Didn’t Pass The California Bar? No Problem! You Might Still Be Able To Practice!

The bar exam is meant to do one thing: sift the people who are minimally competent enough to be lawyers from the people that need to hit the books before they can practice. It’s a vetting process that is meant to make sure that lawyers are somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of their trade. You know what else would do that? Hands-on experiential lawyering. Four states (Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and California) offer the option of apprenticeship as a means to be able to later practice law. In the scramble to make up for the disastrous February bar exam, California is leaning in to apprenticeships as one of the ways test droppers and fail-ers can gain the right to practice. Reuters has coverage:

First-time test takers who withdrew from or failed California’s troubled February bar exam will have the option to work under the supervision of an experienced attorney while they wait to retake the attorney licensing exam, the Supreme Court of California ruled on Wednesday.

Can we be serious for a moment? Either require the bar before you let people work or let people work and give the bar the boot. The “work under supervision until you re-take the bar” option is a cop-out solution whose only merit is that it makes everyone unhappy. What is the point of letting people get hands-on experience for two years and pretending passing the bar is the only way to know if they’re competent? Future employers shouldn’t need their bar scores, when they could just ask to speak with their prior employer and see if the applicant hit all their deliverables or not. If you’ve been doing a job well for two years, your work experience should trump whatever grade you get on a test. If you’re trying your best and aren’t up to snuff, that’s your sign to take a break and go hit the books. It could all be so simple.

There’s good news beyond the “try before you test” deal being offered to the test drop-outs and low scorers. Some of the test takers will be able to pass go without any of the extra fixings:

The court on Wednesday also granted the state bar permission to “impute” performance test scores for those unable to complete that test section due to technical problems—a process that involves using submitted answers to project their performance on sections that were missing.

The state bar estimates that imputing performance test scores will result in 79 more people going from failing to passing and bump up the overall pass rate from the current 63% to 65%—which is nearly double the average 35% rate in recent years.

If you’re a member of the 79, buy a lottery ticket to see if you have some residual luck running through your veins.

Some Who Did Not Pass California Bar Exam Get A Chance To Practice, For Now [Reuters]

Earlier: California Bar Exam Managed To Be Even Worse Than Expected

The Number Of People Who Passed California’s February Bar Exam Has Grown By The Hundreds

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s .  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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