Go Back to the Basics to be Truly Successful

At a time when lawyers of all ages are bombarded with advice on how to start a practice, maintain a practice, make a practice more successful and profitable, and even how to retire from practice, Mike Guerin’s sage words of wisdom in the January issue were both refreshing and inspiring. (See “The Practice of Law from A to Z: A View From an Old Guy,” Wisconsin Lawyer, Jan. 2015.)

With a barrage of tips coming from all manner of legal consultants, life coaches, clinical psychologists, and groovy technology and cyber security experts, some of the fundamental principles of being a successful lawyer can get overlooked. Lawyer Guerin’s alphabetic reminder of virtues possessed by successful lawyers from Abraham Lincoln on through the centuries provides, as has other work he has done, a real service to our profession.

Football teams may use the West Coast offense and a 3-4 defense with great success, but only if they perfect the fundamentals of blocking and tackling. Similarly, lawyers should use all the new tools and advances available to them, but to be truly successful they must go back to the basics. Lawyer Guerin’s excellent article is a primer and a road map for a satisfying and successful career.

Atty. Frank J. Daily
Quarles & Brady LLP, Milwaukee

Here’s What You May Have Missed

Not connecting with us online? This month we highlight readers’ comments posted to online articles. Let’s hear what you have to say. Post comments to WisBar News, InsideTrack, and Wisconsin Lawyer articles or respond to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts. Or simply email the editors at wislawmag@wisbar.org.

Does the Bar Exam Ensure Knowledge of Wisconsin Law? Readers Weigh In

In “Is it Relevant Today? Does the Bar Exam Ensure Knowledge of Wisconsin Law?” (Wisconsin Lawyer, Feb. 2015), author Michael LoCoco asserts the Wisconsin bar exam burdens test-takers financially and professionally while failing to fulfill its goals of ensuring knowledge of Wisconsin law. He asks, should the test be administered at all?

Not surprisingly, we heard from several readers.

WL Online: I enjoyed reading Michael LoCoco’s opinion piece in the February issue. I was the original plaintiff, then counsel in Wiesmueller v. Kosobucki, beginning in 2007 and ending in 2010. I made many of the same arguments in legal briefs challenging the dichotomy in our state’s means of bar admission. Of course, Mr. LoCoco is right, in a state that offers a diploma privilege, there can really be no justification for a bar exam, at least not in its current form.

The argument “Wisconsin law schools teach Wisconsin law” may justify a diploma privilege, but it does not explain why the alternative is a Wisconsin bar exam that hardly tests Wisconsin law. However, when I argued that there should be an immediate end to the MBE portion of the exam, which does not test any Wisconsin law, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb responded by publicly humiliating me, even implying I violated an inapplicable ethics rule.

My bar admission lawsuit was inspired in part by then State Bar President Steve Levine’s comments on the issue published in April 2007. I agree now more than ever with Mr. Levine’s assessment on this issue: “It wouldn’t surprise me if things didn’t change for a long time. This, too, could take 100 years.”

Atty. Christopher L. Wiesmueller
The Wiesmueller Law Firm, Waukesha

WL Online: Mr. LoCoco’s article raises some valid points, but I do think the bar exam does have a valid purpose, based on my experience of grading bar exams.

I was a U.W. Law School grad and did not take the bar exam, although I did take the multistate ethics exam without any bar prep courses.

Mr. LoCoco argues that because the ABA does a fine job of auditing the quality of American law schools, the bar exam does nothing to further ensure minimum competence. I have not graded for maybe 10 years, but unless the quality of the students has changed dramatically, there were a number of test-takers who had no idea of what a reasonable answer might be on the written exam.

I recently had a conversation with a couple of Texas attorneys about the bar exam in Texas and that some schools do a better job of preparing students for the bar exam than others. Should schools be teaching to the test? It depends on how relevant the test is.

It may be that the schools and bar exam officials need to reexamine their missions. Maybe there could be a standardized graduation exam given by the schools. Maybe all students need an apprenticeship because most of us were not capable of practicing law fully the day we graduated. It might be helpful to provide the law along with the facts, to make the exam more realistic to everyday practice or to prevent brain freeze.

