Chuck Bryant

I mean, I can just see Lincoln busting it out so casually.

Yeah, I think the takeaway is the guy didn't even know the test had begun, essentially.

No, he had no idea.

Exactly.

I'm glad you added that part.

Sure.

So the actual first written bar exam, kind of like they are today, that popped up around 1855, I think, in Massachusetts.

And then it became a requirement about 20 years later in Suffolk County, where Boston was.

And by 1920, written exams were like the way to go.

And because now it wasn't just getting quizzed with the judge, law school started popping up and developing to kind of train you to prepare for that written exam at the very least.

And they actually became an alternative to apprenticing, which, as you'll see later on, is kind of inverted these days.

But that was something you could do if, like, say, all of the lawyers in your town were jerks.

Yeah.

you could go to a law school instead of apprenticing.

When you graduated law school, then you could take your bar exam.

Those were your two ways, your two paths to the bar exam back then.

Yeah.

By 1921, the American Bar Association was around and they said, you know, we really prefer a written exam to license.

I don't think they mandated it at that point.

Yeah.