Law School Academic Support Blog

Bar Applications: Deadlines, Disclosures, and Determinations

Even though I teach a two credit class to 3Ls for early bar preparation, as Director of the Bar Studies Program at Seattle U, I also need to make sure that students unable (or unwilling) to take my class get the same important information regarding the bar exam before they graduate.  Therefore, I provide several workshops during spring semester introducing them to the bar exam and the bar application process.

As weknow, the bar exam application process is time consuming and can pose significant challenges for some students.  However, without our prodding, some students do not realize this until the eleventh hour.  In light of the AALS  presentation “Character and Fitness: To Disclose or Not to Disclose, That is the Question” and the ensuing discussion regarding our role as academic support professionals and the counseling we give to students, it seems necessary for all schools to adopt a similar workshop revolving exclusively around the bar application process. 

While meeting with every 3L to discuss their bar application is nearly impossible, holding a short workshop for all 3Ls is easily doable and accomplishes the same goal.  Providing accurate information regarding the application process and deadlines and conveying the importance of full disclosure, serve several objectives.  Students will be more apt to meet the application deadlines (and not line up outside your office the day they are due), feel supported by their law school during this somewhat tedious process (a good way to end their law school career), and to understand that professional ethics is not just a class they took their second or third year of law school (instead they are standards by which they will be called to live by…starting now).  Above all, students in attendance with additional questions or past indiscretions will know whether to schedule a one on one appointment to discuss their application further.

Essentially, the best advice we can give our students is to be open and honest when completing their bar application.  During the AALS presentation, Margaret Fuller Corneille, Director of the Minnesota Board of Law Examiners, stated that successful applicants are candid, show no malice when mistakes are made on their law school/bar exam applications, accept responsibility for their past conduct, and show that they have made positive social contributions.  Bar Associations act at as “Gate Keepers” to the legal profession.  In this capacity, they are determining whether an applicant has the ability to handle the responsibilities of being a lawyer.  Instilling the notion that candor on their applications reflects on their present moral character is crucial.

Our role as educators in this process is significant.  However, this role may vary depending on how you define your purpose and what your institution determines to be their responsibility.  Questions presented by Susan Saab Fortney, Interim Dean and Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law, at the AALS presentation are good starting points as you (and your institution) consider how to characterize this role.  I have paraphrased some of Professor Fortney’s thoughtful questions below.  

• Are we partners with the bar associations when it comes to character and fitness            determinations?
• Should law schools be “Gate Keepers” to the profession? 
• Should we be concerned with our law school’s reputation regarding the character and fitness of our students?
• Should law schools take the “ostrich approach” with the character and fitness issues of their students?

While all valid and though provoking, some of us may have differing opinions as to whether we should squarely align ourselves with the bar associations or whether our main goal is to be a “gate keeper” to the profession.  David Baum, Assistant Dean in the Office of Student Affairs at Michigan Law School and a member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Standing Committee on Character and Fitness, raised equally compelling issues at AALS that uniquely influence our perspective regarding these bar application disclosures.  He acknowledged that in our roles as educators, it would be difficult to engage in open conversations with our students if we were required to disclose every detail discussed within said conversations.  He further stated, that these conversations are the vehicles by which we deliver sound advice and help shape the personal and professional development of our students.  In turn, as Dean Baum points out, if we are obligated to disclose these details, a negative chilling effect could result and students in need of support, advice, and possibly further professional help may not reach out for it.

Contemplating the questions posed and viewpoints presented during the AALS presentation, as well as, considering your state bar’s requirements and your institution’s policies, should help you create a helpful and informative bar application workshop for your students.  During the workshop, I walk through the application and instructions while pointing out areas where students typically have detailed questions or concerns.  For example: how to request an accommodation; how to list past traffic infractions/citations/criminal charges or convictions, and how to disclose treatment for mental impairment or alcohol or drug dependency. 

Although carrying this out in a group setting can be challenging, I have found that the group dynamic diffuses the potential stigma that a student may feel as a result of an affirmative answer to one of these questions listed on the bar application.  Once again, this workshop opens up the opportunity for students to see me as a trustworthy resource and to understand the importance of taking this step seriously.  I believe there is a way to be a dedicated advocate and guide for our students while maintaining the integrity of the legal profession…finding that middle ground is up to you or your institution to determine.

(Lisa Young)

Writing Multiple-Choice Questions

Did you miss the e-mail on the ASP Listserv sent by Barbara McFarland regarding the NCBE handout on drafting rules for multiple-choice questions from Dr. Susan Case, Director of Testing for NCBE? 

