Two comments on this. I’ve always maintained that any second year law student should pass the bar on the first try. All you have to do is read the cases. There’s no excuse for it if you paid any attention. There’s nothing from the third year on the bar exam.
Second, can you imagine how much easier the bar exam would have been in 1970 or so than it is now? The absurdities of the ACLU and Warren Burger and the explosion in regulatory and administrative law, environmental law, employment law - none of that had even happened yet ! She had to know property, contracts, torts, civil procedure and ConLaw. She frigs up everything she touches because, while devious, she’s not innately smart.
Do students still in school take that exam then after studying two years, though graduating later?
Second, can you imagine how much easier the bar exam would have been in 1970 or so than it is now? The absurdities of the ACLU and Warren Burger and the explosion in regulatory and administrative law, environmental law, employment law - none of that had even happened yet ! She had to know property, contracts, torts, civil procedure and ConLaw. She frigs up everything she touches because, while devious, she’s not innately smart.
I'm guessing you're a lawyer or you would not have posted this. My experience in having studied for and taken two bar exams (and passing each on the first try) is that one doesn't read cases to study for a bar exam. Instead, one studies outlines of the law in the tested subjects and takes practice tests. Also, neither of the states I took (the most recent being in 2003) tested regulatory, administrative, environmental or employment law. It was just the basic property, criminal, torts, contracts, procedure, constitutional law, etc. If one is reasonably smart (I am certainly no genius.) and puts a reasonable amount of time into studying, it is not hard to pass on the first try. I do think a failure suggests a lack of intelligence, discipline or commitment.