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What's the bar exam like anyway? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is one of
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: those good old fashioned rootin tootin Rudy Fruity episodes of
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Know Rudy two D fresh and Fruity.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: That's right, I forgot the rest of it, but yes,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: you knew what I was laying down?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Can I shock you right off the bat?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have ever been in an I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: hoop restaurant and eden M I don't think so.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: See, this is normally where I'd be like, what yeah,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: But I don't think you're missing enough to warrant what yeah?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I mean if it was always waffle house, if we
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: were going to do something like that. So yeah, never
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: been in an Eyehup.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: The two are actually not really that comparable, to tell
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: you the truth. I mean there, if you went to
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a waffle House and then went to an ihop, you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be like been to one, been to the other.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Their their menus are different enough, the vibes different enough.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Is I have more relatable to like a Denny's? Yes, Okay,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I've been to Denny's, but.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, much, then you don't need to go to ihup.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Can we thank the listener who suggested this episode?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember their email, but I don't remember their name.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I finally actually wrote it down and we're
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: not doing it weeks later. But this came from listener Rowan.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure how to pronounce this last name,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go with Garin DESSI that's a great name,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Garon Daisy.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I like Garan Daisy more because of the daisy part.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but Rowan wrote in and I was like, you
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: know what, I think someone in Rowan's life had taken
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the bar and I think they realized that they didn't
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: know much about it. And I was like, you know,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I've never really thought much about the bar exam and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Well, didn't they also send like a little clip or
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: a an anecdote about how crazy it gets during the test,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: like how nuts people will will or what Yeah, so
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: links they'll go to to finish?
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I do remember that. Actually, Well,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: save it, save it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the bar exam. Chuck. For those people
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: who aren't aware, and from what I can understand, essentially
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: every country in the world that has lawyers has a
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: bar exam. But it's the test that you have to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: take in most places to become a practicing attorney, to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: become licensed as an attorney. And that's it. There's bar
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: exam everybody, goodbye.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. And you know they the word bar is
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: there because I think it's named after the literal bar
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: railing in a courtroom that divides the public from you know,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the business end.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Right where they yeah, where you're not really supposed to
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: go past, or else a baylift will jump on you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I remember there was a local news story once about
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a judge who'd been drinking like during work, huh, and
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: like they followed him, like on his lunch hour and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: followed him into like a place where he was drinking.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: They were like teeing up the story and they said,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: this judge not only passed the bar, he went in
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: and drank at it. And that I mean, like I
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: saw that fifteen years ago and it stuck with me
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: ever since.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: That's so lazy it is, but I mean.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I thought it was pretty good to tell you the truth.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, that's like when Neil days when we were
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: writers for Howstuff Works dot com, and like a shining
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: week is when I wrote a clever what do you
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: call the thing under the picture caption caption? Now I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: can't even remember cap with the word caption.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: That's been a whole Do you remember any good ones?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: No? No, But I was like, hey, I'm gonna check
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this out. I wrote a clever caption. It was my
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: first professional writing job, so I was, you know, showing pride. No.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I remember that. We used to tell one another there
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: are great clever captions. Yeah, this one music lyrics we'd
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: fit in two articles that we just thought we were
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: so sly about.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now we just say dumb things with our mouths.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, I feel like we've shaken off all of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: the curious lawyers who don't normally listen to us, so
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: we can get started everybody. One of the things about
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the bar exam I never understood, and I would guess
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: also that most people out there who aren't attorneys or
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: aspiring attorneys wouldn't really get. But there's a lot of
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: criticism about the bar exam. It's it's not just some
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: tests that lawyers have to take to get licensed, which
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: on its face sounds great because like with any professional
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: licensing that protects the public from incompetent lawyers, they have
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to show that they understand the minimum standard of how
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to practice law that will prevent them from being such
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: a dipstick that their clients are going to get electrocuted
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: because they represented them so poorly. It's way way more
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: kit than that. Yeah, socially speaking, culturally speaking, socio culturally speaking.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you don't want to end up with the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Lionel Huts, right.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: No, he almost certainly did not pass the bar.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Well, well, we'll get to it, but you don't necessarily
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: have to pass the bar in every state in the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: United States to practice law. But sit on it, everybody,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: because that's coming. I guess we should go back in
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: time and talk about a little bit of the history
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: because if you go back to colonial days, pre states
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in the United States or not in the United States,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: but you know what will one day be the United States,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and then.