Several common techniques used by law professors in composing multiple-choice questions are specifically mentioned in the drafting rules.  Dr. Case is currently working on an article for the Journal of Legal Education on this same topic.  I know that all of us will be interested in reading the article when it is published. 

You can read the PDF file for the Dr. Case's handout here: Download multiple_choice_drafting_guidelines_by_s_2. Case of NCBE.pdf .  (Amy Jarmon) 

More on evaluating research on new programs

Based on some of the feedback I have received about  my post from Wednesday, I am expanding my discussion about why we need to consider our students when we are implementing new programs based on research. This is an area where I have personal experience, in two different ways.  I am in the unique position of having attended classes at or worked at six different law schools in four areas of the country; UNC Law (my alma mater), Duke Law, UCONN Law, Whittier, ASU--Sandra Day O'Connor, and Vermont Law School.  But I also have personal experience evaluating the research from peer institutions when making decisions about new initiatives and classes.  Based on my experience, the single most important variable when evaluating whether a program will achieve desired results is the students.  Students aren't a monolithic, one-dimensional variable. There are multiple sub-variables to consider.

It would be more than a blog posting, more like a journal article, for me to detail why I would suggest considering each and every factor I listed in my last post. I will examine a couple of key factors as examples of how and why to careful evaluate research before implementing new programs based on research from other schools.  I will be making some generalizations based on my experience; your experience may be different.  My goal is to encourage you to look carefully at how students may impact the research results, and how this may impact the success of a new program. 

One of the critical factors to examine is whether the research was conducted at a school with day only, or day and evening students.  Day and evening students have some dramatic differences.  Demographically, evening students tend to be older, have more work experience, are more likely to be supporting a family, and much more likely to be working while in law school. There are great benefits to schools having evening programs; my experience is they are more focused students, devoted to becoming lawyers, and more mature than their daytime counterparts.  But time is at an even greater premium for these students than for day students. Evening students with families or working even part-time don't have any extra time to relax, let alone participate in supplemental programs, even when it will be of great benefit in the long run.  Time and money constraints have a dramatic impact in the programs they will attend, how they respond to new programs, and the time they can put into extracurricular programs, such as Bar/Bri and PMBR.  I haven't seen any research on the success of evening students as compared to day students on the bar exam, but my guess is there would be a difference.  If a supplemental bar program or bar prep class is evaluated using evening students or day and evening students, I would expect the success rate to be much lower than if the same class is evaluated using day law students only.  It's not a measure of the program, but an outcome of the time constraints of the students.

The location of the law school is also a significant factor to be considered when evaluating research. A city school with numerous other schools in the area is going to be very different from a rural school with few or no other law schools within hundreds of miles.  A school without other schools in the area is more likely to serve a student body with a diverse range of abilities.  If a law school is the only one within a hundred mile radius, some students will attend, even if they could have gone to a higher-ranked law school, because they are locked to the region.  Evaluating programs in a school that has an LSAT range of 147-165 is different from evaluating programs at a school where the LSAT ranges from 150-153. Let me emphasize that LSAT is not destiny, but it is a factor when evaluating whether a program will work with your students. Teaching to a wide variety of abilities results in different teaching methods, and in some cases, different outcomes.  This factor overlaps with the public/private issue; if the only other law school in the area is private, or much more expensive, you will see some of these effects as well.

The history of the law school is a very important factor, with multiple variables.  A new law school is creating a culture and a legacy. They don't have alumni war stories about the bar exam to rely on for student buy-in of programs.  Without a strong culture and legacy, students also don't have misinformation to the same degree as students who have a wealth of bad advice built into the culture of the school.  New law schools also don't have the stigma, or burn-out, if they don't have a great record with the bar exam.  An older law school with more than a few lackluster years can develop a culture of failure than sends self-defeating messages to the students. One such message is that no one from Law School X passes the bar exam on the first try, so take it the first time as a trial run, or just for practice. If a school is implementing a new program while simultaniously trying to overcome the burden of law student stigma, the results of a new program will not be reliable for a couple of years.  The results of the program need time to be decoupled from the efforts to change the law school culture. 

Another variable relating to the history of a law school is the history of the academic success program. A law school with a well-established, reputable ASP program that has outreach during the 1L year will find it much easier implementing a program for 3L's.  When the students already trust ASP, they will buy-in sooner, and put more effort into what you are asking them to achieve.  Similarly, if a law school has not had ASP, but is looking to establish a 3L bar prep program for the first time, they need a  different marketing strategy and should expect a more conservative student response.   I am a strong advocate for starting ASP programs incrementally, starting with 1L's, and gradually introducing programs for upperclass students.  The other effect ASP will have on the success of a new program relates to the skills base of the students. Law schools with a well established 1L ASP that focuses on basic skills will have 3L's with a better foundation for bar courses. It's hard to build a foundation when students have already made it through 2-3 years of law school; you wouldn't try to pour a foundation after building a superstructure.   Any program that is starting with 3L's without a 1L program will need more time to achieve results, and an even longer time if the school isn't planning on creating a 1L program to introduce skills to students at the beginning of law school.

