Lexpert

A friend of mine just took the New York bar exam. While his fate is unknown till mid-November, I thought it might be interesting to get him to write about the process of preparing for the bar and the actual exam itself. So here are his thoughts.

The New York Bar – The Ironman Triathlon of the Law

The only reason I took the New York bar was because I had to. I sincerely hope I never have to again. I would rather run across Afghanistan or just hit myself over the head until I’m unconscious. But seriously, I just took the New York bar and here’s a brief summary of the process.

Numbers

First, some raw numbers. A record 11,532 lawyers sat for the New York bar in July 2009. I’m not sure what the number for 2010 was. The pass percentage was a relatively encouraging 72% (not so encouraging if you were in the other 28%).

The bar exam tests the following subjects – Contracts, Property, Torts, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Constitutional Law, Family Law, Wills & Gifts, Trusts, (have you had enough? Ok, here’s some more) Agency, Partnership, Corporations, Conflict of Laws, Commercial Paper, Secured Transactions, New York Practice and Federal Jurisdiction (there might have been more – I just didn’t study it). Yes, really. All of that. If you’re in law school, it’s not too late to quit and cook for a living.

So how is it all tested? Here’s the break-up:

Day 1 (New York Law) – Morning Session – Three essays and fifty multiple-choice questions.

Day 1 (New York Law) – Afternoon Session – Two essays and a Multistate Performance Test involving a simulated legal practice situation

Day 2 – (Multistate) – Morning Session – 100 multiple choice questions in three hours.

Day 2 – (Multistate) – Afternoon Session – 100 multiple choice questions in three hours.

Preparation - June

The New York bar is big business. There are a number of reputed test preparation providers such as BarBri, Pieper and Kaplan. A typical bar preparation course costs somewhere between roughly $3,000 (Rs.138,000) and $4,000 (Rs.184,000) and typically lasts for about eight weeks – from late May to mid July. Classes typically last for about four hours and candidates are normally encouraged to study for another four hours after class. In my experience, most candidates (or maybe just me) are as willing to do regular self-study as Indian batsmen are willing to take on Bret Lee without a helmet.

Attending classes is a pain but there are some benefits (like the nice girl with the brown hair two rows back…oh forget it). The good news is that you don’t have to stay behind in New York to take classes. You can even attend NY bar classes in California, except that these remote classes involve projecting a DVD onto a whitescreen which folks then watch with cultish obedience.

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