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  Speaker 2: Buy the rest of the curious lawyers Exactly.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: There were no bar exams because there were no law schools.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: If you wanted to work as a lawyer, you would
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: apprentice or clerk for a practicing lawyer for you know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes you would just do it and donate your time
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to working for them. Sometimes you would do that and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: actually pay them right, which you know, it seems like
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  Speaker 1: a pretty good system. And we'll talk more about apprenticing
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: later because for my money, I think that's a pretty
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  Speaker 1: good way to do things.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But by seventeen fifty, which pretty early on, all of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the colonies got on board basically and said, all right,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: we need we need standards for people to do this job,
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  Speaker 1: and we need to kind of all agree on what
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that's going to be.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And like a lot of stuff or most things
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  Speaker 2: with American law, they were following in the tradition of England,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: which had had some sort of exam or another for
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: people to become attorneys as far back as the sixteenth century.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: But America wasn't that far behind, you know, a couple
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: hundred years apparently. The first one was Delaware in seventeen
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: eighty three, and it was essentially just you would go
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: and hang out with a judge and they would quiz
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: you on some legal stuff. Yeah, and if you got
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: it right, you were you were accepted to the bar.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: You were an attorney. From that point on it was
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  Speaker 2: okay for you to practice. It was all so supposedly
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: looked on as very easy too.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I imagine a lot of that depended on the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: judge that you got in, like maybe how much they
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: liked you. In those early days, it was really sort
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of the wild wild West there. Libya helped us with this,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and she dug up a pretty fun story about Abraham Lincoln,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: who was a bar examiner for the state of Illinois
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  Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties and was apparently just like at
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  Speaker 1: a hotel chatting with a lawyer in a room, and
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  Speaker 1: the lawyer answered a few questions and Lincoln was like, congratulations,
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  Speaker 1: you're an attorney.
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  Speaker 2: So great man. Yeah, yeah, I love that story too.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I can just see Lincoln butting it out
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  Speaker 2: so casually.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the takeaway is the guy didn't even
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  Speaker 1: know the test had begun.
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  Speaker 2: Essentially, No, he had no idea exactly. I'm glad you
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  Speaker 2: added that part.
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  Speaker 1: Sure.
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  Speaker 2: So the actual first written bar exam, kind of like
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  Speaker 2: they are today, that popped up around eighteen fifty five,
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  Speaker 2: I think in Massachusetts, and then it became a requirement
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  Speaker 2: about twenty years later in Suffolk County, where Boston wasn't.
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  Speaker 2: By nineteen twenty, written exams were like the way to go.
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  Speaker 2: And because now it wasn't just getting quizzed with the judge,
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  Speaker 2: law school started popping up and developing to kind of
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  Speaker 2: train you to prepare for that written exam at the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: very least, and they actually became an alternative to apprenticing, which,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: as you'll see later on, is kind of inverted these days.
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  Speaker 2: But that was something you could do if, like say,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: all of the lawyers in your town were jerks. You
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: could go to a law school instead of apprenticing. When
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: you graduated law school, then you could take your bar exam.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Those were your two ways, your two paths to the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: bar exam back then.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, by nineteen twenty one, the American Bar Association was
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  Speaker 1: around and they said, you know, we really prefer a
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  Speaker 1: written exam to license. They I don't think they mandated
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  Speaker 1: it that point, yeah, but they, you know, states generally
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  Speaker 1: kind of fell in line behind the ABA, and I
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  Speaker 1: think by nineteen thirty one, another decade later, the American
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  Speaker 1: Association of Law Schools got together with the committee and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: they said, all right, we need to develop a real
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  Speaker 1: system here. So they came together with the National Conference
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  Speaker 1: of Bar Examiners, and at that time nineteen thirties, they
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  Speaker 1: were really like the testing that they were concerned about
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: was what they called black letter law, just sort of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: really unambiguous black and white yes or no answers to
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: things on like you know, how things are literally legally
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  Speaker 1: defined and not a lot of like you know, hypotheticals
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: being bandied about which you're going to get stuff, Yeah, exactly,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: which you're going to get more these days in the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: bar exam.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but one of the problems with taking a test
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: like that is that your hand can get cramped. They
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: didn't want prospective lawyers hands cramping. So in nineteen seventy two,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the National Conference of Bar Examiners came up with the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Multi State Bar exis Amination, and that created a multiple
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: choice test. Yeah, it also really kind of dug into
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: like your knowledge. But at the same time you can
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: also say, like this is where it became a little
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: more standardized and less lucy goosey. But in that sense
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: it also became a little more scientific minded by creating
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: a test that you can say this is right, this
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: is wrong. And it wasn't just legal terms. They were
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: applying it to hypothetic hypothetical situations, but it was still
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: multiple choice, so you could grate it much more easily.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how I feel about multiple choice
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in a test like this. Anytime you can sort of guess, right,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think you can necessarily guess your way to success.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: But I don't know.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I think you just came up with a T shirt
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: guess your way to success.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, and then on the back just ABCD and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just a check mark next to the sea. All the above,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: all of the above, go ahead, you go ahead. No. Well,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: as this is sort of developing over the decades, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: think we're at the seventies here, but it kind of
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: became clear during this period that, like, hey, what we've
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: got here as a gate keeping service? Essentially Ostensibly the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: reason was, like you said, is like we want to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: keep only like you know, really knowledgeable people that know
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: what they're doing in these jobs to protect people that
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: hire them for lots and lots of money. But as
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: this was happening, it became even more clear that there
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was a side effect of that, which was, you know, immigrants,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: black people, other people of color that were vying to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: become attorneys were having a harder time. And this is evidence.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Really early on in nineteen twelve, they accidentally admitted three
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: black attorneys into the ABA, and because they didn't have
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like check here for race, and then they
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: were like, oh goodness, we accidentally let in three blacks attorneys,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: so we need to start screening basically for race.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they said, we need to add a check here
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: for race thing on the application to take the bar exam,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and that's essentially what they did. So from nineteen twelve
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: all the way to nineteen forty three, if you checked
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: African American or god knows what they had down for
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: you to check back, then you were just not allowed
