New York Bar Exam Results

February Bar Exam Results Are Fine In Texas, Pathetic In New York

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I don’t think the bar exam should be easy. When you look at the proliferation of law schools and how easy it is to get into law school, I think that the bar exams become the limiting factor of last resort.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shame that the bar doesn’t test skills that lawyers actually need to serve clients. It’s a shame that the bar is basically reduced to a test of memorization, information ordering, and most importantly, reading comprehension. The bar is just a barrier to entry, not a true licensing test.

But when you have a record number of people taking the damn thing in February in New York, right in the middle of a market that doesn’t have enough job for lawyers, I don’t really have a problem if half of those people are broken by two days of the New York bar.

So it’s not going to come as a surprise that I’m glad New York is New York and not Texas….

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Morning Docket: 05.03.13

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* “It’s a fine line society walks in trying to be fair.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke earlier this week on the perils of racial profiling with respect to the Chechen suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Were we fair here? [Associated Press]

* What keeps in-house counsel awake at night — aside from the tremendous piles of money they’re rolling around in? Apparently they’re expecting an “onslaught” of food labeling and data breach class actions. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Susan Westerberg Prager, known for being the longest-serving dean ever at UCLA School of Law, will take up the deanship at another illustrious institution, Southwestern Law School. [National Law Journal]

* The February results for the New York bar exam are out, and with the highest number of test-takers ever, the pass rate was brutal. We may have more on this later. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Rhode Island just got a little more fabulous. The Ocean State legalized gay marriage yesterday, making it the tenth state to do so, and uniting New England in marriage equality for all. [Bloomberg]

* Back in December, we told you about an alleged “well-dressed” groper — an unemployed lawyer, as it were. Well, now there’s nothing alleged about it, because that guy just pleaded guilty. [New York Post]

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New York Bar Exam Results By Law School: Open Thread

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Unlike when the New York bar exam results were released in early November, we’re not experiencing a hurricane-induced blackout. But today, some people might wish that they were experiencing a different kind of hurricane-induced blackout (one that involves alcohol, not nature), because we’ve finally got a list of the passage rates for the July 2012 administration of the New York bar exam by law school.

Last year, more than half of the state’s law schools were able to improve their pass rates over the prior year’s results. This year, more than half of the state’s law schools saw a decline in their pass rates, and in some cases, epically so. The state’s pass rate for first-time takers dropped a whole percentage point, due in part to the law schools’ reversal in fortune.

So which law schools’ pass rates tumbled, and by how much?

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Morning Docket: 12.11.12

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* As an in-house compliance officer, there’s only one guarantee: you’ll be paid, and you’ll be paid quite well — we’re talking like six-figure salaries here. Regulatory corporate compliance, on the other hand, isn’t such a surefire thing. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* When it comes to employment data, this law dean claims that using full-time, long-term positions where bar passage is required as a standard to measure success in the employment market is “grossly misleading.” Uhh, come on, seriously? [Am Law Daily]

* “Bar passes and jobs are inextricably tied,” but eight of New York’s 15 law schools had lower bar passage rates than last year for the July exam. Guess which school came in dead last place. [New York Law Journal]

* You know, it may actually be a good thing for a monk to apply to law school right now. It can’t get much worse; after all, the guy’s already taken a vow of poverty. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Dominique Strauss-Kahn officially settled the sexual assault civil lawsuit that was filed against him by Nafissatou Diallo. Given that she thanked “everybody all over the world,” it was probably a nice payout. [CNN]

* Steven Keeva, a pioneer in work/life balance publications for lawyers, RIP. [ABA Journal]

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Mr. Bar Exam: Did This Guy Pass the Bar Exam, Or What?

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Staci here. It’s been a few months since we last spoke about our man Sam E. Goldberg’s travails with the New York bar exam. From working hard to hardly working, he brought us the blow-by-blow experience of a first-time test taker in graphic detail this past summer.

