There is a wierd provision that says if someone in good standing with the bar association teaches/mentors you for X months you can take the bar exam. One of the judges appointed by Ronald Regan got his start as an attorney this way. And if you can pass the California bar exam.. kudos to you.... it's one of the toughest in the nation.
actually, not really a weird provision, per se
for much of the history of the common law world, including the usa, which is statutory in nature, but still a common law derivitive, the practice has been becoming a lawyer through appreticeship
when there was actually a degree awarded to a person who was to sit for the bar in many circumstances, it was an undergraduate degree of bachelors of law, bachelors of civil law, or bachelors of law with an informal designation bachelors of legal letters, which was, in the end, translated to bachelors of law, etc..he he...well, anyway it was called the LL.B but was finally done away with as the main standard only the the 1970s...today, as it has been barely called by all the major law schools, is the JD, or juris doctorate...i know, go figure since the next degree in line is the master's, or LL.M
the california exam, whether reached thru law school, correspondence study, apprenticeship under a judge or commissioner, or a combination of the above, and/or combined, but not necessarily with individual study, makes a person eligible to sit for the california bar exam...i think the rule falls somewhere way down the page online in the cal bar guidelines
but this does not, in fact, make the test any easier and i have heard that it's the toughest, along with new york state, to pass on the first try
while aba schools post an impressive percentage of passers on the first, second or third trys, with multiple attempts, and cal bar schools also get to a decent 70 percent passage rate in the end, the numbers don't tell the story that the california bar is given within a range of 13-14 subject areas, besides the multistate bar portion, in a very inadequate amount of time
the alabama bar is longer in minutes, but not given on consecutive days, allowing one to regroup a tremendous amount of material to be answered on three partial days of testing
the california bar, unfortunately, is typically held in three consecutive days and the time restraint is what throws people, not the knowledge or lack thereof of the material on the subjects of law
but the lsat is set up that way, too
...the princeton review lsat guide does assert that the test could be passed with a good score by just about any high school graduate, but what is the killer is that the sections are timed and hard to answer perfectly in that small period of time
for anybody curious, try a timed practice lsat test...it's virtually impossible to reach one's potential on the first or second try...it's certainly not an iq test...the lsat requires a lot of practice and hard work to achieve one's potential
...and the "ungraded" written portion of the lsat exam, given after the quick fire multiple choice sections, is set up so few can finish it to full potential in time...and in reality, it does count...my written portion was terrible
anyway, the concept of doing a lot of answering in a short period of time, is something that makes most of us fall on our face, and the california bar exam tests for the fittest, but not the smartest, so many a person with brains who has always achieved their goals thru so-called "smarts", are designed to fail the bar exam on their first try
...and that should scare the "smart" and everybody else who is not willing to work hard for the bar
now when i finish law school, if i do, or if i even finish year one, i should be able to explain all of what i did, without leaving anything out, in half the words i used on this post