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: to take the bar exam. Sorry. Yeah, like this is
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: it was an actual, like you said, a gatekeeping mechanism
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to prevent black people from becoming lawyers in the United States.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: And so in nineteen twenty five, prospective black lawyers said
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: nuts to that, and they got together with actual black
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: lawyers and they came up with the National Bar Association,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: which is still around today as an alternative for black
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: attorneys to basically become attorneys rather than have to go
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: through the ABA.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, since then, especially in like thenineteen seventies,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: there there seemed to be like a series of lawsuits
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: from black lawyers in different states that were suing over
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: various what they thought were, you know, discriminatory policies within
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the test. I don't think many of those were successful though,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: were they No.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: The one that sticks out the most that I've heard
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the most described as well just basically A good example
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: of the lawsuits that came around at this time was
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Tyler versus Vickery, Yeah, or Tyler v. Vickery if you're
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: a lawyer. It was a class action suit that alleged
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: that Georgia's bar examination's cut score, which is the minimum
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: score you have to have to pass, had been adjusted
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: with the introduction of the multi state Bar exam, remember
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the multiple choice tests that they introduced, That it had
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: basically been introduced in designed to continue to keep black
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: people from passing the bar exam. And the Fifth Court
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of Georgia said, we don't really think that's true. For
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: some reason, they said, we don't see any intent to discriminate,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: which is neither here nor there under Title seven of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the Civil Rights Act, which prevents employment discrimination. Yeah, but
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: they also said, here's the thing. The bar. The American
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Bar Association is not an employer, they're not a labor organization,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: they're not an employment agency, so therefore Title seven doesn't
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: really apply to them. And the court said ABA continue
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: to discriminate through the bar exam as you see fit.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that I don't know much about lawyer stuff, and my.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Spit about lawyer.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: In my spit in my civilian mind, I see that
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: as kind of a punt legally speaking. And maybe that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was that, maybe that's you know, a lot of times
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you decide something on precedent, and whether or not you
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: feel it's right or not, that's just the precedent. But
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that felt like a punt to me
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: by saying like, well, they're not an employer and an
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: agency or labor organization, so we're just sort of not
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: going to hear this one.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And this reveals to me something that I just
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: find fascinating is when lawyers sue other lawyers or bodies
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: of lawyers, or judges rule on the test that it
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: takes to create lawyers and therefore judges, it just seems
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: so fraud with basically opinion because they're so like, it's
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: not like the judges learning about this for the first time.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: They're coming at it from fresh eyes, like this is
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: like part of their fabric as having been a law
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: student and becoming a lawyer and then becoming a judge.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I just find it fascinating.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Should we wrap up sort of the testing
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: stuff and then take a break.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get back into the evolution of the test again.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So now we're in the late eighties, nineteen eighty eight,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'm a junior in high school, still seeking that first kiss,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and the NCBE has added the Multi State Essay Examination
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: at this point, so now you're back to essaying, which
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: is how it previously had been until that multiple choice test.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And in ninety seven it handed over the Multi State
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Performance Test, or the MPT, which says, hey, let's sort
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: of do like do some practice stuff like right up
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a brief for me, or write out a memo, draft
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a memo. Let's see how you do on that. And
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: then finally, in twenty eleven, the Uniform Bar Exam or
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the UBE was adopted by most states, where all three
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of those tests kind of make that one up as
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: one big test.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is, you know, if you're a state and
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: you don't feel like going to the trouble of coming
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: up with your entire your own bar exam. Now you
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: can just use the UB. Yeah, and it's it's proven. Likes,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: there's all sorts of great questions in there. You sacrificed
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: state law. But a lot of people say, like, well,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: like law students don't need to sit around and memorize
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: state law. That's a waste of time in favor of
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: the UBE, which is pretty rich because a lot of
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: people argue that the UB itself is a waste of
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: time because you have to memorize general law rather than
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: state law, which we'll talk more about that. I just
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I'm chomping at the bit right now.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it did make it like more easy to
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: transfer from state to state and stuff like that. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: we'll get into those specifics too, but let's take that
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: break and we'll get into the basics of the bar
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: right after this.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So, Chuck, it turns out there's fifty six jurisdiction in
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the United Statesty, I didn't fifty states, plus some territories,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: you got some overseas possessions, you got you know what else.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: So there's fifty six and each jurisdiction has its own
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: like highest agency that basically says these are the standards
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: to become a lawyer in the state. And again a
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: lot of them just said you have to pass the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: uniform bar exam. That's the standard, but they also can
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: kind of mess with it here there, and it's up
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: to this agency that's associated with the highest court in
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the state, usually the state Supreme Court.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And most jurisdictions, if you just to take
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the bar exam, you have to have graduated from an
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: accredited law school from the American Bar Association, which usually
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: means a three year program. Some states, though, are like, hey,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: if you didn't go to an accredited school, that's fine,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: We'll still let you take the bar. If you are
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: in Washington State, Virginia, Vermont, or California, they allow a
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: legal apprentice ship to swap out law school, which I
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: think is super kind of cool. Yeah, and Maine in
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: New York let you about like a year or two
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: about law school for an apprenticeship.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, which is pretty neat. It's old schools
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: to throw that kind of thing. Yeah, if you want
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: to take the bar exam, most of the time it's
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: given in February and July. Those are your two options.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And then you're gonna pay some money for it. And
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of ways you're gonna pay money for it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Just to register to take it the bar exam itself.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: It can be a few hundred dollars. It can be
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: more than one thousand dollars, depending on your state and
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: how greedy they are. Yeah, if you want to use
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: a laptop, you want to type out your briefs and
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: your memos and your essays rather than write them out
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: because you get hand cramps like the old lawyers used to. Yeah,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: you're gonna have to pay a fee for that. And
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the reason why is because there is no chance you
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: are going to be allowed to bring your own laptop
