Audience Member
Informative, eye-opening, and somewhat entertaining...but still leaves you with a feeling that something's not finished. Perhaps it's the style, the way it was shot, or possibly the editing. For those interested in how our legal process, judicial system, & legal academia works & affects our lives in this country...check this shit out on Netflix Instant if you get a chance. NOT FOR EVERYBODY!...although the info in this doc would benefit everybody out there. I'm pretty sure documentary & legal enthusiasts will ultimately dig it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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Audience Member
My favorite part may have been when one of the test takers explained her relationship to coffee during preparations for the Bar.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/15/23
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Audience Member
A Lawyer Walks into a Bar is a documentary filmed in 2007 by Eric Chaikin. If his name sounds familiar to you movie geeks, its probably because you remember his nomination, along with co-director Julian Petrillo, for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for his 2004 documentary, Word Wars, which follows a small but intrepid group of linguistics nerds as they prepare for the National Scrabble Championship in San Diego. Word Wars surprised me. I was shocked that anything Scrabble-related could be so entertaining, so full of whimsy and intensity. You heard it here. Scrabble can be intense. Keep your Grandma away from the television.
Chaikin's latest film is equally surprising and engrossing. A Lawyer Walks into a Bar follows six individuals as they prepare for the California bar exam, widely considered to be the hardest bar exam in the United States.
The hopeful lawyers-to-be represent a pleasant cross-section of American culture. There's Sam, a 2005 Loyola Law School graduate who has already failed the bar exam twice and is now hoping that three times is a charm.
Then there's Megan, 2006 Loyola graduate, whose infectious optimism and artsy predilections instantly won me over - I did start to worry about her chances, however, when the film pointed out that, of 104 graduate programs surveyed, law students were the only group in which pessimists outperformed optimists.
Magda is a working mother, activist, and recent graduate of the Peoples College of Law, an unaccredited college located in Los Angeles. Magda hopes to pass the bar so she can represent the underprivileged in her east L.A. community.
Tricia, a 2006 graduate from UCLAs law school, is bright, cocky, and seemingly more interested in beer and sex than in studying for the bar exam. But really, when you think about it, who wouldnt be more interested in beer and sex than in studying for the bar exam?
Cassandra, 2006 Loyola graduate, became pregnant while an undergrad and is now relying on her stay-at-home husband to take care of their son while she studies for the bar.
Lastly, theres Donald, an ex-marine who graduated with a JD from Western State University in 1980. Mr. Baumeister has taken
and failed
the bar exam 41 times. In this film, hes shooting for his 42nd attempt and hes hired an exam tutor to ensure his success.
The test spans three days and, depending on which source you reference, covers between twelve and seventeen law-related topics. In 2006, the year this documentary was shot, only 39% of those being tested passed the exam. In previous years, unsuccessful exam takers have tried to sue the state bar on the grounds that the test is unnecessarily difficult. The film even mentions one man who became so frustrated that, after taking the bar exam, he returned and burned the test center down.
In 2008, 61.7% passed the exam, which was the highest pass rate in California since 1997. 61.7% seems like a windfall until you consider that in Washington State, for instance, the lowest state pass rate I could find from the last four years was 64.8%, with the typical average hovering somewhere between 70% and 75%. Of course, some people claim that in the few states that allow people from non-accredited ABA schools to take the bar exam, California being one of those states, the percentage of people from unaccredited programs who pass the bar exam tends to be much lower than those who attended an ABA certified school. This means, of course, that people have claimed California's median pass/fail percentage is skewed by the non ABA accredited participants. However, Washington state also allows people from non-ABA accredited schools (within strict guidelines) to take the bar exam, and the numbers show that the general applicants occasionally outperform the applicants from accredited schools.
While the movie focuses on our six prospective attorneys, it also diverges into the broader modern landscape of U.S. litigation. It tries to make sense of America's strangely paired bedfellows - its love of litigation and its hatred of lawyers. It accomplishes this with brevity and wit, interviewing famous attorneys, comedians, and members of the California state legislature. Delving into the underbelly of tort litigation, the film highlights several of the types of cases that make us wonder why we even have a judicial system - a man sues a bed company for falling out of bed, a woman wins a 2.7 million dollar settlement for cutting her hand on a pickle jar. And of course, the infamous case of the woman who successfully sues McDonald's because she spilled their coffee on herself. It all seems ludicrous. Then Alan Dershowitz, who represented the likes of O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, makes this salient observation, "If you think America with lawyers is bad, imagine a country without lawyers."
