Become a Lawyer: Uncover What It Takes to Build a Career Behind the Bar

Summary

The legal profession has long been associated with the bar exam – a rigorous assessment to ensure the successful practice of law. However, this test fails to convey the fact that there is much more behind the bar than just legal knowledge. It takes certain skills, experiences, and values to become an effective attorney and to stay in the legal profession long-term.


To practice law, attorneys must demonstrate strong analytical and critical thinking skills. Understanding legal precedent, statutes, regulations, and cases requires excellent problem-solving abilities. As an attorney, one must be able to identify key issues, think descriptively and logically, draw valid conclusions, and know when to apply the legal concepts to best serve their client's interests.

In addition to analytical skills, attorneys must possess the ability to connect with their clients. To be truly successful in the law, an attorney must be able to connect with a client on both an emotional and professional level. Developing strong attorney-client relationships requires strong interpersonal skills, including excellent active listening, effective communication, and empathy.

Beyond analytical and interpersonal skills, attorneys must also possess certain values and mindsets. To remain a trusted advisor, attorneys must be trustworthy and live up to their professional and ethical responsibilities. They must also embody a sense of responsibility and commitment to their clients, institutions, and the law.

Additionally, attorneys must be willing to grow and develop throughout their careers, as the law is continuously changing. Attorneys must be open to learning and adapting in order to keep up with current legal trends, as well as staying abreast of legal developments in general.

The bar exam provides a glimpse into the necessary knowledge and skills to practice law, but to be a successful attorney and long-term practitioner, much more is required. It takes analytical prowess, interpersonal skills, and certain values to become an effective attorney and to stay in the legal profession. Becoming a successful attorney requires more than just passing the bar exam – it requires a number of skills, experiences, and mindsets.
 

The Path of Becoming a Lawyer

Becoming a lawyer is a long and arduous journey for many prospective attorneys. The path begins in undergraduate college where the aspiring lawyer must study and obtain a bachelor's degree in a related field. The American Bar Association (ABA) requires prospective lawyers to have obtained a bachelor's degree prior to attending law school. Common fields that are related to law include business, economics, philosophy, political science, and sociology.
 

Law School and the Bar Exam

Attending a law school accredited by the ABA is a requirement for those wishing to become a lawyer. Law schools vary in the amount of time it takes to graduate. Most law schools offer a Juris Doctor degree at the conclusion of their program, which usually takes three years to complete. Upon graduation of law school, a law student must sit for the bar exam in order to become a lawyer. The bar exam is administered by the state in which the lawyer intends to practice. It is a test that is used to measure the knowledge and understanding of the laws of the state.
 

Legal Research and Writing Acquired at Law School

In law school, future lawyers are taught the art of legal research and writing which is integral to the practice of law. In law school, students are taught to read court decisions and to analyze them for the points of law involved. This type of analysis is necessary when researching a particular legal issue or when preparing legal briefs. Legal writing also involves writing legal briefs, memos, or other documents to summarize a case. These documents are then used by attorneys in court to present arguments or facts to a judge or jury.
 

Further Education Needed to Become a Lawyer

In addition to attending law school and passing the bar exam, lawyers may need additional education or training in order to become a member of a specific legal community. Depending on the type of law the attorney practices, further education may be needed to specialize in a certain area of the law. For example, in order to become a patent attorney, the attorney must have additional training and education in patent laws.

Massachusetts administered the first written bar exam in 1855. Until that point, the exams had been administered orally. Bar exams continued to become increasingly formal and regulated, and in 1931, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (or NCBE) was established to help "develop, maintain, and apply reasonable and uniform standards of education and character for eligibility for admission to the practice of law."
 

What is it?
Unlike the LSAT, which measures your logical and analytical skills, this test is strictly knowledge-based. Another difference between the bar and the LSAT: This exam is one you can actually fail. It's essentially a 25- to 30-subject final exam on all the classes you've taken in law school-including stuff you haven't seen since your first year-as well as some subjects that you may have never covered in a classroom. As you might imagine, studying for this exam is not optional: It's just as much a rite of passage as taking the exam itself.

Each state designs and administers its own exam for admission to its bar, drawing on a combination of four NCBE-sponsored standardized tests: the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT). In addition, individual jurisdictions can develop their own "local" exams that address their specific laws and exceptions. These tests are usually in an essay format, but some states, like Florida, also use multiple-choice questions.

Resource: Find out which states use which tests at ncbex.org/tests.htm.

Who can take it?
You must qualify to sit for the bar exam, which usually means graduating from an American Bar Association-approved law school (click here for a list). Some jurisdictions also allow other means of qualification, such as one year of law school study and apprenticeship at a law firm for a certain period. (Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln-one of the most respected lawyers in U.S. history-never attended law school and even went on to become a bar examiner.)

Resource: Click here for the ABA's list of bar-admission requirements in every state.

When do I take it?
All jurisdictions using the standardized one-day MBE (only Louisiana, Washington State, and Puerto Rico do not) are required to administer the test on the last Wednesdays of both July and February each year. The remainder of a state's bar-admissions testing takes place either on the Tuesday immediately prior, the Thursday immediately following, or both.

While most students take the bar exam in July, students who want to take it in a second state, who graduate in the fall, or who didn't pass their first time around can take it in February.

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This article originally appeared on JD Jungle.

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