Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Supremes Revise Bar Admission Rules

The Mississippi Supreme Court issued the following statement. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court recently revised the Rules Governing Admission to the Mississippi Bar to allow applicants to take the Bar Exam four times.


            Under the previous rule, enacted in 2019, applicants after three failed attempts to pass the Bar Exam were required to successfully complete 12 course hours at an accredited law school before taking the Bar Exam additional times.


            The new rule amendment, adopted by the Supreme Court on Nov. 10, sets a cap of four attempts to pass the Bar Exam and eliminates the provision for remedial classes. Rule IV, Section 8, says, “Re-Examination in Excess of Four Prohibited. An applicant who has unsuccessfully taken the Mississippi Bar Exam at least four (4) times shall not be eligible for re-examination.”


            The Mississippi Board of Bar Admissions requested the change in a petition, citing recent lower bar passage rates both in Mississippi and nationwide, in addition to the fact that large numbers of repeat exam takers “adversely and significantly affected pass rates in Mississippi” as reasons for requesting the Rule change.


            The state’s two law schools, the University of Mississippi School of Law and Mississippi College School of Law, supported the rule change. A letter from the deans of the two law schools was attached to the petition.


            A link to the Petition to Amend filed by the Board of Bar Admissions may be found at https://courts.ms.gov/appellatecourts/docket/sendPDF.php?f=400_585648.pdf&c=17875&a=N&s=2.

  

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

The dumbing down continues....

Anonymous said...

It seems to me (lawyer who passed bar exam on first attempt 30+ years ago) that law schools are admitting unqualified students in pursuit of tuition money. Three years later, those students are saddled with student loans and unable to pass the bar exam. Who could have imagined?

Anonymous said...

Boy, Zundria Crawford must be kicking herself. Had she not filed all that crazy shit, threatened judges and filed criminal charges against a significant portion of the judiciary, she could have sat again for the bar.

Anonymous said...

@ 1:30 your comment reflects that you are in fact the one that is a bit on the dumber side because you do not understand the rule change. It certainly does not make it easier to pass the bar exam.

Anonymous said...

Should've been the exact opposite; if you can't pass the bar exam after two attempts you really shouldn't be practicing law

Anonymous said...

Everyone wins a trophy. Free the land!

Anonymous said...

That's who I am looking to hire- alawyer who took the exam 4 times.

Anonymous said...

@1:50... 1:30 here, please see 1:54's comment. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Yea, that's the lawyer I want.

One that took the bar 4 f--g times.

Let's pass a new law that only allows the Supreme Court justices to use doctors that had to take their license exams 4 times to be able to practice medicine.

Anonymous said...

Folks should rest easy knowing that no matter how low the bar is set, half those passing will be above average!

Anonymous said...

Because of my divorce lawyer, I can't pass a bar without stopping!

Anonymous said...

I lost all respect for the state Supreme Court when they refused to rule that David Archie lived outside his district. Cowards.

Anonymous said...

3:13 pm wins the day….love it

As far as the rule goes….it’s about time. I know several people whose lives have been ruined taking this exam 5-10 times over the course of many years.

I tried to convince these people they’d make more money by sitting at a desk, starting a blog, write cruel inhumane things about minorities, get followed, get advertisers (or lie about having advertisers), and sit back and collect the checks…..

Worker meaner not harder

Anonymous said...

It's a good change. Many of the most successful lawyers are first time failures on the bar exam, many of them. But four times? Law practice is not for every law school graduate. This revision reinforces that statement.

Anonymous said...

December 14, 2022 at 2:37 PM
Drop the Mic. Your comment takes the award!

EFGAlterEgo said...

3:37 PM
Well, part of the problem is that Misssippi Supremes are elected.

Anonymous said...

The admitting law school should be required to be a co-obligor on the student loans paid to it. Then you'll see the needed improvement in bar passage rates.

Anonymous said...

Behind every new policy, there are names and stories. Or, there is "a" name and "a" story. As someone who writes and administers policies, this is simply the bald faced truth. Thank you, 1:38, for revealing this one.

For what it's worth, I also agree with 3:37. That decision was simply asinine and will have lasting consequences. I live in Hinds County. I guess I can rent a vacant lot somewhere else in the state and run for office there now. Ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

Being able to pass a two day exam is NOT a reflection of being a great legal advocate. That’s why Wisconsin, Oregon, and several others have opted for other ways to ensure competency. Several states are studying the issue and some will probably drop the exam for just this reason. As usual, Mississippi is going to be last in considering new ideas. I believe zMississippi is the only state that limits the number of times one can sit for the bar exam. Crazy!

Anonymous said...

You dolts do realize that they just made it harder to become a lawyer right?

Before this you could take it 10x before passing. Now there is a limit.

Anonymous said...

So the LSAT exam is no longer going to be required for entry to law school to lower the bar on admissions and when the academically challenged ones who never should have been admitted can't pass an exam after three times, they can try a fourth time. Everyone gets a trophy.

Anonymous said...