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: because they keep the the place so tight and are
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: so hawkish about preventing cheating that they actually provide tampons
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to people who need them because you're not allowed to
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: bring in your own tampon.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Wow. Really, yeah, that's.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Happened, And apparently it's not just an isolated thing that
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: they have a bowl of tampons. Wow, you grab one
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: if you need it, and you hope that they don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: run out. If you really need it. So yeah, it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: it's like, there's no way you're bringing your own laptop in.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or tampon exactly. So wow, I never knew that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That's a nice little tidbit.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Thanks. I thought that was pretty great too.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So, uh, you got to have money to register, Like
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you said, you have to have money to you know
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of times people take off work for several months,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: So you have to have a life that can do that,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: you know, which indicates a certain amount of at least
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: either privilege or maybe hard work in saving if that's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: how you did it, which is great. And then almost assuredly,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you have paid several thousand dollars, maybe as much as
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: six thousand dollars to take preparatory courses. About sixty percent
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of the market share in the United States is a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: company called barri Barbary can be up to six thousand,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: maybe as low as eighteen hundred bucks, and they have
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: been around since the nineteen fifties. And I was like,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: what does Barbarie stand for? And I had a weirdly
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: hard time finding out what it stood for until I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: sadly Wikipedia just turned it up. I should have gone
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to the most obvious place, but I think when they
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: merged in twenty twenty one or no, no, no, they merged
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: in the seventies, I think, And it was just the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: names of two companies. I think Bay Area Review was
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: bar and the Bar Review Inc. Was Bri and so
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they just squashed those together. Kind of a boring story.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I had seen that it was a merger of Barbizon
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Modeling School Oh and Bree, meaning the makers of Bree
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: cheese around the world.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's a that's a mashup I could enjoy.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Right, And the six thousand dollars one that you can
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: pay for like the premium test prep. They actually have
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: somebody to take the test for you, and they even
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: provide the person with a wig that matches your hair
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: so it looks a lot like you too.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I did see, though, they have a guarantee if you
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: do not if you pay that money to them and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you don't pass the bar, you I think, you get
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to take the course again for free, one more time.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: If you're taking the exam again.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, nice.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: You don't get your money back, but you get to
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: retake the course at no charge. No.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Barbizon Modeling has long had a model you don't get
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: your money.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Back right, Yeah, exactly.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: So let's break down the UBE the uniform Bar examination,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: which is the culmination of decades of the National Conference
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: of Bar Examiners, hard work, sweat, blood, tears, joy pain. Yeah,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and again it's you can break it down in the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: three parts that kind of came along separately. The first
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: remember was that multiple choice tests, the multi state bar examination. Yeah,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: there's two hundred multiple choice questions. I've seen one hundred
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and seventy five. I guess it depends on I don't
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: know your jurisdiction and how much how valuable they find
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: twenty five questions.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, but it.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Covers seven different areas of the law.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: You want to take them, sure, simple procedure, contracts of course,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: nice towrts, oh, constitutional law, criminal law, that sexiest law,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: careful criminal on procedure, that is evidence which is its
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: own category, and real property kuching. And that is fifty
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: percent of the UB score. Then the other two are
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the multi state essay once again, which is thirty percent,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and then the two multi state performance tasks and that
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: is twenty percent.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're like, okay, I could take that, no problem.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Sure you might be able to take it. You probably
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: wouldn't pass, and you'd give up twelve hours plus of
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: your life, twelve hours just of the test. It's spread
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: out over three days technically, but the UBE takes up
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: two of those days, twelve hours divided by two days
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: divided by four sessions. So three in the morning, three
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: in the afternoon, go to your hotel room, can't sleep,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: toss and turn. Come back the next morning, three in
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: the morning, three in the afternoon.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh well we should mention too. That's another reason
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you might be paying some extra money if you don't
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: live near a testing site, like travel and room and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: board and all that stuff. Good point and scotch at
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the end of the day.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Of course, that's right.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It's graded on a four hundred point scale. Depends on
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the state on what they consider passing, generally to sixty
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: to two seventy. I said, state of course, jurisdiction. And
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: then apparently it's like, it's not like acing the bar
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: gets you anything more than passing the bar. You pass it,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and that's great. But I have some inside info from
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: attorney friends, which i'll kind of dabble in here and there,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: but I think it's sort of untoward to you don't
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: go in and be like, oh, it's the bar. Yeah.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: I saw a Reddit post where somebody posted like I
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: got a score of three thirty, and I mean, is
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that high. I don't mean to make anybody who's got
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: lower than that feel bad, but I'm just curious, like
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: what do you guys think? And it was like you
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: discussed us like that is just sad. So yeah, it's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: not really cool to flex on people over your.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Pass bar score. And you pass it, all that matters.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. And then if you do pass, there's always
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: a gaggle of attorneys, usually quite experienced, seasoned attorneys who
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: just are waiting for you to finish, and when you finish,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: they embrace you, and that's how you know that you've
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: passed the bar exam.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: We did mention that those UB scores are portable. You
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: can It's not like the old days when you had
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: to pass that state's bar, you know. I think that's
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: how it used to be kind of across the board, right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: They're transferable for two to five years after taking the exam.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: It depends on the jurisdiction, of course, and then if
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: they if you're in a jurisdiction that doesn't utilize that
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: UB test. Most of them still have the NB as
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: a big part of their exam, usually with their own
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: specific like state laws stuff if they do that. And
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: there's usually also a third day, which you were talking
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: about earlier, that third test, which is like a sixty
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: question ethics test.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Right, it's called the Multi State Professional Responsibility Examination the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: MPRE yes, and they ask you questions. It scored separately,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: but they have questions like, you know, Attorney Lionel Hutts
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: brought in a bag of pot to one of his
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: one of his clients into prison. Is Attorney huts guilty
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: of loving too much?
