Bar Passers - Kirkland's Newest Lawyers

THE WASHINGTON STATE BAR ASSOCIATION recently announced that, of the 470 candidates who took the February 2012 attorney licensing bar exam, 370 passed.  And of those 370 who passed, the following six are listed as Kirkland residents:  Flannery Carlos, Zachary Edwards, Melinda Laine, Eric Laliberte, Kendra Long, and Jessica Rieken.  These six – Kirkland’s newest lawyers – should be commended for having passed one of our country’s most difficult exams.

The “Bar Exam” gets its name from the partition that traditionally separates the courtroom’s spectator seats from the members of the court.  Historically, before the adoption of widespread licensing standards, a person appearing before the court was called to the bar for a series of general legal questions from the presiding judge.  If the person answered the questions to the judge’s satisfaction, then he would be “admitted” and would be permitted to “pass the bar” and address the court.

Now, the bar exam is much more complicated.  Like most states, Washington State administers its bar exam twice a year: once in February and once in July.  The format of most states’ bar exams, however, differs widely. 

For example, California’s bar exam (hailed as the nation’s most difficult) is administered over the course of three consecutive days.  The first three hours of the first day is spent completing three written essays in each of which the applicant must analyze a series of convoluted legal problems.   The three afternoon hours are then spent completing a fictitious research and legal memo assignment called the “performance exam.”  On the second day, exam takers spend two three-hour sessions completing 200 multiple-choice questions.  The third day is just like the first day.

The Washington State bar exam, by contrast, is two days long and consists of three two hour and fifteen minute sessions.  All three sessions are mind-numbingly the same: during each session, an application must complete six written essays using no more than 64 handwritten lines or 4963 characters on a laptop. 

But that’s not all!  States – Washington included – also administer professional ethics examinations and moral character reviews.  The professional ethics exams, in some jurisdictions like California, are a separate multiple choice test, while other states, like Washington, administer a third day of essays that test the application of ethical standards.  The moral character exam is completed by independent reviewers who scrutinize an applicant’s personal and professional background for conduct that is unbefitting the legal profession.

It is not difficult to imagine the intensity of the bar exam: applicants are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, row-by-row into a large convention center – this year, Washington’s exam was administered at the Tacoma Convention Center and at the Spokane Convention Center. 

Visit the bathroom shortly before the exam begins and you are likely to hear sounds of anxious bar takers losing their breakfast.  During breaks, people cry.  During the exam, people also cry.  And over the course of the test, the initially large crowd slowly but surely, dwindles as many applicants, who simply can’t take the pressure, give up. 

With so much riding on a single exam, these extremes are understandable.  Indeed, for many graduating law students, their jobs are dependent on passing the bar exam on the first try.  If you don’t pass, you don’t have a job, i.e., if you don’t pass, you’re unemployed (and unemployable). 

Personally, I passed both the California and Washington bars on my first try.  (I credit the lucky penny I found on my way to the first exam.)  But most people are not so lucky.  A mere 42.2% of California’s applicants, and only 64.7% of Washington’s applicants, passed the February 2012 exam.  And sadly, as if the chances of passing the bar exam weren’t dismal enough at the outset, an applicant’s chances of passing on a second try statistically plummet if the applicant fails initially.

But for as difficult as the bar exam is, I think it is rightly so.  The practice of law is one of our society’s most mentally demanding professions, and it is that way because lawyers are entrusted with the lives and interests of other people (their clients).  We should only expect that kind of profession to administer a demanding licensing examination.

So, congratulations again to those Kirkland residents who passed Washington’s bar exam.  The question you are now charged with is this: what kind of lawyer will you be? 

Trent Latta is an attorney and current member of Kirkland’s Cultural Council.  He may be reached at TLatta@McDougaldlaw.com.