The bar exam is a perennial discussion topic between licensed attorneys and law students. Most law students dread not passing the bar exam, and California strikes extra fear in the tender hearts of aspiring lawyers. The list of people who have failed the California bar exam is long and distinguished, including the former Dean of Stanford Law School and two California governors. Is Rhode Island far behind? Only 36 people passed Rhode Island Bar Exam in February.
Most (if not all) jurisdictions require a license to practice law, and to get a law license, you need to pass the bar exam. In Rhode Island, practicing law without a license is a crime. Oddly enough, a law school graduate does not need a law license to serve as a law clerk to a judge. Technically, a law clerk is not practicing law. You could be a law clerk to a United States Supreme Court or Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice, expounding on important and complex questions, and do so without a law license. Go figure.
As law school winds down, law students turn their attention to the bar exam. Bar exams are typically held twice a year in most states. The first sitting is a couple months after law school graduation, in July, and the second sitting is in February. Most law students take the bar exam for the first time in July, and if they don’t pass, they take it again in February. Law clerks who go straight to a clerkship from law school have the option of taking the summer off and sitting for the exam in February (because they don’t need a law license to be a law clerk), but few go this route. Since February is more likely to include people who have already failed the bar exam, the pass rate in February is traditionally lower than in July.
The discussion between the licensed attorney and the law student/aspiring bar exam taker usually goes something like this — licensed attorney: “if you study and put in the work, you’ll do fine.” Bar exam taker: doesn’t say anything but exudes a nervous smile, or maybe a facial twitch. Licensed attorney: “no really, it’s not that hard, it just seems hard, and you’ll be really nervous, but everyone is nervous.” Bar exam taker: “everyone says that, but I don’t know.” Licensed attorney: tells some war story about the bar exam involving a fire alarm, earthquake, regurgitation, and/or a computer crashing, and ends the story with, “but you know what, you’ll be fine if you study and you’ll pass.” Bar exam taker: goes on his or her way not feeling any better about passing the bar exam.
Unfortunately, the aspiring bar exam taker’s version of events is closer to reality than the attempting-to-comfort-but-not-really-comforting licensed attorney worldview. In Rhode Island, the pass rate for the February 2018 was only 53%, and this was an improvement over prior years. February 2016 had a 47% pass rate, and February 2017 saw 45% of test takers pass. The percentages for the July exam are only slightly better — the pass rate was 63% in 2016 and 66% in 2017. These are downward trends from prior years that had higher pass rates and more people taking the exam. On the bright side, these numbers are still better than California. Only 27% of test takers passed the California bar exam in February 2018.
The low numbers of people passing the Rhode Island bar exam raises the query of whether Rhode Island has reached a lawyer replacement rate below zero. Only 36 people passed the bar in February 2018, and 75 people passed the bar in July 2017, for an annualized rate of 111 new lawyers per year in Rhode Island.
Are more than 111 licensed attorneys leaving the practice of law in Rhode Island each year? According to the American Bar Association, the answer is probably yes. In 2007, the American Bar Association counted 4,351 active attorneys in Rhode Island. By 2017, the number of active attorneys in Rhode Island dropped to 4,167, a 4.2% decline. Given the low numbers of new lawyers entering the Rhode Island Bar, the numbers will probably continue to drop. If the average lawyer has a 30 year career, that means around 140 attorneys leave the practice of law each year in Rhode Island based on current numbers. Cue the lawyer jokes, but a continued decline would raise important questions about access to the legal system.
Add it all up and Rhode Island is the New California. California had 168,746 active attorneys in 2017. That’s one lawyer for every 234 people in California, per the U.S. Census population numbers. Rhode Island is similar, with one lawyer for every 254 people. And that doesn’t count the people who move to California from Rhode Island. They all come back eventually. Nothing beats quahogs, cabinets and coastline.