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Right? Was that a real Simpsons thing?
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: No?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, because I could see that.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: They only really talked about pot, like on a couple
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of really great episodes. But you know, no, that wasn't
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: their bag normally, that wasn't their bagot.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: No, yeah, that wasn't their sack.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Don't use that word.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sack's kind of gross, isn't it moist? Oh boy?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: What was the other one?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Moist? Sacugh or pussy? Go look that up in the transcript.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Don't do it. Let's talk about pass rates because it
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: really obviously depends on the state. They can vary pretty wildly. Actually,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: from looking at some of these stats, I think for
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: first timers from July of this year's testing twenty twenty
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: five first time or pass rates there was a range
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: like from sixty six percent in Connecticut to almost ninety
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: percent in Utah. So go Utah. If you look at
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: overall rates, not necessarily just first timers twenty twenty five,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: only fifty four percent in the state of Alabama, once
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: again compared to eighty six in Utah. So I don't
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: know what's in the water out there in Utah, but
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: those attorneys are sipping it up.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's widely considered a really easy state to pass
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the bar.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Oh is it really?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Oh? Interesting?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, some very hard places to take the bar around
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: the world, actually that I saw Nigeria, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Ontario, Canada, Canada, Okay,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: New York State all like New York States. Bar exam
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: is so difficult. It's like as hard as the entire
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: nations of Singapore's so there are. It definitely varies by
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: jurisdiction and by country just how hard it can be.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's interesting. I do know that of the twenty
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: twenty two graduates this is just another sort of stat
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: for you. Over ninety percent graduates from accredited schools passed
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: within a couple of years. But there's from what I see,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: there's really no shame for it to take a cracker
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: two to pass the bar. I don't think. I don't
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: know if it's something you're gonna like run around the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: office telling people on your first day, but I don't
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: think it's like a mark of shame. There have been
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: plenty of very successful attorneys, very famous attorneys that didn't
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: pass the bar on the first go, including Michelle Obama
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton and all the degens I think JFK Yeah,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a bunch of d ims. JFK. Junior, I think took
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: two or three times to pass, and old Kim Kardashian
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: took a time or two.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think three, three. And there's actually limits on
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: how many times you can take it, depending on your state,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: your jurisdiction, your territory.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Oh well, they just say sorry once. It sounds like
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you should try another line of work.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: There are some places that say that, I don't know
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: if they actually say that. The gaggle of attorneys tell
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: you that when you fail the sixth time, But there
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: are other places that have discretionary rules where after you
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: reach a certain number, like say, I think six is
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: the highest I've seen, you can apply to take it again.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: You can basically go to the state bar and be
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: like please, yeah, I want to be a lawyer so bad.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I'm just really terrible at this.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is a test, and some people
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: aren't great test takers. We'll kind of talk about that
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in a little bit. But also I imagine there's plenty
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: of things you can do with the law degree if
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you haven't passed the bar.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. I mean it's like you see somebody referred
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: to like, oh this is a lawyer or something, but
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: they have like they're in some field has nothing to
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: do with law. Yeah, you're just like they very frequently
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: are advisors, like just they know how how far you
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: can bend the law. Okay, A lot of stuff you
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: can do with it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, you always teach. I imagine, Oh.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's too. I have a little cute little addition
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and dundum to this part.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The youngest person ever to pass the bar is Sophia Park.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: She passed the bar in twenty twenty four at age
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: seventeen seventeen years eight months.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And was that after law school even.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she started law school at thirteen.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, she's one of those.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So she beat the previous record by three months. The
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: previous record had been set at age I guess eighteen
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: years in one month by her brother Peter. Isn't that
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: the nuts? It's the smart family, it is they really
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: wanted to be lawyers.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or you know, are they practicing law or are
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: they just like I just wanted to show off.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Oh I believe they're both practicing law. Yeah, I guess, so, well,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: should we take another break, Chuck? I guess we should.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Well, the one more little tidbit here at the end.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: You know, we said that at a bar exam is
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: basically to say, hey, you can practice law. The one
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: other thing that it does is it helps determine what
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: schools can teach it because the ABA requires that law schools,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: if you want to be an accredited law accredited law school,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: a certain percentage of your graduates have to pass the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: bar within two years, otherwise your accreditation goes away.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw seventy five percent of your graduates have
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: to pass.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: All right, or they're like sorry, I guess you're not
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: teaching well enough exactly.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I wanted my ti bit to be last, so I'm
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: just going to repeat it now. Okay, I had on
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: second thought. We'll just go to break. How about that?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back. All right, So we're
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: back with more critiques and problems on the bar, because
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: if you start to do a little digging, it turns
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: out there's been a lot of a lot of that
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: over the years for a lot of different reasons. You know,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: we've mentioned some of the stuff while it was developing, basically,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you know, banning people of color from even taking the
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: test for a long time. But black and Hispanic Americans
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: are still very underrepresented in the field of law. And
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you know that's a problem because when you're a practicing attorney,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: like a lot of opinion. That's why they call them opinions,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and judgment goes into it. And sure it's based on precedent,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: but your perspective is important, and having diverse perspectives is
