Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Ethical Lawyers
I'm starting to get ready to take the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), the ethics portion of the bar exam which is common to all states. This is the one part of the bar exam you're allowed to take before you graduate from law school, and tradition has it you take it the fall or spring of your third year (like now).
The MPRE is a standardized test of 50 multiple choice questions, scored on a scale of 50 to 150, with 100 as the standardized median.
Now here's the scary part: To pass the MPRE (that is, to prove that you know the legal rules of ethics well enough to be given a license to practice law), you only need to score a 75 to 85 (depending on the state). Notice: That's well below average. In fact, if you randomly chose answers to the 50 questions, you could probably pull off a 75. Sadly, Virginia, where I'll be taking the bar, requires an 85, so I'll have to read the questions before I answer them.
But does this explain anything about the perceived and/or real lack of ethics in the legal profession?
The MPRE is a standardized test of 50 multiple choice questions, scored on a scale of 50 to 150, with 100 as the standardized median.
Now here's the scary part: To pass the MPRE (that is, to prove that you know the legal rules of ethics well enough to be given a license to practice law), you only need to score a 75 to 85 (depending on the state). Notice: That's well below average. In fact, if you randomly chose answers to the 50 questions, you could probably pull off a 75. Sadly, Virginia, where I'll be taking the bar, requires an 85, so I'll have to read the questions before I answer them.
But does this explain anything about the perceived and/or real lack of ethics in the legal profession?
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