This is not an exhaustive list of factors to consider when thinking about implementing a new program. I hope I have provided an illustration of the kinds of factors to consider when considering implementing new programs based on the research of other schools.   I made some generalizations about students based on my experience, and you may disagree with some of them.

Lastly, if your school is considering implementing a new program, and would like to talk to me about some of the things to consider, I would be happy to chat with anyone on this topic.  (RCF)

Keeping up with the research

This is a supplement to Amy's post on the bibliography of bar exam articles.  I wanted to add my two cents about the incredible value of the article, and about keeping up with th research in the area of bar support.  I am incredibly lucky; I have a phenomenal administrative assistant who was able to pull all the articles from the bibliography when the compendium came out last spring.  It was an impressive list, and I think the stack of articles was between 6 inches and 1 foot thick.  I made it through many, but not all, of the articles over the summer.  This was in addition to the articles I have stacking up, read and unread, about ASP issues in general.   Despite the amount of time required to read the research, it's an important function of our job that is best not ignored.  The research is ever-changing, and in the area of bar support, it is moving faster than ever. I expect that the adoption of 301-6 will inspire even more research on what works and what does work with our students. Some of the material can be extrapolated to work at our school, some of it is just too specific to be valuable in practice.  Here is a short list of considerations when evaluating whether to implement policies and practices from other schools:

1) Student bodies differ enormously, and what works for one type of student body won't necessarily work for another group of students. 
    a) Is the school public or private? 
    b) Were day, evening, or combined programs evaluated?
    c) Was the school religiously affiliated, or have some other focused mission? 
    d) Is the school the only law school in the state or area?
    e) Is the school new (less than 30 years old)? This is very important if evaluating the conduct and                involvement of alumni.
    f) For-profit or not-for-profit?
    g) How many students work during their law school career? 
    h) Does the school attract large numbers of students with families?
2) Was the research on the student body at only the author's school, or the author's school and other's nearby? Was the author using the research to promote a course under evaluation at their school? 
3) Did the school have a "bar pass problem" before the research was conducted?  If yes, was their "bar pass problem" limited to the state where the school sits, or did all students have problems with bars from many states? 
4) Did the school have an ASP department before 2005? This seems to be the tipping point for ASP programs nationwide.
5) Is the ASP department comprehensive, serving all students, or targeted to only select students? If only a select group of students receive support from ASP, it will have an impact on the results of the research. 
6) Was the program being evaluated conducted in-house, by faculty and staff of the school, or was the program purchased from a vendor? 

These are just some of the things to think about when evaluating which programs to implement at your school. I love the fact that so much research is coming out, and some of the most interesting research doesn't have immediate applicability to my school. That does not mean the research was not important in shaping my thinking, but bar passage issues are multi-dimensional, and what works best for one school may not work best for your school. (RCF)

Annotated Bibliography of Bar Exam Articles

On April 7, 2008, I reported on an annotated bibliography on bar examination articles.  I am including the text of the original post below in case you are new to the blog and missed this item. 

I am now attaching a PDF of the article that you can download.  If you prefer, the link to the article is here: Annotated Bibliography on Bar Exam Articles.  Download be_annotated_bibliography.pdf

I would like to thank Joe Hodnicki of the Law Librarian Blog for the PDF file and the link.  Hopefully, this added access will help those of you who have not been able to get a copy of the bibliography.  (Amy Jarmon)

April 7, 2008: Annotated Bibliography of Bar Articles

Arturo Torres, Associate Dean of Law Library and Computing, at Texas Tech School of Law and Bryan J. Guymon, a second-year student at Texas Tech School of Law, have compiled a twenty-page annotated bibliography of articles from 1998 to 2007 that deal with the bar exam and admission to the bar.  The article appears in the February 2008 issue of The Bar Examiner (Volume 77, Number 1).

Any ASP professionals who deal with bar exam issues will find this article valuable to their work. 

Annotated Bibliography of Bar Articles

Arturo Torres, Associate Dean of Law Library and Computing, at Texas Tech School of Law and Bryan J. Guymon, a second-year student at Texas Tech School of Law, have compiled a twenty-page annotated bibliography of articles from 1998 to 2007 that deal with the bar exam and admission to the bar.  The article appears in the February 2008 issue of The Bar Examiner (Volume 77, Number 1).