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: also important.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, for sure, it's a white male profession. Essentially,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: statistically speaking, that is far and away the largest population
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: represented in the legal profession in the United States, and
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: there's statistics and figures that kind of show the disparity. Here.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: There's some data from twenty twenty one from the American
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Bar Association that showed that white law school graduates passed
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: on their first try at the bar exam at a
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: rate twenty four percent higher than black students, thirteen percent
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: higher than Hispanic students, and fifteen percent higher than Native Americans.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: So those are really substantial disparities in passing the bar
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the first time, and so being in the hot seat,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the National Conference of Bar Examiners is like, hey, hey, hey,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: everybody mellow out here. This is this is this track
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: with other scoring of racial disparities, like law school grades,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: l sac grades, Like this is in line with them.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Just leave the bar exam alone. And by the way,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: their interpretation is that this is an example of long
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: standing systemic racial disparities in the American education system, right
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that start way back long before the somebody gets to
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: law school and goes to take the bar, and that
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the bar exam is just showing us, it's just reflecting
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: this problem elsewhere. So again, stop looking at the bar
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: is essentially what the NCBE says.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: It also kind of sounds like we're just a part
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of the grand history of systemic discrimination throughout our country.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a critique of them. Two people are like,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: that's your answer, Like, yeah, we're just perpetuating an already
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: existing racial disparity. Like that's essentially what they're saying in
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: that argument.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's definitely a strange argument. Other people
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: say that, you know, just part of that disparity is,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you know, the cost associated with law school and to
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: be a successful candidate, and like we said, the privilege
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: that it takes to maybe be able to pay for
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that and then take off month's work and pay for
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the very best preparatory courses. You know, that's it's just
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: sort of all in the big soup of privilege, you know, right.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I saw that black and Hispanic students who take the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: bar examer of fifty percent likely or to work during
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: their bar prep period then a white student, Like it's
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: just logistically speaking, racially speaking, it's just much likelier that
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: a white test taker is going to be able to
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: not work and just dedicate their time to prepping for
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: the bar. And I mean that alone explains a lot
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: of it, because the bar exam is essentially like it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: a standardized test that where you memorize essentially year one
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: law school stuff.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's one of the other critiques is
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that you know, it's a memorization test, and there have
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: been plenty of studies that show that it doesn't necessarily
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: isn't a marker towards your future performance as an attorney
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: or you're like, you're how successful you may be. There
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: was a study in twenty twenty four from Nevada that
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: compared scores on the MB and other components of their
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: test of I think a little more than five hundred
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: new attorneys and how they were basically rated how affected
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: they were by their peers and their supervisors and judges.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And they did find a small positive relationship between some
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: of the ratings some parts of the bar, but at
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, overall they said it was
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: minimally predictive of career success and negligibly related. The Nevada
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Performance Test was negligibly related to success.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those low correlations were as low as one to
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: four percent. Yeah, I think four percent was the highest
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: as far as the actual whole bar exam. Relating to
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: these ratings of how effective these lawyers were by their peers,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: they said, we can only account for that with twelve
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: percent of the Bar exam. The other the rest of
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: the distinctions or the differences in effectiveness, has nothing to
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: do with their score on the Bar exam. And so
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: people say like, well, what the heck is the bar
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: exam doing? And again the National Conference of Bar Examiners
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: are like, we're testing for lawyer competents to protect the
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: public dummy. And people say, well, how are you testing
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: for legal competence? Like what is legal competence? And this
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: is where the National Conference of Board Examiners like pull
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: their shirt away from their necks so you can see
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: like some sweat breaking out on their forehead because they've
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: never given a definition of competence. And if you don't
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: have a definition of competence, how can you in a
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: standardized way test people for whether they meet that definition
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: or not. So people say, like, the Bar exam under
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: that that description is by definition invalid, is not It's
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: not a valid test, meaning that it doesn't test the
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: thing it purports to test, because we just have no
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: idea what it is testing.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: You know what you just sounded like what an attorney
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: sounds like? You just dropped the mic and court and
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: then sat down and I was to your just sat
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: down on your left and I put my hand on
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: your shoulder and was like, oh yeah, I'm man got them.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: There's also been a lot of just sort of disasters
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: in recent years, very public ones in terms of the bar.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: During COVID, they offered remote exams and it was just
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: sort of a joke in a lot of cases. There
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: were a lot of computer problems, like programs crashing, They
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: had facial recognition issues, and that sometimes they failed to
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: identify dark skin test takers. So that's that's bad right
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: off the bat. You also, again, you know, it was remote,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: so you had to keep your eyes on the screen
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: at all times or they would think you're cheating if
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you're looking around or looking into your lap or something.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: So people were like literally urinating themselves in their seat
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: because they couldn't move. And one woman went into labor
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and went through the test and gave birth and then
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: came home and finished the second day.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to know how tough Loyola University
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: law students are, there, you go.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: What about California with the chet GPT questions?
