Benfits of a universal bar exam - Essay Example

The second common bar exam is the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) that covers seven areas of law and it is used by 48 states and the district of Columbia. The Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) is used to test the ability of the students to use complex answers to difficult questions, the state that does not apply MEE use a state precise edition that focus on the laws of the state. The Multistate Performance Test (MPT) is used to test the ability of a law student to perform the basic duties of an attorney such as writing memos to clients or judges and writing judicial opinions and it is used in 33 states (National Conference of Bar Examiners, 2007).

These variations of the bar exams in the state make law practice exceedingly difficult for law graduates to work in different states from the ones they graduated in, this essay will therefore try to look at some of the advantages of using an universal bar exams in testing law students from all the states and other American territories. Universal bar exams, since they will be uniform, will enable the students in the various states and American territories to be able to get employment easily in any of the state.

This is because universal bar exams unlike the state specific ones which test the students using some of the state’s law uses laws that are applicable to all the states hence the standards will be much or less the same for all attorneys that sit the exams countrywide. In addition, this will give the Bar examiners a much simpler task of setting and marking these exams as the questions are standardized. Bar exams such as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, which test the conduct of attorneys in regard to their peers in the law profession, their clients and the courts limit how and where attorneys handle cases.

This is because, although the multistate professional responsibility exam is conducted in almost all the states, the remaining states have their own version of the same, which may differ with other states depending on what the professional conduct, and ethics of attorneys in the respective state dictate. This may bring conflict where an attorney from one state with a different code of conduct goes to practice in another state, which has different code of conduct and expectations from him. In addition, the MPRE is usually done three times a year, in different states; the timing of the exams may be different which may therefore lead to leakage of the exams spreading from the states that did it earlier to those states that do it at a later time, which goes to undermine the integrity of the exams.

With different bar exams, the quality of law graduates that are produced from these exams differ, in one state, the exams might be very hard and which require a lot of extensive reading and research, while in another state. An equivalent version of the exam may require little effort from the students in order to pass them therefore the levels of preparedness of graduates from these two states will be different although their bar examination results will be showing they all passed. Universal