Unfortunately, because of cases like these, many companies now go to preposterous lengths to avoid being sued. For instance, from the back of a box of Zantec, "Do not use if allergic to Zantec." One of my favorite scenes from the film simply shows a bowl sitting next to something that looks like a long grocery receipt. Two arrows point at the objects. The first arrow says "1 ceramic bowl." The other arrow says "32 disclaimers."
The famous lawyers and celebrities also get to weigh in on whether or not they think the whole legal system is broken. Dershowitz, says of the bar exam, "It should be a minimal competency test. It shouldn't be a competitive test. It should be a test that anybody who wants to be a lawyer who's not unqualified should become a lawyer." Novelist/Attorney Scott Turow disagrees, suggesting that the bar exam needs to be exclusionary or the United States would be flooded with lawyers. Mark Lanier, one of the nation's top personal injury attorneys, takes a more pragmatic approach to the problem, saying that if the exam needs a 75 to pass and you get a 76, then you studied too much.
As the movie progresses, I really became attached to these people. I didnt want to see any of them fail, but I knew that, statistically, there was a real chance Id see just that. In the final scenes of the film, while the exam-takers are waiting impatiently for the web site to load so they can get their results, the tension is so palpable that I got test anxiety just watching it.
A Lawyer Walks into a Bar is a must-see for any movie-goer interested in the legal system, especially new lawyers, though if you're studying for the bar yourself, you may want to wait until after you've taken the exam. I don't want to get sued for causing heart attacks and brain aneurysms.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/16/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Friday night, staying in bed. I stumbled upon this docu, 'A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar...' It follows 6 bar candidates as they prepare and sit for the CA bar. Very, very interesting. And you bet, tons of lawyer jokes in it.
It brought back the memories of my own Bar experience in the Philippines. And it made me contemplate about my plans to sit for the CA bar. It's inspiring, but at the same time, it made me ask... Do i really want to go through that again? :D The Bar is definitely not a joke. (There's the understatement of the evening!) One guy, Donald Baumeister, took the CA bar 41 times! Not 4, not 14, but 41! I think it's 43 now 'cause he didn't pass the Bar 2x in this docu.
I wanted a relaxing movie, and here I am all jittery. I could feel the anxiety and excitement going on.
On that note, good luck again to those taking the Bar exams in the Philippines this month. In just a couple of weeks, after the last exam, you'll wake up at 6 am, automatically, and wonder what you'll do for the rest of the day. Yes.... you'll discover again how it feels like to sleep in. Believe me, the Bar month does end. :D
Some of my favorite quotes and stats in the docu:
"9 out of 10 people despise lawyers. But 10 out of those 10 would want their kids to become lawyers."
speech at law grad ceremony "law schools are populated by neurotics... which means most of you are perfectionists, and control freaks, in addition to being workaholics.." ouch!
"the US already has 800,000 lawyers.. 4 X more than all the other lawyers in the world"
a law school dean, 2 governors and a mayor have failed the CA bar multiple times...
"lawyers suffer from alcohol and substance abuse at almost twice the national average..." is this true?
"we have a system of justice that is designed to ensure that innocent people are never convicted. And we pay a cost. And that is that guilty people sometimes do and will go free.."
New Jersey. Man falls out of bed. Sues bed company. Judgment: $179K
Colorado: Man gets glued to Home Depot toilet seat. Sues for $3M
West Virginia. Woman injured opening pickle bar. Judgment: $2.7M
New Mexico. Woman spills McDo coffee on her lap. Judgment: $2.9M (you know this one)
As a result of lawsuits, there is an abundance of labels and warnings on products. e.g. on a baby stroller, "please remove child before folding..."
Finally, how to sum up the Bar: "The nerves really build up. Frankly it's a survival contest. How do you keep all the information in your head and be ready to vomit it out on the day of the Bar exam?" Well, there's a more positive way of summing it up, which my friend shared with me before I took the Bar: 'Think of your brain/memory as consisting of different cabinets, each cabinet representing a Bar subject. The knowledge is all in there, neatly divided into those cabinets. You may not remember everything instantly, but on the day of the Bar, you'll open each cabinet as needed, and be pleasantly surprised to find out, that somehow, the bits of information are still neatly filed in there." :D hope that helps.
Ok, i'm going to bed. I've had too much fun tonight already. Haha.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The thing about this documentary is that it's probably boring and irrelevant to non-lawyers, and, for lawyers and law students, prone only to unnecessarily stroke their already inflated sense of self-importance.
It depicts the July 2006 California exam, the one I happened to take.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I highly recommend this documentary. It's got some really funny moments, highly insightful portrait of the certification process law students face, and an emotional ride with 6 folks going through the experience. My sweet husband made it look so easy - but now I understand the sleepless nights much better!
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
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