The Right Number To Flunk

Scott Greenfield:

Law is hard, but not that hard. After three years of study at an accredited law school, it’s not unreasonable to believe that one would have the ability to pass the bar exam. And yet, many don’t.

Graduates who fail face losing jobs already started, not getting jobs that were promised, debt, embarrassment and more debt. Simply taking the exam again costs more than $700, and add to that the cost of further bar review classes, living expenses in the meantime and income lost. All told, thousands more dollars may be piled onto law school debt that is increasingly well above $100,000.

Most of those who fail their first attempt eventually pass the bar on the second or third try. After each attempt, however, these graduates do not learn to be better lawyers, they simply learn how to beat the test. And the damage done from the initial failure can be great. In addition to the financial costs, they may find themselves timed out of promising professional opportunities that never reappear. Finally, there are the emotional and psychological costs that are possibly the most overwhelming consequence of even one failed attempt.

This is all true, a veritable laundry list of terribles that come from failing the bar exam. But notably, it’s all one-sided, the narrative of the failed. As Dean of UC Hastings School of Law, David Faigman is likely smart enough to have deliberately tried to fool readers by this narrative. But it’s in his best interest as a law school dean to try to game the discussion.

After all, his job is to fill empty seats with paying butts, and if young people realize that after three years of education and a couple hundred thousand dollars of tuition, they won’t get to call their moms to say they’re lawyers, that’s going to be really hard to do.