Time for the State Bar to ditch the MBE

If State Bar Executive Director Leah T. Wilson sincerely means it when she states, "Over the long term, we need to be sure that we are testing for the skills and content that new attorneys need, and that we are doing so in the right format," she and the California Committee of Bar Examiners will drop the Multistate Bar Exam portion of the bar exam. ["Bar exam results hit new low," Daily Journal, May 22].

Any lawyer who has practiced more than six months knows that the MBE tests no such skills. The MBE is merely a severely timed reading comprehension test that all too often tests not fundamental legal principles, but doctrines that more and more are coming from footnotes in hornbooks.

In almost 40 years of practice, I have never had to read a fact pattern in 1.8 minutes and then choose the "best answer" -- and do this 100 times over a three-hour period (take a 90-minute lunch break, and do it all over again in the afternoon).

Lawyers think through solutions to problems and the best way of executing those solutions, recognizing that there may be several solutions to a problem. The MBE, however, demands applicants select the one and only "best answer." The MBE affords students no opportunity to give an explanation. Just select. Guessing is okay, though!

If the MBE had existed immediately after Plessy v. Ferguson, the "best answer" would have been, "Separate but equal does not offend the United States Constitution."

The only reason to have a multiple-choice component to the bar exam is to save money, which is exactly what a bar official actually said to justify the MBE counting a full 50 percent on the new two-day bar exam. The bar would save $1 million.

It is time to dump the MBE.

While the written part (essays and performance test) is certainly not an ideal testing mechanism either, at least applicants are forced to create solutions by writing logical and coherent answers, which is what lawyers do all the time in some fashion.

On the other hand, I don't think too many judges regularly ask lawyers, "Counsel, is it A, B, C, or D?"