Any ASP professionals who deal with bar exam issues will find this article valuable to their work.  (Amy Jarmon)

Video Explanations of Answers to Simulated MBE Questions

Gerald Bamberger, a former adjunct assistant professor at the University at Buffalo Law School, has recently launched a new website that provides free video explanations of answers to simulated MBE questions.  It is in its initial stages, but Professor Bamberger plans to continually add new simulated questions and accompanying explanations.  You can check out his website at http://www.profbamberger.com/. (Dan Weddle)

Clearing the Last Hurdle: the Bar Exam

I am always amazed this time of year by how many graduating law students fail to prepare intensely for the bar exam that looms just ahead.  Most take the exam very seriously, but a few each year apparently seem to think the exam a fairly easy hurdle.  I don't get it.  After all of the expense, work, and stress of law school, how can anyone let up for the bar exam? 

Perhaps they look at the pass rates and decide that there is no way they can end up in the bottom twenty percent of the takers.    I remember the story of a student who graduated first in his class at a good school, obtained a prestigious judicial clerkship, only to fail the exam and lose the clerkship.   I have always suspected that he became wrapped up in his clerkship duties and thought to himself, "How can I possibly fail the bar exam after graduating first in my class?"  I was in law school at the time, and the story scared the socks off me.

I suppose it is understandable that students who have been far from the bottom twenty percent in law school would assume that they can avoid the bottom twenty percent of bar takers without much work; but that assumption overlooks the nature of the exam.  The exam tests concepts many takers have not encountered since the first semester of law school.  What makes them think that material that old can be recalled and applied with a half-hearted review, especially when the material required so much preparation for the final exam when the material was fresh?

Some, I am sure, fail to prepare properly because they do not believe they can afford the fee for a bar prep course.  Again, however, I find it amazing that anyone who has invested three years of tuition, budget-breaking book purchases, and lost wages chooses the bar exam as the best opportunity to save money.  Too much is riding on the exam to spare expense at this point.  Anything spent on preparing for the exam will be more than offset by a year in practice, and no amount saved can justify gambling that year on recalling three years of legal rules without an intense review.

Perhaps some students take review courses but never devote significant time to further study outside the review classes .  Again, the choice is amazing, given what law school exams require.  How many students actually get through law school by reading through their class notes once before finals?  What could possibly lead them to believe that the bar exam requires little study beyond sitting through a series of lectures in the weeks leading up to the exam?

Nevertheless, every year brings tales of top students around the country failing the bar.  Aside from the cases of extreme test anxiety, lack of test preparation is the only thing that explains the failures.  They may be saving money, becoming too involved in newly acquired employment, or merely underestimating the exam; but they are rolling the dice on the most important high-stakes test of their legal careers.

Throughout law school, they have had to prepare intensely in order to succeed on finals, and this final is the biggest one they have faced, covering vastly more material than any other they have taken.  Should it be a surprise that it requires substantially more preparation?   

The bar exam itself should not frighten students; but under-preparation should scare them to death.  We need not terrify our students about taking the exam, but we should go out of our way to terrify them about failing to prepare.  The exam is grueling, but ultimately no real threat for those who have spent the two months ahead of it preparing intensely, both in the review classes and on their own time. 

No one who has worked as hard as our students have worked to get through law school should trip over the last hurdle.  As their coaches, we need to make sure they keep running hard to the end of the race and that they not treat the final lap to the bar as a cool down lap. (dbw)

Lawyers with Disabilites

The most recent (March 2006) issue of the ABA publication Student Lawyer includes (see page 34) a conference notice of interest.  Quoting from the magazine ...

"The ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law ... in conjunction with ABA president Michael Greco and the EEOC, is sponsoring a National Conference on Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities.  Participants will discuss ways to further the employment opportunities for and promote the hiring of recent law graduates and young lawyers with disabilities."

The conference is on May 22 and May 23.  "The conference," the notice continues, "encourages law students to attend the conference.  To support student participation, the commission will offer a reduced registration fee as well as scholarships to students demonstrating need."

Encouraging news: "With proper accommodations and open lines of communication, lawyers with disabilities have proven themselves to be as successful as their peers without disabilities."

In the academic support field, most of us work with students manifesting a variety of disabilities (visible and invisible); and many of us contend with comments by students, faculty and lawyers along these lines, "Why is she even going to law school?  Who is going to hire a lawyer with (fill in the blank)?"  Oh, that gets to me.  Between your school's Career Services office and its Academic Support office ... somewhere ... we need to be able to provide accurate, up-to-date answers to these inquiries ... not only for those who ask the questions above, but, more importantly, for those who ask this question: "Will I ever get a job if they find out about my _________?"

