Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

Stuff You Should Know

What's the bar exam like anyway?

04 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 3.763 Unknown

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

0

4.435 - 17.328 Josh Clark

I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

0

17.949 - 28.199 Unknown

Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com for your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

0

28.499 - 40.631 Chuck Bryant

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

0

41.131 - 45.555 Unknown

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

46.056 - 64.193 Chuck Bryant

But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

65.118 - 72.547 Unknown

Whether it is getting swatted or just hateful messages online, there is a lot of harm in even just reading the comments.

72.567 - 91.108 Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford

That's cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Every season is a chance to grow, and the Therapy for Black Girls podcast is here to walk with you. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, and each week we dive into real conversations that help you move with more clarity and confidence.

91.088 - 104.135 Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford

This episode, we're breaking down what really happens to your information online and how to protect yourself with intention. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Chapter 2: What is the bar exam and why is it important?

987.117 - 1009.773 Chuck Bryant

In my civilian mind, I see that as kind of a punt, legally speaking. And maybe that's, you know, a lot of times you decide something on precedent and whether or not you feel it's right or not, that's just the precedent. But I don't know, that felt like a punt to me by saying like, Well, they're not an employer, an agency or labor organization. So we're just sort of not going to hear this one.

0

1010.174 - 1031.428 Chuck Bryant

Yeah. And this this reveals to me something that I just find fascinating is when lawyers sue other lawyers or bodies of lawyers or judges rule on the test that it takes to create lawyers and therefore judges. It's it just seems so fraught. With basically opinion, because they're so like it's not like the judge is learning about this for the first time.

0

1031.448 - 1054.007 Chuck Bryant

They're coming at it from fresh eyes like this is like part of their fabric is having been a law student and becoming a lawyer and then becoming a judge. You know, I just find it fascinating. Yeah, totally. Should we wrap up sort of the testing stuff and then take a break? Yeah, let's get back into the evolution of the test again. Yeah. So now we're in the late 80s, 1988.

0

1054.127 - 1076.794 Chuck Bryant

I'm a junior in high school, still seeking that first kiss. And the NCBE has added the multistate essay examination at this point. So now you're back to essaying, which is how it previously had been until that multiple choice test. Right. And in 97, it handed over the multistate performance test or the MPT.

0

1076.774 - 1099.204 Chuck Bryant

which says, hey, let's sort of do like do some practice stuff, like write up a brief for me or write out a memo, draft a memo. We'll see how you do on that. And then finally, in 2011, the uniform bar exam or the UBE was adopted by most states where all three of those tests kind of make that one up as one big test.

1099.69 - 1122.999 Chuck Bryant

Yeah, which is, you know, if you're a state and you don't feel like going to the trouble of coming up with your entire, your own bar exam, now you can just use the UBE. Yeah. And it's proven, like there's all sorts of great questions in there. You sacrificed state law. But a lot of people say like, well, like law students don't need to sit around and memorize state law.

1123.019 - 1143.919 Chuck Bryant

That's a waste of time in favor of the UBE, which is pretty rich because a lot of people argue that the UBE itself is a waste of time because you have to memorize general law rather than state law, which we'll talk more about that. I just I'm chomping at the bit right now. Yeah, but it did make it like more easy to transfer from state to state and stuff like that. Right.

1143.939 - 1150.74 Chuck Bryant

And we'll get into those specifics too, but let's take that break. Okay. And we'll get into the basics of the bar right after this.

1170.211 - 1183.709 Josh Clark

I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Chapter 3: How does the bar exam vary across different jurisdictions?

1459.448 - 1488.161 Chuck Bryant

you're going to have to pay a fee for that. And the reason why is because there is no chance you're going to be allowed to bring your own laptop because they keep the place so tight and are so hawkish about preventing cheating that they actually provide tampons to people who need them because you're not allowed to bring in your own tampon. Wow. Really? Yeah, it's happened.

0

1488.381 - 1510.178 Chuck Bryant

And apparently it's not just an isolated thing that they have a bowl of tampons. Wow. You grab one if you need it and you hope that they don't run out if you really need it. So, yeah, it's like there's no way you're bringing your own laptop in. Yeah. Or tampon. Exactly. So, wow. I never knew that. That's a nice little tidbit. Thanks. I thought that was pretty great, too.

0

1510.732 - 1532.166 Chuck Bryant

So you have to have money to register. Like you said, you have to have money to, you know, a lot of times people take off work for several months. So you have to have a life that can do that, you know, which indicates a certain amount of at least either privilege or maybe hard work and saving if that's how you did it, which is great.

0

Chapter 4: What are the common criticisms of the bar exam?

1532.146 - 1559.149 Chuck Bryant

And then almost assuredly, you have paid several thousand dollars, maybe as much as six thousand dollars to take preparatory courses. About 60 percent of the market share in the United States is a company called B.A.R.B.R.I. Barbary can be up to six thousand, maybe as low as eighteen hundred bucks. And they have been around since the 1950s. And I was I was like, what does Barbary stand for?

