California State Bar Admission

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Sara Randazzo, State's Bar Put to Test; In California, the famously tough exam has some law schools pushing for change. Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2017.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cal ... pushback-1496242494
http://redmen.com/forum/37-playe ... tough-bar-exam.html

Quote:

(a) "just 35% of takers passed the most recent California exam pin other words, 65% failed], given in February. Only 43% passed last July's test [taken by freshly minted JDs], the lowest mark for the summer exam in more than three decades [mirroring Bar-passage rates nationwide since 2014]

(b) "The issue has been acute in California, which licenses the second-largest number of lawyers each year after New York and houses 10% of the nation's ABA-accredited law schools.  

"Deans of 20 of California’s nationally accredited law schools earlier this year unsuccessfully tried to persuade the California Supreme Court, which oversees the state bar and regulates the exam, to temporarily lower the passing standards.

(c) "Each state sets its own passing score on a common multiple-choice section of the bar developed by a national organization. Since 1984, California's so-called cut score has been 144, higher than every state but Delaware. New York uses 133; 16 other states set it at 135.

"If California used the same passing score as New York on last July's test, 87% of graduates from nationally accredited schools in the state [thus excluding bar-exam sitters listed in Note (c)(iv)(A) below) ] from would have passed, compared with the 62% who passed, according to an analysis commissioned by the state bar.

(d) In view of the fact of "recent cohort of law students with weak credentials" (eg, low LSAT scores): "Some practicing lawyers say the problem isn't the difficulty of the test but that there are too many law schools churning out graduates with little chance of finding decent employment."

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Note:
(a) WSJ puts all contents behind paywall. The second URL has the online version in the Wsj.com, whose print version has more than a handful of paragraphs lopped off.

(b)
(i) ABA-Approved Law Schools. American Bar Association, undated
https://www.americanbar.org/grou ... ed_law_schools.html
(205 institutions)
(ii) list of law schools in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... n_the_United_States
("Law schools are nationally accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), and graduates of these schools may generally sit for the bar exam in any state. * * * In addition, individual state legislatures or bar examiners, like the State Bar of California [which is an arm of state supreme court], may maintain a separate accreditation system which is open to non-ABA accredited schools. The California State Bar also accredits law schools, which the California Committee of Bar Examiners (CBE) recognizes. Also, the CBE allows registered 'Unaccredited' schools to operate and students of those schools are eligible to take the California Bar Examination upon graduation")

Those law schools sanctioned by the state -- but not approved by ABA -- can only take the bar test of and practice in that state.

(c)
(i) The "common multiple-choice section of the bar developed by a national organization" in quotation (c) refers to

Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). See bar examination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_examination
(section 16.2.2 Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) )
(ii) Jurisdictions Administering the MBE. NCBE, undated
www.ncbex.org/exams/mbe/
(MBE "is a six-hour, 200-question multiple-choice examination * * * Each jurisdiction determines its own policy with regard to the relative weight given to the MBE and other scores")

Each jurisdiction (such as a state) also determines its criteria like who (say, with foreign law degrees) may sit for the MBE, or practice law within that jurisdiction.
(iii) Bar Admission Guide. NCBE, undated
www.ncbex.org/publications/bar-admissions-guide/
("The information in this publication is correct as submitted to NCBE by contributing jurisdictions at the time of publication")

The latest (2017) version is next.
(iv) Comprehensive Guide to Bar Administration Requirements 2017
http://www.ncbex.org/pubs/bar-admissions-guide/2017/index.html

(A) Page 8 → Chart 3 Eligibility to Take the Bar Examination: Legal Education
("Is eligibility to take the bar exam limited to JD or LLB graduates of ABA-approved law schools under your rules?")

California allows "law office study [apprentice in a law firm]," "correspondence law school," online law school," and "bar admission in another state")
(B) page 12 → Chart 3 Eligibility to Take the Bar Examination: Foreign Law School Graduates
(If a foreign law school graduate obtains LLM or other graduate law degree from an ABA-approved law school, is the graduate then eligible to take the bar exam on this basis alone?

California and New York states answer yes, but Massachusetts no. That is why Ma Ying-jeou practiced law in New York  ("worked as an associate for a Wall Street law firm in New York City and as a legal consultant for a major bank in Massachusetts"; en.wikipedia.org).

馬英九: LLB 法学士 National Taiwan Univ 1972; LLM Master of Laws; Latin Magister Legum or Legum Magister), New York Univ 1974; SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) Harvard 1981.