabilities. Consumers always do that when their money is at stake.
The supposed need for government tests like the bar exam arises out of a fear that without them, many fraudsters and con artists would prey on unsuspecting people. While that isn’t impossible, it’s extremely rare. For one thing, as I noted above, people are usually careful with their money. Before they’ll spend money on the services of someone who claims to have the ability to handle a legal problem, they usually check to see if that claim is credible. The proliferation of online information makes that easier than ever.
Second, it is quite costly to set yourself up in a business. Even if you are good at doing something, business is risky. Trying to make money by deceiving consumers into thinking you’re good at something that you aren’t good at is very likely to lead to big losses. The high risk of failure deters the incompetent from pretending to be capable legal practitioners.
And third, there is the prospect of being sued for fraud or breach of contract if you hold yourself out as having abilities that you don’t possess.
Bubba, the Hillabeast, and Dorkbama are lawyers, and I believe that at least one of them managed to pass the bar.
So much for standards.
Of any kind.
Forbes beclowns itself again. I’m writing them off.
It didn’t prove competence on the obamas.
Don’t take this the wrong way because I am not actually disagreeing with you... though I am disagreeing. Or maybe I’m trying to say that I’m intending to disagree in a good-natured way:
Are there bad lawyers? Ones who have given terrible counsel to clients or cost clients dearly? Yes, yes there are. Did they pass the Bar? Yes, yes they did. But how can this be if we take your assertion that the Bar protects us from bad lawyers? Because it does not.
I believe that Engineers and doctors need to take professional exams as they are professionals involved in the sciences. Pharmacists as well; &c. Professions whose mere existence have defined boundaries and values; measurable exacts.
Lawyers do not. Just like Hair dressers, they are tradesmen.
Do you need the man who installs your dry wall to take a board exam and pay yearly dues to a monolithic and fascistic union? No. You just need to hear that he does it well. Can a bad dry wall “specialist” ruin your life about as well as a lawyer’s poorly written contract? Yes, he can. In fact, he can cost you millions if you are in commercial real estate.
At most, I could agree to the existence of a minimum of at least 3 private and separate certifying bodies, including the Bar. But to say that the Bar should hold Vatican-level dominance over an entire trade is... frightening. Kind of.
(Like WI you can apprentice in Georgia. If I offered 50% of the tuition cost to go to a Law School to a local lawyer, in cash, he would happily take me on as an apprentice.)
PS: I find that lawyers and Art Directors get visibly agitated when I remind them that they are only tradesmen. Like a painter or a carpenter. Though they should feel proud.
Oh, and that “PS” in my reply to you wasn’t directed AT you. Apologies if it reads that way.
That’s good to hear. One of my major complaints about law school was that it provided no practical experience in being a lawyer. I think however, that the public would be better served by requiring more than simply a semester of part-time clinic work.
Physicians and Chiropractors are required to intern...lawyers should be also (which was actually the traditional method of learning the trade). I’ve often suggested a 3+1 or 2+2 requirement for years of instruction + interning. It would require the student to secure an intern sponsor...which would be more apt to weed out the incompetent than the bar exam.
Bill and Hillary have both had their licenses suspended. Hillary’s was suspended for failure to maintain CLE the last I looked. Interestingly, just recently (within the past two months) the publically available status for all attorneys in Arkansas was removed. Clearly someone ‘good ole’ boy’ schenanigans are at play.
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