Engineers and doctors take professional exams, as do accountants, and hairdressers. This is normal for professions where the risks are great if the professional screws up, and a written exam can verify that the person has some key concepts thoroughly nailed down, and be able to use it properly.
Yes, a bad attorney will wash out of a job, but not until after he has screwed up somebody’s business, or lost their child custody battle, or cost them their freedom. An exam is a reasonable precaution, under the circumstances.
I will say, though, that, at least back when I was in law school, I learned that Wisconsin does not require a bar exam, if you graduated from one of their state’s law schools. So, in that case, the person’s record and work is standing for them. In all the other states, it’s bar exam + degree + professional responsibility exam. (Except in CA, you can take the bar without a degree, after apprenticing for a few years with a lawyer, but almost nobody does that because lawyers seem not to want the hassle of apprentices.)
What’s good about requiring law school is that a person who spends all that time and money is not going to treat the Bar admission lightly, if they lose that, they throw all of that away, it’s like requiring a big down payment, because they knew if a person defaults, they will lose all of that money they put in with nothing to show for it.
Don’t take this the wrong way because I am not actually disagreeing with you... though I am disagreeing. Or maybe I’m trying to say that I’m intending to disagree in a good-natured way:
Are there bad lawyers? Ones who have given terrible counsel to clients or cost clients dearly? Yes, yes there are. Did they pass the Bar? Yes, yes they did. But how can this be if we take your assertion that the Bar protects us from bad lawyers? Because it does not.
I believe that Engineers and doctors need to take professional exams as they are professionals involved in the sciences. Pharmacists as well; &c. Professions whose mere existence have defined boundaries and values; measurable exacts.
Lawyers do not. Just like Hair dressers, they are tradesmen.
Do you need the man who installs your dry wall to take a board exam and pay yearly dues to a monolithic and fascistic union? No. You just need to hear that he does it well. Can a bad dry wall “specialist” ruin your life about as well as a lawyer’s poorly written contract? Yes, he can. In fact, he can cost you millions if you are in commercial real estate.
At most, I could agree to the existence of a minimum of at least 3 private and separate certifying bodies, including the Bar. But to say that the Bar should hold Vatican-level dominance over an entire trade is... frightening. Kind of.
(Like WI you can apprentice in Georgia. If I offered 50% of the tuition cost to go to a Law School to a local lawyer, in cash, he would happily take me on as an apprentice.)
PS: I find that lawyers and Art Directors get visibly agitated when I remind them that they are only tradesmen. Like a painter or a carpenter. Though they should feel proud.
Oh, and that “PS” in my reply to you wasn’t directed AT you. Apologies if it reads that way.