Becoming a lawyer in California – cracking the toughest BAR exam in the country
Being a lawyer requires the completion of three critical steps: a good LSAT score, education from a decent law school, and passing the bar exam.
While most students manage to crack the first two, the bar exam is widely regarded as the most challenging of all.
Particularly in California, the Bar exam has the reputation of being one of the most difficult in the country. In the end, it doesn’t matter how well you fared in law school or how confident you are about your legal skills – the bar exam is the key to you practicing as a lawyer in the country.
The high bar of cut scores
The State Bar of California has set the cut score – the score required to pass the bar exam – at 144. Every year, on average, only 25 to 40% of test-takers are lucky enough to pass this exam.
In comparison, the median score on a Nationwide level is only 135, and the pass percentage stands at around 59%.
California also has a higher number of applicants in comparison to the other states. To put this in perspective, California had 12.404 applicants who sat for the 2019 Bar exam. Whereas Washington had only 943, Illinois had over 2,600.
The only state with more applicants was New York, with over 14,000 test-takers.
Even then, the BAR exam pass rate of New York State was 59%, and California had passed 43%.
In the gist, the State bar of California has not made it easy to become a lawyer in the state.
Hence, it has become paramount for prospective law students in California to find a program that prepares them not only for a career in law but to pass this test first. In fact, only a few colleges in California, such as Stanford law school, UCLA, and Berkeley, have over 80% of bar pass exam rates among its graduates. In light of this, the leaders of the law schools in the state have been continuously advocating to bring down the cut score for passing the bar exam.
However, it seems like a change is around the corner.
High pass rates in the 2020 bar exam
The October Bar exam has been unprecedented in many ways. California was one of the 20 jurisdictions that replaced the traditional bar exam with an online version designed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
Out of the 8,920 applicants who successfully completed the test only, 5,292 passed the General Bar exam. This translates to 60.7% of pass rate, which is the highest in the state in over a decade.
Even with this slight improvement, the educators are studying the issues and encouraging the State Bar of California to lower their cut score to align it with the rest of the nation.
It takes more than education and graduating law schools to be a lawyer. And the Bar exam is an inevitable and unfair obstacle to cross. As of now, all you can do is to practice for the test and hope that the bar council feels generous that year.