As to expense, at age 26 you have your whole life ahead of you. A few months of study probably made you a better lawyer and a better lawyer is a more successful lawyer.

Atty. Allyn Lepeska
Dallas, Texas

Response: Thank you for your comment. I’d like to address two of your points.

First, you argue implicitly, citing your experience as an essay grader, that the bar exam weeds out candidates for the practice of law who manage to graduate law school, but are unfit to practice law in the private sector. To counter, I might ask you to ponder this question: why not simply have the ABA and individual law schools impose more stringent graduation requirements? Such a modification would cut out the middleman, centralize legal education, and streamline certification. The bar exam, for its cost, must be able to stand on its own and do so in a manner that existing institutions could not replicate more efficiently.

Second, the cost of the bar exam in time and money is not simply a minor inconvenience standing in the way of things law graduates would rather be doing. It is significant expense at the lowest earning point in most lawyers’ careers, a time at which they can least afford the burden. Bar exam costs are often subsidized by private loans and credit card debt. Such expense must be for a distinct and defensible purpose both clearly defined and routinely examined.

Michael LoCoco
Hausmann-McNally S.C., Milwaukee

WL Online: This was a very good article, and I, as an attorney who attended school out of state, completely understand your argument and position. I also spent several years as a member of the Board of Bar Examiners Review Committee that was part of the State Bar that worked with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Board of Bar Examiners to try and address some of the items you bring up and concerns that the Wisconsin Bar had with regard to the bar exam.

My wife also took the Wisconsin bar exam, and by the article, it appears your exam and hers were the same format. When she took the exam, all of the essay questions were from the multistate essay exam put out by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Therefore, a person could have taken the Wisconsin bar exam and passed without knowing any Wisconsin law. This is why I was extremely confused while serving on the Board of Bar Examiners Review Committee, I heard the board say they wanted Wisconsin law to be the basis of the bar exam but they were using multistate exams that did not require any Wisconsin law knowledge. In the lawsuit the Board of Bar Examiners settled, their main argument for the diploma privilege was that it has Wisconsin law requirements, however, the bar exam no longer has those same requirements.

There was a time, when I took the exam, that a person had to pass a Wisconsin law ethics essay and the essay portion with a minimum score or they would fail. I did fail my first bar exam, I needed a 249 on the essay portion and I got a 248. It delayed my law career six months or more. I had student loan payments that were starting to come due and no license to provide the services I had been trained to do in law school. It was a difficult time as I had student loans coming due and no legal job. After five months, just prior to the February exam, I managed to find a job that did not require a law license and my employer helped me with time off to study a little prior to the February exam. I passed the second attempt, but as I said, it put me behind my fellow test-takers and put me behind on some student loans. I agree that the State Bar of Wisconsin needs to look at this issue again and to reinstate the Board of Bar Examiners Review Committee so that practicing attorneys know and have an understanding of what is going on with the Board of Bar Examiners.

Jeremy Dobbe
Waupaca Foundry Inc., Waupaca

Response: Thank you for your comment. If you nutshell my argument, the exam duplicates the efforts of the ABA Law School Certification process and concordant graduation requirements for law students, and it doesn’t guarantee knowledge of how Wisconsin law is distinct from other states’ or the federal system with any certainty. It is nearly entirely vestigial and disturbingly expensive beyond the nominal registration costs when factoring lost wages and time spent studying. It is arguably two-tiered, barring practice to those who cannot afford expensive prep classes or tutoring.

The exam serves only to needlessly replicate the gauntlet of three years in law school to an inappropriately broad and generalized degree. I see neither a public benefit nor a benefit to the lawyers taking the test. The only ones benefiting from the test are tutors, test prep companies, and the writers of the test themselves.

Wisconsin clearly accepts the notion that graduation from an ABA-certified law school is proof enough of fitness to practice law; diploma privilege is evidence of that. Wisconsin’s bar admissions requirements leave us with the curious scenario in which a graduate from #2 ranked Harvard Law School is required to prove fitness to practice in Wisconsin beyond graduating, but a graduate of #93 ranked Marquette Law School is not. Absurd.

I say let the free market weed out poor lawyers. Enough of them find ways to pass the bar exam anyway.

Michael LoCoco
Hausmann-McNally S.C., Milwaukee