Kathleen Goes Belly Up

I have only taken one bar exam, and I was fortunate enough to pass it on my first try. The key? For once in my life, I followed instructions and attended every class. No, I am not talking about law school, I am talking about the bar review course.

What is Kathleen Sullivan's excuse for failing the California bar exam?

Bar exams are not rocket science. They are a test of minimum competence to spot issues in the woeful tales clients come to tell us. A lawyer who has passed the bar exam is deemed able to sit, listen, and place the problem in the right pigeon hole.

So, let me get this right: The former dean of the Stanford Law School can't do that?

Sullivan was recruited last year to join a hot-shot California firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP. She is one of their appellate aces. It is safe to say she won't be arguing as anything other than pro hac vice in California for awhile.

What felled Sullivan? She is admitted in New York and Massachusetts. She has argued before the United States Supreme Court. She has authored a case book on Constitutional law. She is one of the law's hot shots, the sort that makes we lesser lights look downright dim.

Her firm is blaming the bar review graders. Oops I suspect the answer is simpler. She didn't study. No caviar in her firm's boardroom today; instead lots of raw egg to wipe from the corners of pursed lips.

Ms. Sullivan was unavailable to comment on the failure to a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She was at a "remote location."

I'll bet she was. This time she's probably sitting somewhere shamefully doing what she should have done before the first time she took the exam: studying.

Will this kill any chance she had of appointment to the United States Supreme Court should a Democrat ever again have a chance to appoint someone? Probably. Imagine the confirmation hearing? You failed the bar exam after how many decades of practicing law?

The Harvard law graduate is a great legal theoretician, but apparently not much of a lawyer. No surprise there.

Comments

[Mahan Atma]

In all fairness, the Ca. Bar Exam is harder than most. But yeah, you still have to study.

I'm sure she did fine on the con law parts of it, but somebody who deals with high level constitutional issues all the time isn't going to remember the finer points of trusts and estates, or the rule against perpetuities.

On the positive side, think of what a great consolation this is to all those who've failed the bar exam!

[C'mon, Norm]

"The Harvard law graduate is a great legal theoretician, but apparently not much of a lawyer. No surprise there."

Huh? This has nothing to do with the rest of your post, and is obviously absurd. Sullivan is a terrific lawyer; she just didn't pass a bar exam for which she didn't study.

[Mahan Atma]

^^^ I had the same thought. Passing a bar exam (or not) has little to do with being a good lawyer.

[NormPattis]

Guys:

Dunno if she's a good lawyer or not. Last I heard she was nine-tenths legal academic, which means diddly in terms of representing actual clients. Her hot-air balloon got pricked, and I, for one, am delighted.

N

[Mahan Atma]

^^^ Acccording to the link you provided, she's argued several cases before the Supreme Court, and had little time to study for the bar precisely because of being "inundated with work for the firm".

[NormPattis]

You sound like her flack. A few cases before the Supremes and navel gazing a textbook and dean at Stanford. Smart, but not a lawyer I'd trust to handle the sort of chaos that befalls most folk. If she's too arrogant to study for a test, how arrogant is she on behalf of the half dozen or so people she represents in a year?

[Mahan Atma]

I'm not trying to be her flack, I'm just trying to look at it fairly.

1) I don't think there's any evidence that she failed to study because she was arrogant. She might have been genuinely preoccupied with her work. Or maybe she failed the test for some other reason entirely, who knows? Lots of good lawyers have failed the test only to pass it later.

2) There are many different kinds of lawyers. Pure appellate lawyers tend not to face the sort of chaos that befalls most folk, but that doesn't make them bad attorneys.

Methinks you're guilty of anti-elite elitism!

[nORMpATIS]

May I plead guilty under the Alford doctrine?

[Paul Gowder]

Norm, this is silly and spiteful, nothing like the high quality of most of your posts (which I look forward to). The whole notion of making someone who knows more constitutional law than all but maybe 15 people in the country (counting the Justices of the Supreme Court) and will never step out of the appellate courtroom to memorize a bunch of stupid wills rules (ok, now how much is that marital share again?) is patently stupid. It just shows that the bar exam is moronic.

Frankly, I'd trust Kathleen Sullivan's judgment about what one needs to be a good lawyer over the judgment of a bunch of bar examiners any way.

[ES]

This is exactly the same sort of thinking that will perpetuate Cal's bar exam as it is. It is simple minded to reduce a woman who herself taught law school as being an incompetant lawyer merely because she failed the exam. It is a test. Nothing more. Nothing less. It only tests people on how to take the exam and not in the practice of law (thus why less than a third of attorneys who took the exam passed in July).

The bigger question is why California feels the need to fail so many people in exchange for allowing those who go to lawschool on the internet to sit for the exam. The fact is this whole thing is a money making scheme for lawschools, bar review programs and the California Bar Exam.

[John]

You obviously know nothing about the bar. The passage rates are lower for lawyers, meaning those who are already licensed in other states. The bar doesn't test your ability to practice law. It challenges you to memorized a lot of information you won't otherwise use. That's why bar courses are so important. That said, it's shameful she didn't pass. And it's pathetic that her firm is blaming the test. She just had to do what everyone else does. And, the firm relies on the LSAT to hire lawyers, so it can't claim that standardized tests on the one hand aren't reflective of intellectual might and on the other hand determine the best attorneys.

[Jessie]

Norm - which STATE bar did YOU pass? Judging from your post/comment - I'm not sure if you've learned how to "think like a lawyer". By the way, I know of a lawyer who passed his exam on his first try - but got fired three months after working. Why? He sucked as a lawyer. I also know of a lawyer who passed on his 3rd try. He's won every motion/brief/case since.

[Aaron]

Oh come on. If a lawyer is winning every motion and case he takes to court, he's only taking easy cases.

[Xantor]

I passed CA 1st time. No big deal. Then I passed NV and AZ too -- w/out studying or taking a review class. And I went to a not so great school. Shows how overrated these big name law grads are. Every time this bimbo is on TV spewin' man hating feminazi bigotry now, just remember SHE'S SO DUMB she can't even pass the CA bar exam!! Haw ha ha! I can't believe it. The "I didn't study" excuse doesn't wash either. Anyone with a brain should be able to hit a big enough number on the MBE to render sujective essay grading irrelevant. That's how I passed AZ & NV even though I didn't nail the essays. If you can't put up a big MBE score, what da hell you doin' being DEAN of Stanford Law? This feminazi needs to be disbarred entirely and put to work in da kitchen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lil]

How about working in the kitchen AND studying?? I passed the NY bar (1st time) while 8-1/2 months pregnant with my daughter. I passed the Pa bar 5 weeks after giving birth to my son. (I just studied the review books; I didn't take a review course.) My daughter (the same one who was kicking me in the belly when I took the exam) is now grown and just passed the the NJ bar (1st time) while 8 months pregnant.