Old Guard Judges Discover Bar Exam Will Test Actual Lawyering Skills, Lose Their Fucking Minds
Old Guard Judges Discover Bar Exam Will Test Actual Lawyering Skills, Lose Their Fucking Minds
Great Caesar's ghost, we've got seasoned judges having meltdowns because the bar exam might test whether lawyers can actually lawyer!
Filed Under: When "That's How We've Always Done It" Meets Reality
Meet the NextGen Bar Exam - a modernized version of the bar exam set to debut in 2026 that will test foundational lawyering skills instead of just pure memorization. Sounds reasonable for the 21st century, right?
WRONG, according to various old-school judges and legal traditionalists who are absolutely losing their shit because the new exam focuses on practical skills instead of memorizing every obscure legal rule ever written.
These fine legal minds have concluded that testing actual lawyering abilities instead of rote memorization will "dangerously lower standards." Because apparently, the only way to maintain quality in the legal profession is to make sure lawyers can recite the Rule Against Perpetuities from memory but have no fucking clue how to counsel a client in the age of AI.
The "Terrifying" Changes That Are Causing Panic
Let's examine these dangerous modifications that threaten the very fabric of American legal tradition:
Current Bar Exam: 12 hours of pure memorization testing 14 subjects, including arcane shit you'll never use in practice
NextGen Bar Exam: 9 hours testing 8 core subjects with integrated question sets that simulate actual legal work
The horror! The absolute fucking horror!
Skills They'll Actually Test:
Legal research and writing
Issue spotting and analysis
Investigation and evaluation
Client counseling and advising
Negotiation and dispute resolution
Client relationship management
Skills Traditional Bar Exam Defenders Apparently Prefer:
Memorizing every subsection of the UCC
Reciting property law rules from 1642
Identifying the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow
Advanced suffering endurance
Pretending AI doesn't exist