Law School Discussion

My understanding was that the baby bar was only required for students who attend unaccredited schools, study in judges's chambers, etc. Who else would have to take it to continue?

First-year students who don't achieve a minimum GPA of 2.0 in the core subjects of criminal law, contracts and torts can be required to pass it before being allowed to continue.

The thing about the pass/fail ratio of the baby bar is that a substantial percentage — I would assume the majority — of the people who take it are former law students who struggled to get satisfactory grades on ordinary law school exams. If this assumption is correct, then most of the people who take the test go in the door with trouble applying the law to fact patterns. So of course, the test seems hard. But I've seen some baby bar fact patterns. They didn't look any harder to me than the final exams I took at the end of 1L. I have no doubt that most of the people who pass 1L with more or less good grades would also pass the baby bar without much more difficulty. (This may not be true for those who passed with only marginal grades.)

That said, a certain percentage who fail the baby bar probably don't prepare properly for it. Whichever category you fall into, if you need to pass the baby bar to continue your legal education, I would recommend paying for a personal, professional tutor who will keep you focused on a program of study that works, which means that you will write practice exams over and over until you're dizzy, and who will give you feedback and instruction on what you're doing wrong.

I can get on board with that, Holmes.

Fortook, yes, I watched every episode. The one about asking Anderson for his daughter's hand was hilarious.

I agree with Nova. I love studying law, but as a law student, TV shows about lawyers are mostly unbearable. It's the same when I watch movies about the Marine Corps. I can't sit there without noticing every little thing that the actors do wrong — like when the officer salutes the enlisted man instead of the other way around, or when the private talks back to a captain. This does not happen in real life. Ever. TV makes being an attorney appear glamorous, but in my experience, most attorneys are rather ordinary, if bright, people.

Quote from: Morten Lund on April 25, 2012, 11:09:06 PM

Quote from: Apophenia on April 24, 2012, 02:41:40 PM

In most real life scenarios a 70% would be a C at most

Grumpy partner rejoinder:

In real life, 100% is an A;  99% and below is an F.

works good for company pep speaches, along with the flashy power points and free dounuts.
If it were true lawyers wouldn't brag about how great they did at their plea bargins and settlements. In the legal world going to pergatory if soften a "win" since you avoided hell.

Your intended points do manage to crash through, Sollicitus. But in all sincerity, proper grammar and spelling are fundamental to being an effective communicator in the legal field. Yes, this is an informal thread. But if you are a law student, you should be cultivating the habit of identifying and correcting the errors that riddle sentences like the ones above before you post them. Otherwise, how do you expect to establish credibility as an attorney?