California Lawyers

Be Afraid. . .Be Very Very Afraid

California -- The Rotten Apple In The Barrel

Did you realize that about 2/3 of the lawyers practicing in California could not practice in any other state? That's because they did not graduate from an American Bar Association accredited law school. [From now on, when I say 'an ABA school' you'll know that I mean an American Bar Association accredited law school.]

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA are the majority of lawyers from law schools that couldn't exist in other states. That's why California has so many awful lawyers. Yes, it probably has more awful lawyers than all the other states put together. The other states require graduation from an ABA school to take their bar exam and become licensed in that state.

The Road To Ruin
How did California get in such a fix? Back in the '60's, California was growing fast. People were pouring in. The legislature believed that the ABA schools could not turn out lawyers fast enough. So the legislature sacrificed quality for quantity. It authorized schools to be formed to teach law regardless of accreditation. That's what happened and poorly educated lawyers started pouring out. They're still pouring out. Many of them are awful lawyers. They account for most of the lawyers practicing in California.

"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once." --Charles Lamb, English Essayist.

The legislature figured that could bar exams could screen out the poor lawyers. They required a 'baby bar' after the first year of law school and, of course, the bar exam itself. THAT WAS A BAD IDEA. A bar exam is not meant to screen out competent lawyers from incompetent. No more than a band-aid is meant to be a tourniquet. The bar exam is meant to screen out the oddball good student, apparently lawyer material, who chokes under pressure. [Choking under pressure is not a lawyerly quality.] The legislature should have limited the number of times the bar exam could be taken. Perhaps once or at most twice. But they didn't you're allowed to take it 100 times. Don't pick a lawyer from such a group where if 100 take the bar exam only 40, 50, or 60 pass. For all anyone knows, if those guys had to pass the bar two times out of three, they never would have made it. They passed by luck as much as anything. Pick a lawyer from a group where if 100 such graduates take the bar exam 95 or more pass. [Yes there are such groups, read on.] These guys didn't pass by luck.

And don't pick a lawyer who had to take the bar more than once to get a passing grade.

The Stallions And The Scallions
As I said, the average ABA school graduate [a stallion] is a better lawyer than the non-ABA school graduate [a scallion]. These non-American Bar Association accredited schools turn out much worse lawyers on the average than do ABA schools. Why? Because they do not teach the law. They teach how to pass the bar exam. They'll be shut down if their pass rate falls too low. They teach a BLACK LETTER LAW view of the law. Everything is black or white. That's not the way the real world is and that's not the way the law really is.

How bad are these non-American Bar Association accredited schools? I'll give you an example. I went to Loyola School of Law [now Loyola-Marymount]. It is recognized as one of the three best law schools in Southern California. It is, of course, an ABA school. What is its California bar exam pass rate? It depends on the class standing of the graduate. In the last 40 years, Loyola's pass rate for its graduates who ranked in the top 25% of their class is ONE HUNDRED PER CENT! [100%!]

That's because of two facts:

1. Loyola teaches the law, not the bar exam.
   
   
2. The California bar exam, regarded as perhaps the most difficult exam to pass in the Country, perhaps the world, is actually an easy law exam!

It's not comprised of difficult legal questions. It is actually a time-management exam. It tests the ability of a prospective lawyer to manage his time. Why? Because most lawyers who become disbarred, were disbarred because they could not manage their time. They over-committed and ended up cheating their clients. The bar exam is an exercise in reducing what you can say yet still put forth the essentials in the time available. It is designed to protect the public from malpractice by otherwise good graduates; it is not meant to protect the public from bad graduates who can become awful lawyers.

Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste and California all the awful lawyers? New Jersey got to pick first.

Many of those who fail write one question and get 100% on it and then find they haven't enough time to write the remaining questions and get a zero on them [and fail the exam]. With enough time, they would have got 100% on every question, but the time is limited.

An ABA school graduate, like a Loyola graduate, has had to cope with and successfully answer in law school questions much more difficult than the bar exam presents. He sees the bar exam questions as basically easy. He's much more likely to pass the first time because he knows he's seen worse. [Why just the top 25% do really well? Read "A GOOD START", below.]

Contrast this record to non-American Bar Association accredited schools where top-ranked students may well fail the bar exam. In fact, from my own experience, I can tell you this: While I was teaching at a State accredited law school, in one class I had the graduating senior who ranked #1 in the graduating class. I read his final exam and it rambled on and on without proper argument and without supported conclusions. I gave him a passing grade since I was new to the school, but I told the Dean that he would fail the bar exam. The Dean was upset with me; but after graduation, after the bar exam, and when the results were in, I was right. He had failed. The Dean asked me how I knew. How did I know?

So don't gamble with a lawyer who had to sweat the bar exam; require that the lawyer graduated from an ABA school.

A Good Start

Is that enough? Not really. There were plenty of graduates in my class who didn't understand the law. As I said, it's only the top 25% that don't have to sweat the bar exam.

A Little History Please
How come the best law schools still graduate so many questionably competent lawyers? Economics. Forty years ago, the classic opening day lecture in an ABA school to the entering class was:

"Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will graduate."

That's right. Forty years ago the ABA schools flunked out 2/3 of those they accepted. That assured that only the most probably competent lawyers graduated. THEY DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE. Now an ABA school flunks out only about 5% of its entrants.

Social Promotion Ain't Limited to High School!
Why did it change? Perhaps the non-ABA schools are to blame. They never flunked out anybody they didn't have to but the answer is economics. Law schools, whether American Bar Association accredited or not, cannot afford to flunk out 2/3 of those who enter. It costs too much to admit students. When ABA schools recognized those economics, it was easy to rationalize. They thought: 'If an ABA school flunks out a student that student will just go to a non-ABA school and graduate. Better they should be in the bottom 25% of an ABA school than the top 25% of a non-ABA school.' True? Perhaps. Anyway economics is the real decider. Students are passed so that they can keep paying the tuition fees.

Is that the only economic effect? Nope. The ABA schools have had to lower their standards because of competition with non-ABA schools and because of inflation. They need larger classes. Lower standards give them what they need. Where they used to admit 3 students now they admit 4. That means the top 25% of an ABA school's class is roughly comparable to what the top 33% used to be. LET THE PUBLIC BEWARE. CAVEAT EMPTOR? CAVEAT YOU!

Here's The Way to Go:

Play the odds. When looking for a lawyer, consider a STALLION not a SCALLION. Consider a lawyer that graduated from an ABA school. Is that enough? You know it's not. Consider only a lawyer who graduated at least in the top 25% of his class. What else? Consider the other links throughout the site.