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: This one it's kind of lost schadenfreud around it, but
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: California said, nuts to the UBE, we can do a
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: better program ourselves and save money. So they designed their
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: own bar exam, like just completely eschewed the uniform bar
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: examination right, and it just the rollout was horrible. There
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: were people who were taking the test. They would get
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: error messages, the program would crash during the test. It
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: wouldn't save their essays. Can you imagine finishing an essay
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: you can save it and they're like nope, sorry, do
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: it again.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: That's every student's nightmare.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember this is time, Like you have three
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: hours per segment, right, Like, if you don't finish in time, sorry,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: like you have to stop. So that's a huge part
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: of it. And then also, like you said, chat GPT,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: it turned out was involved because some students were like, there,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: like are misspellings and typos in some of these multiple
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: choice questions. In the California State Bar said wait.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: What Yeah, it turns out that some of those questions
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: were chat beat GPT written by chat GPT. They weren't
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: even reviewed by a lawyer or a copy edited by
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the state agency that oversaw the test. Because you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know money, I guess.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And this was another case of lawyers suing lawyers and
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: lawyers suing their state bar and all that, and it
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: like California has just lost so much money on it.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Remember this is a money saving thing too, So again
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: there's like a little bit shoden Freud it too.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there was one incident in New York where
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: someone went into cardiac arrest while taking the test. That
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: was this year in the July test, and you know,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: people are like, you know, we should help here, right,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and the test proctors were like no, everyone be quiet,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, just keep taking your test and
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: we'll deal with this in the next lunch break.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they had to keep taking their tests while
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the paramedics were saving this this person's life like next
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: to them. Essentially, that was what they were forced to do.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: That's how I don't know, you choose remember where they
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: are about assigning these tests or carrying out these tests.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I was working at TV commercial one time as a
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: PA years ago out in the desert and in California,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: and a crew member had a cardiac arrest and the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: director told them to move a big fake rock in
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: front of and they were tending to the guy, but
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: they were like, we need to keep shooting, Like go
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: move that big fake rock in front of the paramedics
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: so we can keep shooting.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I guess it's better than the director being like, take
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: that fake rock and finish them off with it. Yeah, yeah,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: and then drag them out of the way.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: One thing I wondered, because I always kind of wonder like,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: how would we do if we took the sat now,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: like you know, at the stage in life or something.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I wondered about, like a really experienced attorney years later
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: if they took the bar again, and Lyvia dug into
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that and found a study from twenty twenty one sixteen
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: like successful experience practicing attorneys from Oklahoma retook the bar
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: essentially with no prep. It was just like, you know,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: their prep was their career on the theory that hey,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: it's if it's measuring ability, then this should bear out
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: in the grades. And none of them passed. They got
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: scores ranging from twenty six to fifty two percent, so
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: nobody would have passed that bar, and the lawyers who
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: had been practicing the longest did the worst out of
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: all of them.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And then one general criticism of the bar exam two
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: in a day to everything else we've just talked about,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: is that it doesn't in any real way kind of
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: jibe with what these lawyers are going to do in
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the legal profession. Right, it's general questions about law generally
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: in the United States. Again, it's essentially the stuff you
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: learn in your first year at law school, because the
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: next two years you start to get into your specialization
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: and it's a lot of memory and memorization and a
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: lot of lawyering. After you graduate and go through the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: bar and become an attorney is open book research to
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: figure out where law applies exactly. The bar exam is
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: closed book, rapid fire testing. So they're like, this is
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: not like even putting away everything else, all the other arguments.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: At its base, it's kind of a flawed test to
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: start with.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And because of that, there are a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: lot of jurisdictions that have long had workarounds in alternatives,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: and there are changes on the horizon for the bar itself.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin it's the only state, I guess, only jurisdiction that
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: never stopped saying, hey, you went to law school and
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you can practice law in the state. You don't have
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to take the bar here, which is pretty cool. I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: think you have to graduate from one of the states
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to law schools there and they call it diploma privilege.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I think in the past couple of decades New Hampshire
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: has followed suit a little bit. And if you graduate
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: with honors from University of New Hampshire Law School and
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: you participate in court simulations and have practical experience, then
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: you can be admitted to practice law without the bar.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And we had said earlier that the law school
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: was originally created as an alternative to apprenticeship. Some states
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: have gone the other way now where the apprenticeships are
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: alternatives to law school. Like it's a path like that.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Bar I like it too. Vermont and Virginia they allow
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: apprenticeships instead of actually instead of the bar exams themselves.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Oregon offers apprenticeships where if you're a law school graduate,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: you can become a lawyer without the bar exam. If
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: you apprentice for I think six hundred and seventy five
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: hours over four weeks in supervised work, you will basically
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: become a lawyer after.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: That four weeks, four months, no, four years.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: No, I was joking. There's only six hundred and seventy
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: five hours in four weeks.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: So Oh, okay, we're.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Doing twenty four hours a day for a month as