Fuck this - I'm a retired businessman who has employed numerous attorneys over the past 50 years - some good, some bad, but NONE of them had a basic knowledge of the English language. I cannot count the time I had to rewrite their legal proceedings. All that being said, I could pass the bar exam if I had 4 shots at it. This is pure bullshit, but then you look at what/who is in charge of the Ole Miss law school. Who the hell is surprised by this bullshit?

Anonymous said...

Four attempts at the bar exam? Should be two attempts max. I understand having a bad test day, illness, whatever. Four attempts? That person should not have a law license.

The law schools and the Board of Bar Admissions should be ashamed.

Mama Justice. Size Matters. The Bar has gone to s--t.

Anonymous said...

Passed it the first time and can’t imagine taking that m’fr again. I believe you previously could take it as many times as you wanted as long as you went back to law school. The 4 time limit seems reasonable to me and provides a hard cutoff. I don’t see that as dumbing down - you still have to pass to be admitted to the bar.

Anonymous said...

It’s very simple like dentists and doctors, they should be fifty lawyers admitted to practice next year. The law schools and bar have never adjusted to tort reform. Also, they should be term limits on judges of 12 years. Finally, judges should be approved by the aba and then appointed subject to a recall election.

Anonymous said...

Great! More fee churner attorneys on the way.

Guess the BAR doesn’t think it’s not bad enough having all of these no morals fee churner attorneys in Mississippi, so we need to add some dumber ones that will have no other way to make a living.

Anonymous said...

Getting sick and tired of hearing privileged, but still mediocre, white males referring to equality as “lowering the bar” when you dumbasses benefited from having the bar lowered for you by the wealth and influence of your father’s and father’s-in-law for generations! Yeah, don’t even pretend that you “got in” on your own abilities!

Anonymous said...

I agree with 133. If you can’t pass the bar exam after 2 tries, maybe you should consider another profession. How many lawyers do we have in Mississippi now?

Anonymous said...

Just curious. Have any of you that are bashing this, MS lawyers, or the bar in general, have you actually taken then bar exam, or have any idea what it's like? I 100% agree that there are some stupid lawyers in the state that had/have no business practicing law. I've had cases against those lawyers. However, the bar exam has no bearing on how good an attorney may be. It's a standardized test, and a difficult one at that. Really, it should be removed as a requirement to practice law, and should be replaced by an apprenticeship system, stricter law school admission standards, or a combination of both.

Also the bar isn't being lowered here. By capping the amount of times you can take the exam, they are somewhat limiting those that can be admitted. Although, I don't know what kind of deranged person would put themselves through 4 bar exams.

Anonymous said...

Of course Ole Miss and MC law schools support it, because their bar passage rates are so low, so anything to try to increase passage rates makes them look better. The school administrators would have to be as stupid as the bottom half of their class of students to oppose this.

Let's try this: shrink the size of Ole Miss and MC law school classes by one half, and increase the admission standards significantly such that only the best and brightest are allowed admission. They'll all pass the bar on the first try, just like the out of state students from top law schools do who come to MS. BTW we have too many lawyers and not enough jobs for them as it is.

Anonymous said...

You can fail the test 100 times and still become a "journalist".

Anonymous said...

6:20. Thank you for that middle-school-level kind of comment. Your gross generalization of mediocrity is based on. . .what? I wonder if you are a lawyer, ever attended a law school. Your comment suggests that the answer is no. Perhaps you think that "equity" requires people like Zundria Crawford to be admitted to the bar.

I agree with others who have wondered if the problem lies with the law schools' admission policies. They may be too low. Or they may be watering down standards in order to get the "correct" number of minority students admitted. Not fair to the students, and it injures the schools' reputation when they have a low pass rate for the bar exam. I see that the schools now have what in effect are remedial law school courses for students who have been unable to make acceptable grades. I don't know if that is such a good idea. Maybe it is, unless the remedial courses are graded mostly in order to keep the students from failing rather than "bringing them up to speed". In any case, it just seems to me that the elephant in the room is the admissions policies of the law schools

Anonymous said...

What 8:02 and 9:49 said. I concur with both!

Anonymous said...

https://ms-my.facebook.com/moneyisacultbeliefsystem/videos/paul-harvey-the-rest-of-the-story-lawyers-in-the-colonies-in-1620woe-unto-you-la/741851680520047/

Give a listen, Mr. Harvey was very entertaining, and informative.

Anonymous said...

Much of the problem begins with the law schools accepting under qualified individuals, a problem that eliminating the LSAT will likely exacerbate. Attrition is non-existent. US News & World Report uses attrition in its rankings, so many law schools game the rankings by eliminating attrition (and fudging other data).

For all of the progressives who think any licensure exam is a burden, you folks are unrealistic. No, lawyers aren’t perfect but neither is any profession. Some standards are better than none.

What I’m waiting on is the four times failing J.D. who sues a law school for educational malpractice. Now that would be funny even if it didn’t go anywhere.

Heddy Matthias, MD said...

An incompetent attorney can seriously affect your life as much as an incompetent physician can.

Would you want a doc who failed his/her Boards 3+ times to care for you or your family?


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