Abolish the bar exams?

Under Article VIII Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution, the Supreme Court conducts the Bar examinations every year. The Constitution grants it the power to promulgate rules governing admission to the practice of law. Three years ago Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago urged the Supreme Court to abolish the Bar examinations as a prerequisite for practicing law in the Philippines because 1. "passing the Bar examinations is a matter of chance and luck" and "is just one index of legal competence." 2. Bar exams is not the best gauge of ones aptitude to practice law because it fails to test the skills needed in the legal profession and that it does not focus on the full spectrum of legal knowledge. 3. Sen. Santiago proposed the taking of a National Law School Aptitude Test (NLSAT) and a one-year legal internship as pre-requisites for admission in the study and practice of law. She stated that the NLSAT will better evaluate the verbal, writing, analytical proficiency, and reading comprehension skills of prospective law students. The NLSAT will be similar to the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) for aspiring medicine students. She cited a study entitled "Survey of the Legal Profession" by former UP College of Law Dean Merlin Magallona and lawyer Manuel Flores Bonifacio which showed that a sizable number of lawyers think the Bar examinations is not a good index of legal competence for the following reasons: 1. Passing the Bar is not an absolute guarantee of successful practice of law. 2. The Bar examinations is a test of memory and not of competence. 3. Examinees are expected to know everything at one time. 4. Passing the Bar is a matter of chance and luck. 5. The Bar examination is just one index of legal competence, and other factors should be considered. 6. Actual practice of law is the best index of legal competence. She cited Bar examination statistics which showed that of the more than 5,000 law graduates who take the Bar each year, only 20 percent to 30 percent examinees actually pass the Bar. She added that it any testing should be done for admission to the practice of law, aspiring students should take it before they enter law school and not after graduation. The one-year legal internship program, on the other hand, will enable aspiring lawyers to have the practical education, skills, and knowledge necessary to represent clients, she said. There might be some good reasons that something like the bar exam was conceived. 1. Maybe it was meant to be a means of testing basic competency in certain subject areas. Thats a sensible function. a. It seems to me that if a degree from an accredited law school doesnt serve that function we as a profession might think about looking at the core curriculum of these accredited law schools instead of inventing a ridiculous test. b. Or we might test core competencies in subject areas and let people take those tests following a semester or year of study of the subject matterwhen its likely that such knowledge has been learned in a way it might actually be retained. c. Demanding that people shovel huge amounts of obscure knowledge covering twenty or thirty subjects into their heads for a one-time test is almost a sure-fire way to minimize retention. This seems to undercut the stated goal of minimum mastery of a subject area.

2. Or maybe the unstated goal of the bar exam is less noble: maybe the bar wants to keep these new lawyers off the market a little longer. There are still better ways we could do that. a. We could at least require them to apprentice to us for slave wages, like the medical profession requires of its residents. That would be more intellectually honest than pretending we are asking them to prove themselves when were just stalling. b. Or we could require them to do pro bono work, so that their talents and energy would perhaps be of service to human beings in the world and could provide them with useful skills, and would still keep them out of our hair for six months or so before wed have to compete with them on the merits. But instead we ask them to learn obscure nuances that arent even the law in any jurisdiction, and that we all expect them to forget the day after they have taken the exam. c. This, to me, is the cruelest and most senseless act of hazing that the legal profession engages in. There are many alternatives to the bar exam, all better than the current system. 3. The fact that we dont change it is an indictment of the professionour blind conservatism, our fear of change, our fear of young minds, I dont know what. If the purpose of the bar exam is to keep the young graduates out of the profession, shame on us. If it is to require them to attain useful practical knowledge, lets get real. Do you remember anything you learned for the bar? I dont. Why do we make people do it?

Heres my two cents worth Theres no need to amend/abolish/reform the bar exams. If the bar were to be amended/abolish, we would also be destroying the legacy and the grandeur it built over time by summoning the best and the brightest minds in the country. This is what the bar exams is all about. After all, this is supposed to be a measure (if not absolute one) of ones competencies and fitness to practice law in that those who fall short of any might as well as forget about lawyering and pursue instead equable careers. If folks like Marcos, Diokno, Salonga and the hordes of bar topnotchers made it in times where photocopying machines, internet, etc. are not available, why cant we at least pass it, if not to top it? If ever this misguided perspective of the bar exams be pushed through, this would place the bar passers in lesser altitudes as compared to the bar passers before who, given the inappropriateness and inefficiency of the bar exams as we clamor today, nonetheless, modestly hurdled the most grueling exams in the country. If the low passing percentages of the bar passers is becoming more banal rather than an exception, law students owe a part of it, and urbanization deservers much of the blame. Bar exams, nevertheless, as it is before, should remain as controversial, mind-boggling and heartbreaking as before. Meanwhile, we might as well pick our books and notes instead of seeking for reforms, amendments or abolition of the bar exams.