For detailed conference information, visit the commission's web page. (djt)

Please Skip the Laundry List

I know I have been away awhile. In part, this is due to preparations for our Law School's sabbatical inspection coming up in a few weeks. In part, this is due to preoccupation with my daughter's college application process. And, in part, this is due to dealing with a recent moderately unpleasant medical diagnosis.

However, as I have been reviewing more and more practice exams of students preparing for the Bar Exam, I have been struck by a common problem: the tendency to approach a subject by talking about everything on the laundry list of topics, rather than exercising discretion on what topics are truly raised by the facts.

As an example, I gave a Civil Procedure question with two calls. One called explicitly for a discussion of defendant's motion to dismiss for failure of the plaintiff to join a particular person. Rather than immediately begin a discussion of Compulsory Joinder and structure the answer along the lines of FRCP 19, most students began by discussing personal jurisdiction, then subject matter jurisdiction, then venue, and finally, after using most of their time, students got to the first of three sub-issues raised in a Rule 19 analysis.

This tendency should be of great concern to us in our training of lawyers. As Dennis Tonsing has written, and as we all recognize, there are analogs between what we ask students to do in Law School and what they are asked to do in the professional practice of law. Selecting and divining the right issues, and only the right issues, for discussion on an exam has its analog in narrowing and selecting the right issues to research and prepare for when a client walks in the door, because clients have neither the time nor the money to pay for unnecessary research.

We therefore need to caution students that, while it makes great sense to go into an exam with a mental checklist of possible issues, they should not answer a question by automatically writing everything on the checklist. They must learn to critically consider which issues are raised, and which are not. This facility is part of "thinking like a lawyer." (mwm)

What's New in Bar Prep?

Denise Riebe is a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law, an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, a mediator, and author.  Any day now, you will find Pass the Bar!—a Carolina Academic Press publication by Professor Riebe and co-author Michael Hunter Schwartz (Professor at Charleston School of Law)—on bookstore shelves.

Professor Riebe has begun research about what type of bar preparation programs schools are offering—one of the hot topics of 2005 that promises to be hot in 2006, too.  Specifically, she's interested in what schools have done in the past, whether law school programs are effective, and how law schools are responding to the new ABA Interpretation authorizing for-credit law school bar preparation courses. 

Are you interested in helping out?  You can by taking a few minutes, filling out the attached survey and returning it to Denise at riebe@law.duke.edu.  (djt)

What Is Minimum Competence?

For those of you involved in bar exam preparation, have you ever wondered about the putative standard for passing the bar? The standard is, allegedly, “minimum competence to practice law.” As states continue to raise their “cut scores” and lower their pass rates, the meaning of “minimum competence” becomes ever more murky.

            I have some data and thoughts on this, which you can find at What_is_minimum_competence?   I address these ideas: Pass rates and the “cut score”; the effect of the MBE; the “disconnect” between the standard of “minimum competence to practice law” and the means used to test meeting that standard, both on the Bar Exam and in Law School; and the widening divide between law professors and bar examiners on the meaning of minimum competence to practice law, as evidenced by the declining bar passage rates.

            I also think it is time to consider possible means to test the validity of the hypothesis that adherence to the “minimum competence to practice law” standard requires ever increasing cut scores and lower bar passage rates. If you are interested, take a look at my short discussion at the above-referenced link, and let me know what you think. (mwm)

Living Without the Bar Exam

And on the topic of the bar exam, there's one jurisdiction that is looking at discarding it altogether.

New Hampshire, the state with the "Live Free of Die" motto on its license plate, and the state where I hold a license (which I obtained through sitting for the bar examination) is starting a pilot program with this year's incoming class at the State's only law school.

A select group of 25 students at Franklin Pierce Law Center will have the opportunity to earn their law licenses in New Hampshire without taking the traditional two-day rite of passage after graduation.

Students will, however, undergo rigorous evaluation of their work.

The students will demonstrate their mastery of the fundamental skills of lawyering through the Webster's Scholars Program, run by a veteran lawyer and long-standing Franklin Pierce adjunct faculty member, John Garvey, who recently left private practice after a more than two-decade-long career.

I look forward to watching this story unfold.  As the updates come to my attention, I'll pass them along to you, the blog readers. 

Thank you to my Lexis-Nexis rep., Attorney John Harding, for bringing the link to this article to my attention. (els)