overall it is a good thing if we have less lawyers coming down the pipeline.
I guess the companies that make money off of bus bench advertising for slip and fall attorneys and the radio stations might get less attorneys with rap song ads about how they can get you cash if you had an accident…even if it is your fault…those two companies will get less revenue but our society will be better for it.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/law-school-grads-bombing-bar-205900313.html
They won’t be lawyers if they bomb the bar and you listen to too much radio.
most will pass the bar eventually. and the bar is not a science test. you need not be able to do chemical or mathematical equations. just philosophy. and the rapping lawyer ads run 24/7.
The article gives the obvious reason why:
Law firms are not hiring new associates as much as they did 10 to 15 years ago… and when they do, the associates are not being paid much more (if at all) than secretaries and staff. Some of that had to do with the economic downturn about 8 years ago…
There was recently a glut of new law school grads on the market, and I think because of that, enrollment at law schools dropped. That’s just my theory, btw.
Also - back in the day, law school applicants often had Bachelor’s degrees in English, History, Philosophy, and such… now a lot of young students are being scared away from Humanities and encouraged to major in things like Business or Marketing instead. I admit to not knowing much about the latter two, but I do know that one thing lawyers must do, and do well, is - write. And communicate clearly and logically. Philosophy would be ideal for an undergrad wanting to pursue law later. It, like the other Humanities and Social Sciences majors, are writing and research-intensive. Math and marketing classes? (shrugs) I don’t think you need that so much to practice law… (unless you’re in patent law like my husband)
Again, this is just my educated guess…
Zobroward, I know several lawyers who never passed the bar. Smart people, just don’t test well. I also know a lot of law school grads who never took the bar. They use their law degrees for other things or don’t use them at all.
Passing the bar isn’t always about being smart of a good lawyer. As my mother said “why are you so worried about passing? I know so many stupid lawyers and they all passed.”
Those who never passed the bar aren’t practicing lawyers, they merely have a law degree. It would be even more scary if one didn’t need to show the knowledge needed to pass a state’s bar exam to be able to give legal advice.
Recently Florida has proposed reciprocity instead of requiring lawyers new to the state to pass the Florida bar. This is scary as there are plenty already trying to make a living here plus how would one know if the lawyer one chose knew the law here? Hopefully this isn’t going anywhere.
This is unlike medicine where the practice is the same regardless of the state but decades ago a physician couldn’t get reciprocity but needed to have taken one test at any time or another within ten years of applying (FLEX, National Boards- all changed with newer test). That meant foreign grads were eligible while American grads from many other states, including esteemed physicians from colleges, were not. This meant no influx of experienced physicians who could improve the health care situation. Go figure. Passing FLEX would involve relearning a ton of basic science material that doesn’t determine one’s ability to practice good medicine (the current licensure exam and past NB exams are in three parts- basic sciences after they are taken followed by clinical testing after finishing medical school and the first/internship year of residency). btw- foreign medical grads are required to pass US tests regardless of their standing elsewhere.
twoinanddone, I never said you need to be smart to pass the bar, I said it is not science.
there are some smart people who are lawyers…many are not. on the other hand you can not be stupid and be a rocket scientist! you may have other issues but low intelligence will not be one.
There have always been people who have no business in law school that go. And people sometime need more than one try, yes.
I don’t know why people still do it tho. Not worth the cost most of the time given starting salaries for average joes.
As for stupid lawyers, depends on what kind. Tax lawyers are kind of the rocket scientist of lawyers. They are generally pretty smart. @wis75 , those tax lawyers then have to compete with “tax accountants”, which is totally different, for advisory work bc of lax professional rules. You are right to be concerned. But when your dentist can do your nose job, I guess sorting out professional licensing limits is not a priority:(
If so many lawyers are not that smart, how come so many can’t pass the bar to practice law?
I agree, but wonder what the FL Bar will end doing with this. It feels like there is some pressure from somewhere to push this through, despite lots of opposition (??). Just my instinctive feeling about it, and I haven’t studied the issue extensively.
My general opinion (having passed two different state bar exams on the first try) is that failing the bar exam, especially in the state where you went to law school, can indicate a problem with the format of the test which is why the repeat failure rate is much higher (or at least it used to be way back when I took the exams). Of course it can also be a failure to adequately prepare as well. Sometimes people underestimate what it takes and are busy working, etc
I was just reading the article posted above earlier today and agree with many of the assertions there too.
I wonder if the pressure is a combo of retirees to FL and the bad economy meaning they are not ready to stop making $?
HRSMom you mean a 66 year old lawyer(no issue with that IMO) or a lawyer who was involved with marbury vs madison?
I was thinking the former? Maybe that is the lobby for it? Or maybe it is to get reciprocity for FL lawyers.
Living here just over three years I have been amazed at how things are run. The state legislature, sigh. I do not see any logic in allowing lawyers unfamiliar with local law being allowed to practice it. Plus, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of lawyers in Florida. My impression was that the bar exam tested knowledge of law as it applied to a state, I would expect anyone wanting to practice would learn the material specific to FL and already know the rest ( or need to brush up on it- never a bad thing to refresh one’s knowledge).
Welcome to Florida @wis75 ! 
“Recently Florida has proposed reciprocity instead of requiring lawyers new to the state to pass the Florida bar. This is scary as there are plenty already trying to make a living here plus how would one know if the lawyer one chose knew the law here? Hopefully this isn’t going anywhere.”
Nonsense.
Most states allow experienced licensed attorneys from other states to be admitted without taking a bar exam. That has been the case for eons. But usually only if the other state extends similar reciprocity going the other way.
CA and FL are the two big states that historically have not offered any reciprocity. That has zero to do with assuring quality of counsel. It is just a protectionist measure. After all, a big part of every state’s bar exam is the mutli-state bar exam portion. It is administered everywhere across the country.
Since anyone moving to CA or FL has to take the bar exam, that means that anyone moving out of CA and FL is also going to have to take the bar exam in their new home. So NY is happy to let lawyers from say IL or TX get admitted without taking a new bar exam. But not lawyers moving from FL and CA.
Tit for tat.
The bar failure rate increase is not bad for society.
But it is bad for the law school grads who flunk. And VERY bad for people working in and running law schools.
There’s a major correction going on in the law school industry which is only in the early stages.
Virtually all of the good lawyers are very smart. You dont just wander into a courtroom try a case for a month and get a 7 million dollar verdict based on luck. You dont put together a multimillion dollar business deal unless you are smart
Part of the problem was that there was a really tremendous increase in law school seats in the US from around 1990 to 2008. Some fly-by-night law schools opened, and some universities looked at law schools as profit centers. Many law schools were playing games and inflating the success of their grads. When the Great Recession hit in 2008, many people decided to wait it out in law schools.
The law school enrollments peaked around 2010. They have been dropping ever since. Now many top law schools have been shrinking their entering class sizes in order to maintain a high quality. However, the many mediocre and weak law schools probably are not voluntarily decreasing their enrollments.
This can result in a worst case scenario - thousands of under-employed people with a law degree from a weak law school, $150,000 of debt, and an inability to pass the law exam.
Conventional wisdom is: only attend law school if: a) you can attend a very top law school, or b) you can attend relatively cheaply with limited debt, and with very modest expectations about your future income.