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: an apprentice.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Which seems I'll assume your math checks out.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: It does. I even used a calculator.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Oh great. I think Washington State has a plan coming
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, so more states are kind of
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: getting on board with this. California last year actually rejected
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a proposal to become more like Oregon with those apprenticeship hours,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: even though the State Bar of California's Board of Trustee said,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: we think this is a good idea, right, the State
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court said no, no, no, no. But coming around
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the corner, now we have the next gen bar exam, right.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the NCB is like everybody settled out, So starting
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, they're like, we're going to change this
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: a little bit. The test's going to be shorter, we're
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: going to make it so it's possible to take it
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: remotely if need be. And then it's it's just going
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: to be a little different where I think it's a
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: little more sa heavy than the original test. But they're
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: also carving out some stuff that they're not going to
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: test on, like family law and that kind of thing.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: So it's a little leaner, meaner kind of bar exam
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: that they're coming up with. All Right, two things that
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I saw that are worth mentioning real quick. If you
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: do away with the bar exam. There's a couple of
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: benefits to that. One is that it puts the onus
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: on law schools themselves to graduate competent lawyers. Right now,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: there are some law schools that are considered diploma mills
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: because as long as seventy five percent of your graduating's past
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: the bar within two years, like, you stay accredited and
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: you can make a lot of money off that other
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: twenty five percent. That's one thing that would happen. Another
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: one is that legal fees would probably come down because
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: one of the functions of gatekeeping that the bar exam
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: does is it artificially keeps the supply of lawyers low,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: which artificially inflates the fees associated with lawyers too.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Ah, pretty think about that. Yeah, Yeah. I spoke to
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: my friend. I think I know a few attorneys here
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and there, but only like one good friend who's a
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: lawyer who is electing to remain anonymous in this case.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: But I did text him kind of about all this,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and he said I would say it's only useful and
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: that it shows how you can collect and synthesize a
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: lot of information under time pressure. But that's not really
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: much different than most standardized tests. But as far as
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: being an indicator of how you'll be as a practitioner,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: yet not so much. He says, for example, the bar
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: will test you to some extent on the rules of
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: civil procedure, but passing the bar doesn't mean you can
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: walk into a deposition the day after you pass and
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: know how to do that. As someone who's taken hundreds
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of depositions, you learn by watching, listening to more experience
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: attorneys do it, and then by trial and error, no
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: pun intended, doing it yourself. He is in favor of
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: the apprenticeships. He said it's probably a lot more helpful
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: as long as your mentor, you know, knew what they
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: were doing, and then said one thing he would like
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: to see change is, like, I think more emphasis on writing.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: He said, I see so many briefs written by someone
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: who allegedly passed the bar. They're just horrible. He said
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: that's probably just a criticism of the legal education more
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: than the bar, and then he said he wanted to
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: remain anonymous, and he said, I know it sounds silly
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: or overly cautious when there are Scotis justices who can
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: accept luxury vacations with impunity. But I'm supposed to be
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: impartial here, so writing on the bar might not a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: good look.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I think that's smart. Yeah, you got anything else?
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for tapping your anonymous friend. That was good info. Sure,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: if you wanted to learn more about the bar exam,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: could take the bar exam and in the meantime it's
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: time for listener mail.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: It'd be kind of fun I mean, if it was free,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I would take the bar exam just to like, with
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: zero knowledge of anything, just to see like how poorly
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I would do.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would too. I'd be right next to you,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: peeing in my seat and going into labor and having
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: a heart attack.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be funny?
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Though?
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: If we got like I don't know, even like a
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: twenty percent or something.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Or if we passed and we just automatically became lawyers.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. All right, all right, this is
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: about the Sultan Sea. You called for a listener mail, right,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: all right, Hey, guys, I was listening to the saltan
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: sea episode. In college, I took an ocean geography class
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and learned about inland seas an inland sea, because remember
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: we sort of wondered difference between seas lakes. He said,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: an inland sea can either be entirely landlocked or have
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: a single river connected to the ocean. Inland seas are
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: larger than lakes and have a salinity between a lake
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and an ocean. So I think you've mentioned something about salinity.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: They are typically remnants of larger oceans and have numerous islands.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: But of course the scientific community names these things, and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: sometimes it can be rather confusing. The Caspian Sea, for example,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: it is classified as a lake despite being known as
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the largest inland sea in the world. And the Hudson
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Bay is an island sea, which is Did you know.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: That an island sea or inland sea?
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: He says island but probably meant inland.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't, So I had no idea whether it's
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: an island sea or an inland sea. I had no idea.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Or Dylan's favorite sea is the Larapentine Sea or the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: La Rapentine Sea. It's an ancient sea that split Australia
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: in half during the Cambrian explosion. Being a longtime listener
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: learning about new things is the best part of my commute. Guys,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: that is from Dylan.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Dylan, that was great info. I still
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: like your interpretation, Chuck, which I if I remember correctly,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: you were saying that an inland a lake would be landlocked.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I mean it sounds like there's no
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: true definition.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know, and let's keep going with yours. Great
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: nice try, Dylan. If you want to be like Dylan
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: and send us a great email, you can send it
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.