If You Fail The Bar Exam 3 Times In This State, You'll Have To Go Back To Law School

Holy crap.

onJune 6, 2019 at 3:41 PMJune 6, 2019 at 1:18 PM

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I would impose the three-failure limit, but I would not allow those candidates who fail three times to retake the Mississippi Bar exam. We do not have evidence or data before us to judge whether a candidate who requires an additional 12 hours of law school over and beyond the amount that suffices for candidates who pass more quickly can be qualified to practice law.

— Justice Josiah Coleman of the Mississippi Supreme Court, commenting on the high court’s new rule that says if a candidate fails the state’s bar exam three times, they’ll have to go back to law school for at least 12 semester hours before they’ll be able to retake the test. Justice Coleman was one of several justices to oppose to the new rule, if only because he would have been harsher on candidates after three proverbial strike-outs on the exam. The new rule will take effect for the February 2020 bar exam. The pass rate on the Mississippi bar exam has dropped from 79 percent in 2014 down to 48 percent in 2018.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.