It's also possible that law school and/or the bar exam have changed in the last 40 years. I went to law school in the early aughts and found it to be quite helpful for teaching me how to be an effective lawyer. It's also certainly not true that the only skill the bar exam measures is knowing how to divine legal principles from reading a written judicial opinion. There is a huge memorization component, which ensures that lawyers know a fair amount of substantive law (at least at one point in time), and that they are capable of memorization (which can be a useful skill for people who work with complex fact patterns).
It was also well known that the bar examiners gave lots of credit based on your application of the law. Even if you misremembered a legal test, you could get lots of points just for logically applying the law as you stated it to the fact pattern.
ensures that lawyers know a fair amount of substantive law (at least at one point in time), and that they are capable of memorization
Thinking you know substantive law can be a dangerous thing for any lawyer who believes they don't need to bother researching. Obviously we all absorb the law in our areas of expertise but to suggest that practicing lawyers actually use law they learned in law school is a stretch imo.
You are right, of course, that both law school and the bar test memorization. I have always thought that to be a big flaw. As a trial attorney I have, of course, had to deal at times with very large and complex fact patterns. I never had to memorize anything. Dealing with the same fact pattern for 24-48 months reading documents, and deposing witnesses doesn't require memorization - it just requires memory.
As for the bar exam, I'm quite sure it has changed. Back when I took it, it required two full days. Eight hours writing essays one day. Then the multi-state multiple choice the second day. Not sure if states still require a separate day writing several blue books worth of essays. Either way, none of that has the slightest to do with being prepared to engage in the practice of law - which was the primary point I intended to convey.
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It's also possible that law school and/or the bar exam have changed in the last 40 years. I went to law school in the early aughts and found it to be quite helpful for teaching me how to be an effective lawyer. It's also certainly not true that the only skill the bar exam measures is knowing how to divine legal principles from reading a written judicial opinion. There is a huge memorization component, which ensures that lawyers know a fair amount of substantive law (at least at one point in time), and that they are capable of memorization (which can be a useful skill for people who work with complex fact patterns).
It was also well known that the bar examiners gave lots of credit based on your application of the law. Even if you misremembered a legal test, you could get lots of points just for logically applying the law as you stated it to the fact pattern.
Thinking you know substantive law can be a dangerous thing for any lawyer who believes they don't need to bother researching. Obviously we all absorb the law in our areas of expertise but to suggest that practicing lawyers actually use law they learned in law school is a stretch imo.
You are right, of course, that both law school and the bar test memorization. I have always thought that to be a big flaw. As a trial attorney I have, of course, had to deal at times with very large and complex fact patterns. I never had to memorize anything. Dealing with the same fact pattern for 24-48 months reading documents, and deposing witnesses doesn't require memorization - it just requires memory.
As for the bar exam, I'm quite sure it has changed. Back when I took it, it required two full days. Eight hours writing essays one day. Then the multi-state multiple choice the second day. Not sure if states still require a separate day writing several blue books worth of essays. Either way, none of that has the slightest to do with being prepared to engage in the practice of law - which was the primary point I intended to convey.
This is always true, independent of whether one has gone to law school or not.