If you thought that your fall quarter finals were about as unpleasant as having an elephant stomp your head into a high-speed blender, take a moment to consider the California bar exam. The results of the July 2005 test reveal that out of 8668 test takers, over half failed. Even among already practicing U.S. attorneys, 45.9 percent passed the general bar examination, and barely 28 percent passed the attorneys’ examination.

Among those who failed was Stanford Law School Professor and former dean Kathleen Sullivan. Having previously passed the bar in New York and Massachusetts, Sullivan is a noted constitutional scholar who has practiced law for 25 years, making numerous appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court. She decided to take the California bar exam after joining a legal firm as an appellate specialist, but found that she was pressed for time to study.

“Last July, the press of other commitments plus an unexpected medical emergency left me too little time to prepare,” she said.

John Elias, a third-year law student preparing for the bar exam himself, said that Sullivan’s results provide “conclusive proof that the bar is primarily a guild system designed to limit competition rather than a process to certify competent lawyers. She was reportedly on [presidential candidate John] Kerry’s short-list for the Supreme Court and famed Harvard Law professor Larry Tribes called her ‘the most extraordinary student I had ever had, so the problem is clearly with the test.”

Indeed, the California test is considered the most difficult bar examination in the country, with no other state bearing a lower overall pass rate. One reason the California bar’s pass rate is so low is that it allows students from law schools unaccredited by the American Bar Association to take the exam.

Another reason, Law School Prof. Catherine Glaze explained, “is that it’s longer than any other state’s. While most other states’ bar exams last two to two-and-a-half days, the California bar exam takes three days,” covering subjects from constitutional and tort law to real property and wills and trusts. The first and third days of the exam consist of three one-hour essays in the morning and a three-hour performance test in the afternoon, during which test takers are asked to draft a legal document that analyzes a given file and library of documents. The second day consists of the Multistate Bar Examination, a six-hour multiple-choice test with 200 questions developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Some law professors criticize the test’s format for focusing too much on archaic laws not used in everyday legal practice and for forcing law students to commit these laws to rote memorization when most practicing lawyers are required to verify that laws are current anyway.

Daniel Solove, an associate professor of law at the George Washington University Law School, commented on Sullivan’s failure in his blog, ‘Concurring Opinions,’ arguing that “the longer one practices and the better one knows the law, the worse one will do on the bar exam. Sullivan’s problem was that she didn’t waste enough hours memorizing the often obsolete and reductive rules for the Bar Exam. Indeed, any practicing lawyer or law professor who doesn’t have a lot of time on her hands to waste would encounter a similar problem.”

Glaze also pointed out that “the examination graders spend five minutes reading what it took an hour to write. To people who go through the bar exam, it seems more like a hazing ritual.”

Most students ready themselves for the bar by taking a preparation course called Bar/Bri, which provides six weeks of preparation, featuring lectures by law professors on major areas tested by the bar exam and provides students with outline worksheets and sample examination questions. The preparation course can cost upwards of $2,000, and getting ready for the exam can require a solid two months of studying.

Patricia Stringel, a third-year law student, said that “the vast majority of SLS students pass, even though the overall passage rate for the state is low. Most of us are planning on taking bar prep courses, and I honestly don’t know anyone who is too worried about it. We are all planning on studying hard.”

Sullivan too remains confident that more preparation will help her pass the California bar next time.

“Taking the California bar in middle age requires preparation,” she said. “I’ll prepare more next time!”