Law Practice,
State Bar & Bar Associations
Dec. 15, 2016
Does the bar even measure the right skills?
An even more important question than why the results were so low this year is whether the bar exam is even measuring the skills that show a person is likely to be a competent attorney.
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).
The consternation over the low pass rate on the July California bar examination should cause a careful rethinking of the bar exam and hopefully lead to California joining the trend towards states using the Uniform Bar Exam. The State Bar has announced that 62 percent of first time takers from ABA accredited California law schools passed the bar. This is down from 68 percent the year before.
The crucial question is why. The State Bar needs to be much more transparent and explain this ...
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