I Failed The Bar 3 Times Before Passing - Ask Me Anything Forum

[Anonymous User]

OP, what was your class rank and school tier?

Tier 3 and rank was around 50%.

How supportive was your school during all this. Did they ever try to stop you from taking the bar, give you extra bar prep, or just cut you off?

Hadn't really thought about this before. Honestly, I never heard from the school or any professors, staff, ect. I never reached out to them either. I'm sure if I had reached out someone would have talked to me or about it.

[Anonymous User]

Justify your practice of law. Three failures? How are you not malpracticinf the fuck out of the law.

For one, I proofread and use spell check. (*malpractinf)

Secondly, the threshold of malpractice is pretty high. You have to royally screw up to meet that threshold. I haven't don't that in practice, only on the bar exam.

I practice exclusively in civil litigation and criminal trials. I think I have found my niche and I love the work. Not too many, if any, clients will sue you for malpractice when you win for them at trial.

How's this a niche?

Idk man, not a lot of people can try cases and most lawyers in biglaw are scared shitless of taking a deposition let alone taking a case to trial. I feel like OP is getting a lot of unnecessary shit.

I have been given a lot of shit since failing my first bar and even after finally passing it. A lot of it was behind my back, luckily. Back then I probably couldn't have taken it if I heard it. But recently that has gone away. It's hard for a lot of colleagues to talk now.

You are correct about the trial work aspect. A lot of lawyers don't want to do it or feel like they don't have time, or whatever. I have been able to pick up a decent amount of work through referrals and word of mouth. I've also found that if you are willing to travel to more rural areas you can find a lot of trial experience to be had.