In all 50 states, J.D. graduates cannot practice law until they pass a bar exam pass. Thus, the 4,405 law graduates who failed the California bar exam last July suffered a major setback in their professional careers.
They also suffered a financial catastrophe. The average J.D. graduate leaves law school with more than $100,000 in student-loan debt; and that debt must be paid regardless of whether the graduate passes a bar exam or ever gets a job as a lawyer. Without a doubt, a majority of the people who failed the California bar exam last July have student-loan debt.
Obviously, the risk of failing the bar is not equally distributed among test takers. People who graduate from ABA accredited law schools have higher pass rates on the California bar exam than people who attended a law school that is only accredited by the state of California. Sixty percent of test takers who graduated from out-of-state ABA accredited schools passed the July bar exam, while only 21 percent of people who attended state-accredited schools passed.
And people who fail the bar exam the first time they take it have a lower pass rate than overall test takers if they retake the exam. Among exam repeaters, only 17 percent passed the California bar exam last July. Pretty bad odds.
The California bar exam results are just another indication that the future for many law-school graduates is bleak. The legal job market has less than six lawyer's job for every ten new law graduates, and it offers no law jobs for graduates who cannot pass the bar. People who graduate high in their class from a prestigious law school such as Harvard or Stanford are eminently employable, but people who graduate in the bottom half of their class or who attend bottom-tier law schools may never obtain a job that will justify the student-loan debt they piled up to get a law degree.
So if you are thinking about going to law school, here's my advice. Read Paul Campos' book titled Don't Go to Law School (Unless). And heed Campos' warning; unless you have family connections or are admitted to a top-tier law school, you probably should not take out student loans to pursue a legal career.
And if you went to law school, can't find a law job, and are unable to pay off your student loans, you should consider bankruptcy. But if you go that route and try to get your law-school loans discharged, you must educate the bankruptcy judge about the terrible job market for lawyers.
Now if we can just find a job. |
References
Paul Campos. Don't Go to Law School (Unless).
Kyle McEntee. Law Grads Still Face Tough a Job Market. Bloomberg Law, May 4, 2016.
Noam Scheiber. An Expensive Law Degree and No Place to Use It. New York Times, June 17, 2016.
Ann Yarbrough. Bar exam pass rate dips to 32-year low. California Bar Journal, December 2016.