0

1559.169 - 1585.221 Chuck Bryant

And I had a weirdly hard time finding out uh what it stood for until i sadly wikipedia just turned it up i should have gone to the most obvious place but i think when they merged in 2021 uh or no no they merged in the 70s i think uh and it was just the the names of two companies i think bay area review was bar and the bar review inc was bri and so they just squashed those together so

0

1585.201 - 1610.954 Chuck Bryant

Kind of a boring story. I had seen that it was a merger of Barbizon Modeling School and Brie, meaning the makers of Brie cheese around the world. Wow. That's a mashup I could enjoy. Right. And the $6,000 one that you can pay for, like the premium test prep, they actually have somebody take the test for you, and they even provide the person with a wig that matches your hair.

0

1611.134 - 1632.52 Chuck Bryant

So it looks a lot like you, too. I did see, though, they have a guarantee. If you do not, if you pay that money to them and you don't pass the bar, you, I think you get to take the course again for free one more time if you're taking the exam again. Okay. So you don't get your money back, but you get to retake the course at no charge. No.

0

1632.801 - 1656.569 Chuck Bryant

Barbara's on modeling has long had a motto, you don't get your money back. Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So let's break down the UBE, the Uniform Bar Examination, which is the culmination of decades of the National Conference of Bar Examiners' hard work, sweat, blood, tears, joy, pain. Yeah. And again, you can break it down into three parts that kind of came along separately.

1657.03 - 1682.98 Chuck Bryant

The first, remember, was that multiple choice test, the multi-state bar examination. Yeah. There's 200 multiple choice questions. I've seen 175. I guess it depends on... I don't know, your jurisdiction and how much, how valuable they find 25 questions. Yeah, maybe. But it covers seven different areas of the law. You want to take them? Sure. Simple procedure, contracts, of course. Nice. Torts.

1683.34 - 1694.756 Chuck Bryant

Ooh. Constitutional law. Mm-hmm. Criminal law, the sexiest law. Careful. Criminal law and procedure, that is. Evidence, which is its own category. And real property. Ka-ching.

1695.517 - 1695.617

Yeah.

1695.597 - 1723.891 Chuck Bryant

And that is 50% of the UBE score. Then the other two are the multi-state essay, once again, which is 30%. And then the two multi-state performance tests tasks. And that is 20%. Yeah. So you're like, okay, I could take that. No problem. Sure. You might be able to take it. You probably wouldn't pass. And you'd give up 12 hours plus of your life, 12 hours just of the test.

Chapter 5: What historical changes have influenced the bar exam process?

1749.496 - 1774.816 Chuck Bryant

Good point. And scotch at the end of the day, of course. That's right. It's graded on a 400-point scale. Depends on the state on what they consider passing. Generally, 260 to 270. I said state, of course, jurisdiction. And then apparently it's like it's not like acing the bar gets you anything more than passing the bar. You pass it and that's great.

0

1774.876 - 1798.13 Chuck Bryant

But I have some inside info from attorney friends, which I'll kind of dabble in here and there. But I think it's sort of untoward to you don't go in and be like, oh, it's the bar. Yeah, I saw a Reddit post where somebody posted like, I got a score of 330. And I mean, is that high? I don't mean to make anybody who's got lower than that feel bad, but I'm just curious. Like, what do you guys think?

0

1798.17 - 1823.967 Chuck Bryant

And it was like, you disgust us. Like that is just sad. So, yeah, it's not really cool to flex on people over your bar score. Yeah, you pass and you pass. Exactly. That's all that matters. That's right. And then if you do pass, there's always a gaggle of attorneys, usually quite experienced seasoned attorneys, who just are waiting for you to finish. And when you finish, they embrace you.

0

1824.908 - 1827.591 Chuck Bryant

And that's how you know that you've passed the bar exam.

0

1827.932 - 1828.052

Right.

1830.007 - 1853.162 Chuck Bryant

We did mention that those UBE scores are portable. It's not like the old days when you had to pass that state's bar. I think that's how it used to be kind of across the board. They're transferable for two to five years after taking the exam. It depends on the jurisdiction, of course. And then if you're in a jurisdiction that doesn't utilize that UBE test,

1853.142 - 1879.384 Chuck Bryant

Most of them still have the MBE as a big part of their exam, usually with their own specific like state law stuff if they do that. And there's usually also a third day, which you were talking about earlier, that third test, which is like a 60 question ethics test. Right. It's called the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, the MPRE. Yes. And they ask you questions.

1879.444 - 1906.368 Chuck Bryant

It's scored separately, but they have questions like, you know, Attorney Lionel Hutz brought in a bag of pot to one of his clients into prison. Is Attorney Hutz guilty of loving too much? Right. Was that a real Simpsons thing? No. Oh, okay. Because I could see that. They only really talked about pot, like, on a couple of really great episodes, but, you know. No, that wasn't their bag, normally.

1906.528 - 1926.869 Chuck Bryant

That wasn't their bag of pot. Oh, yeah. That wasn't their sack. Don't use that word. Yeah, sack's kind of gross, isn't it? Moist. Oh, boy. What was the other one? Moist sack. Oh. Or pussy. Go look that up in the transcript. Don't.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.