The New Bar Exam
They say lawyers are important. They also say lawyers are horrible. I don’t know which of these saying is true. In fact, I don’t really know that much about lawyers at all. That leaves me in the perfect position to determine how we can make them better.
In order to become a lawyer, you have to go to a special school and take a test at the end. Knowing nothing about the nature of this test, I am absolutely certain that we should change it.
I can see all the answers!
I say, for their final exam, all hopeful lawyers should be framed for murder. Then they have to defend themselves.
The law student passes the test by convincing a jury that they are not actually a murderer.
This ought to be easy for any competent law students that are not, in fact, murderers. Which should be just about all of them. If they are poor lawyers, then they will be convicted. But not really. Law students that fail to pass the test don’t have to go to jail or anything. They just don’t get to be lawyers. If you can’t defend yourself from made-up accusations in a mock trial, then you shouldn’t be trusted to help a real defendant in an actual court of law.
If the law student passes, and convinces the jury that they are indeed innocent, then they are acquitted and get to go on to practice law. If they still want to.
“You tricked me. That was mean. I’m going home.”
It is a perfect system. The law students get some practical experience. After this, they are also more likely to believe the mantra that people are innocent until proven guilty. If you were framed for murder, you might be more careful with your assumptions about justice in the future.
Who knows, maybe you will even get some law students who crack under the pressure and confess to real crimes they actually committed. This wouldn’t happen a lot, but could be considered an added bonus.
Of course all of this only works if the law students believe they are actually on trial. How do you keep something like that a secret?
“If you tell anyone, we’ll put you in jail!”
