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18 ¦ AUGUST 10, 2020 NEWS

¦ From LOOKING on PAGE 17 ble, but it was hard to tease out whether this was due
education, physical or moral fitness issues or exter- to some inherent weakness or other factors such as
nal forces that would have signaled that the lawyers social and professional isolation, a lack of resources
who passed all the test were nevertheless inevitably and an absence of mentors. Remember, these folks
going to wind up on our dockets anyway? had eventually made the grade, so whatever the
It was a tricky task, because there was no way to problem was, the entry system had not flagged it
tell who hadn’t been admitted and whether they’d sufficiently to avoid eventual trouble.
have failed if allowed to try. Thus, we were limited to We never did a study of those who failed the
looking at the backgrounds of the lawyers in disci- exam and who never practiced to see if the testing
plinary trouble and trying to discern markers which was efficacious or predictive, though we did won-
would have predicted that, without attention, failure der how folks could get adequate LSAT scores to
was inevitable. Our results led us to question much be admitted to competitive schools and complete
of the admission regime. three years of rigorous law school
The respondent cohort broke education with sufficient grades
into three or four categories, not to get a diploma could fail a test
all that different from the crimi- of substantive knowledge three
nal docket. There were good months after graduation. Our
folks who made a mistake and experience in the academy was
there were some real sociopaths. I am not aware that states that professors didn’t hesitate to
Those two groups were easy to with diploma privileges give failing grades to those who
identify and deal with. The rest deserved them and most schools
were generally folks with a bunch have any worse malpractice had minimum grade point aver-
of external forces such as family stats or grievance numbers age requirements which weed out
strife, medical or mental health those not equipped for the task
than those with the test,
so I don’t think some relief

issues and addictions or folks for would expose the public to long before the bar exam.
whom the law was not a profes- a flood of unprepared and My colleagues who do reme-
sion that was ever going to work. dangerously inadequately dial teaching for those who fail
They took a lot of our time. the exam tell me that it’s often
We got the cooperation of the equipped new lawyers. something other than ignorance

Bar Examining Committee for that causes a problem, including
Professor Leslie Levin to conduct stress or an unfamiliarity with
a study as to whether pre-ad- the organizational and analyti-
mission trouble such as criminal cal tools necessary to deliver a
records, mental health or dishon- structured answer under intense
esty issues were predictors of eventual disciplinary time pressure. Malcolm Gladwell did a fascinating
trouble. She conducted a rigorous examination, the series of podcasts where experts noted that the skills
results of which are published, which indicated that, that made for a good legal exam test-taker (he was
at best, these type of prior problems were such a looking at the LSAT) were the opposite of those that
weak predictor of eventual failure that they did not made the best lawyers, the ability to do deep, slow
justify the effort. and thoughtful analysis.
Pat King went through the bar admission files of I failed the bar exam the first time, as did some of
a number of the most troubled lawyers looking for my fellow students in the UConn evening division.
clues and found that there was a very small cohort We all worked during the day, and all had families
who had very low class ranking at very low-tier law and many obligations beyond studying. When we
schools who also had a history of multiple failed bar came up short, we formed a study group, practiced
exams. As expected, these folks wound up in trou- and rehearsed and all aced it three months later.

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