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The bar has been raised

Congrats to those who learned they passed the Illinois bar yesterday.  That’s great news.

Now that you are lawyers, things are going to get even harder for some of you. I bet that’s not what you bargained for.

I remember when I first mentioned law school to friends after graduating 8 years ago.  Friends and mentors told me how hard law school was, and warned me that “the bar” was really hard.  It reminded me of a few TV shows I saw which made it look like a nightmare.

Then when I was deciding between JD/MBA programs, friends told me that the law school classes would be hard, the competition was going to be harder than before given the recession, and the pressure was intensified with more law grads and less jobs than ever.

I wasn’t too nervous going in, but when I got there, I did find this to be pretty true.  But there’s something new and even further out there going on in the last few years.  Not surprising but new. The bar in the legal community has recently gotten higher – much higher. Both literally and figuratively.

The law students I speak to are feeling it. When they take the LSATs they are feeling more pressure to score higher. When they are in 1L classes, they are buying more and more supplements.  When they talk to employers, they are told they need higher GPAs than students used to.  When they have a job they are told to pass the bar, which has gotten harder and harder.

In Illinois, the exam just got harder this year. The score needed to pass goes up in 2014 and then again in 2015.  All while the exam is adding an additional topic.  The same is true in Michigan and other states.

Maybe there is a good rationale for all of this, but the profession is putting lawyers through a nightmarish path, where no matter what they achieve, it’s never enough.

Why is the bar so high today?  It’s probably the result of a few things: (1) the recessions, which has led to fewer jobs; this means that the industry has to create more hurdles; (2) the rising number of lawyers out there; in fact, despite the recession some new schools have stilll opened up over the past two years;  and (3) tradition.  The legal tradition has always been about hurdles and competition.  Amplifiying that a bit doesn’t change anything.

But the profession is doing well these days. And a lot of people who make it through aren’t perfect. So give it your best shot and I’m sure you’ll nail it.

Questions or comments about any of it? Ask Away.

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