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I've always had a fear of the bar exam. I've heard horror stories first hand of guys that couldn't pass (Missouri) after doing well in school.

My hope is that a good LSAT score will not only qualify me for law school but also prove to myself that I have nothing to fear on the BAR exam. Am I thinking right here or is this just another dumb 0L question?.

To be brutally honest the LSAT and the Bar are two entirely separate beasts. The LSAT is about very specific non-knowledge-based/non-memorization-based skills (or, more precisely, memorizing methods that you can apply to any question, but not memorizing knowledge). The Bar is all about memorizing rules. So the answer to your question is: no, your performance on the LSAT will tell you little about your ability to perform on the bar other than the fact that, if you're smart enough to do well on the LSAT, surely you're smart enough to spend a month and a half doing little but memorizing rules and taking practice questions and then take a bar exam and pass. I'd guess the correlation between high LSAT and bar passage is no more significant than the correlation between high SAT and bar passage.

Scoring 150+ actually has a pretty high correlation with bar passage.

When it comes to the bar exam, the most important thing is the work you put into it. Being smart and understanding the law is also important. But if you scored highly on the LSAT, I'm assuming those things are a given. Still, I know several people who came out of good schools with high LSATs and failed the bar because they refused to put the time and effort into studying. Without doing the work, the bar is a difficult exam to pass. Do it, and it's not nearly as hard as its made out to be.

hmlee wrote:When it comes to the bar exam, the most important thing is the work you put into it. Being smart and understanding the law is also important. But if you scored highly on the LSAT, I'm assuming those things are a given. Still, I know several people who came out of good schools with high LSATs and failed the bar because they refused to put the time and effort into studying. Without doing the work, the bar is a difficult exam to pass. Do it, and it's not nearly as hard as its made out to be.

TITCR - thanks.

tuffyjohnson wrote:

hmlee wrote:When it comes to the bar exam, the most important thing is the work you put into it. Being smart and understanding the law is also important. But if you scored highly on the LSAT, I'm assuming those things are a given. Still, I know several people who came out of good schools with high LSATs and failed the bar because they refused to put the time and effort into studying. Without doing the work, the bar is a difficult exam to pass. Do it, and it's not nearly as hard as its made out to be.

TITCR - thanks.

Also, while it's a bit early for you, keep this tip in mind for when you eventually come to this point: studying hard is important, but you don't want to burn yourself out. I, and my friends who all passed the bar, generally operated on the same schedule: attend your bar review class in May/June and keep up with the assigned work, but don't put in much extra time studying. Have a fun July 4th weekend as a last hurrah. Spend the next 3 weeks of your life in coffee shops for 12-16 hours a day studying. Profit.

tuffyjohnson wrote:I've always had a fear of the bar exam. I've heard horror stories first hand of guys that couldn't pass (Missouri) after doing well in school.

My hope is that a good LSAT score will not only qualify me for law school but also prove to myself that I have nothing to fear on the BAR exam. Am I thinking right here or is this just another dumb 0L question?.

There tends to be a correlation but that correlation exists among groups of people. Individually speaking, this correlation is not strong enough to rely on that you will pass easily because you made a high LSAT score. The simple fact of the matter is that you better prepare for it or you will fail. Those that attend top law schools are going to have more trouble adjusting to the black and white nature of a bar exam right answer. That stuff that you used to do in law school to demonstrate to your professor that you can think when you didn't know the answer, that will not work for the bar. Adjustments have to be made. Bar examiners have graders who grade off of a rubric. They look for buzz words and other superficial, stupid things in your answer that give it the semblance of a typical right answer. But if you say the same exact thing, but just in a completely different manner on your essays, you will likely not get credit for it. In Texas, I can assure you that you won't get credit for it.

The difficulty of the bar exam is waaaaaaaay overstated. In NY, if you go to even a half decent school and english is your first language, the pass rate is over 90% for first time takers. This is super easy- I took the CPA exam before the bar and that test had <50% pass rate for first timers.

Don't let the bar exam influence any of your decisions, it's just a rough two months then it's over.

Ya honestly the bar exam is a joke, really just more of a formality - and way for states to make a quick buck. More of a literacy test than anything else...

Missouri has the third-highest pass rate in the country. I think you'll be fine.

Lol at people saying "The Bar exam is a joke." Obviously didn't take it in CA

jayman12 wrote:Ya honestly the bar exam is a joke, really just more of a formality - and way for states to make a quick buck. More of a literacy test than anything else...

Which state did you take the bar exam in? If you approach the bar exam as nothing more than a literacy test, you will most certainly fail. It's not reading comprehension. You actually have to know the law.