Well, the results finally came in last week, but we know that our readers have been dying to know whether Mr. Bar Exam passed the test, perhaps for the schadenfreude. What’s the likelihood that a dude who took a trip to Vegas in the middle of studying passed the test?

Hold on to your hats, because we’re about to find out….

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New York Bar Exam Results Are Out; Congratulations To Everyone Who Passed!

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Well, isn’t this a nice surprise! The results of the July 2012 administration of the New York bar exam have been released — ahead of schedule, as it turns out. And this time it appears to be an intentional rather than accidental release.

The New York State Board of Law Examiners previously stated that it would announce the results tomorrow, Friday, November 2. But NY BOLE went ahead and made results available to applicants tonight, at around 10 p.m. or so.

Keep reading, for a link to the results page and commentary from Above the Law readers….

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Quote of the Day: Bar Takers Are A Jumpy Bunch
(Texas and D.C. are here; New York is coming soon.)

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ny bar exam results tomorrow. collective productivity of 1st-yr associates just dipped into negative numbers

– @dehodges, via Twitter, commenting on the impending news from NY BOLE — which, yes, we will cover.

(A lot of nervous bar takers have turned to Twitter to express their anxiety. Check out a couple of our favorite tweets after the jump. We’ve also got some responses to the Texas and D.C. results, which came out today.)

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(Texas and D.C. are here; New York is coming soon.)“

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New York February Bar Exam Results Released Under Cloak Of Darkness

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The results of the February New York bar exam are available for private look-up.

They’ve actually been available for nine hours. If you didn’t know that, it’s because the New York State Board of Law Examiners decided to release this crucial information at midnight last night/this morning.

Who does that? Well, remember that a couple of years ago the NY BOLE accidentally released the results for full public viewing and then pulled it back. This is not an organization that has its act together.

In any event, let’s check out some of the late night reactions to the bar results…

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Which Law School Is Allegedly Paying Students Not to Take the Bar Exam This Summer?

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Most law school graduates pass the bar exam with flying colors on the first try. Law schools, of course, are ecstatic when their graduates pass, because it’s something that they can brag about in their brochures. Other law school graduates aren’t so lucky — they fail, and they fail hard. But law schools don’t want you to know about the people who fail the bar exam. They’d like to shove those dirty statistics far, far away from public view.

So what happens when a law school’s graduates fail the bar exam in such great numbers that it becomes national news? Does that law school hang its head in shame and admit defeat? Or does it figure out a way to game the numbers so that next time, it won’t be so embarrassed?

As with most things having to do with numbers, this law school has allegedly made an ill-advised decision to appear more appealing to the public (and the American Bar Association). This law school is allegedly offering its students money in the hopes that they won’t take this summer’s bar exam. But which law school?

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Morning Docket: 11.03.11

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* Only in Texas can a judge get paid leave after a video of him beating his daughter’s ass goes viral. Makes you wonder about the kind of crazy sh*t you’d need to do to get stuck with unpaid leave. [KRIS TV]

* A federal judge has ordered Paul Ceglia to return from Ireland to produce more of his hidden destroyed missing evidence. Oh, Facebook, always trying to steal his lucky charms. [paidContent]

* Memo to the NBA: you know you’re playing on the wrong court, right? On the bright side, at least we don’t have to worry about this happening with the WNBA. Or anyone caring about it if it did. [Bloomberg]

* Bar passage rates for first-time takers in New York were up by half a percentage point. Biggest contributing factor: I didn’t take the New York exam. Yeah, you’re welcome. [New York Law Journal]

* Joe Francis is suing over a debt dispute and vows to take the it to the Ninth Circuit if he loses. He needs to realize that no one cares about what he does unless it involves boobs. [Washington Post]

* Don’t be fat and then smush a lawyer at Shea Stadium. You’ll break her back, she’ll sue, and you might be known as the guy who got fat people banned from the upper deck. [New York Post]

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