Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/230

204 204 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. mission to the bar deals with the results of legal education obtained under the instruction of others. His duty is to ascer- tain whether the applicant is qualified to advise clients. But a client needs advice as to his legal rights or obligations, in his particular case, that is, on the facts that he presents to his adviser. The examination for admission to the bar ought, therefore, to test the ability of an applicant to apply the principles of the law to given facts. A readiness in giving definitions and repeating rules of law is quite consistent with utter incapacity to apply the doctrines of law or equity to the simplest case. An applicant, who repeated with accuracy the Latin names of the different kinds of bailment, showed, by his answer to a question based on given facts, that he could not distinguish a bailment from a sale. From the beginning of our work as examiners, we have adopted the plan of putting questions that require the applicants to show whether or not they know what principles of law are involved in the solution of given problems, and have selected such problems as might naturally be presented to a lawyer for his solution. It is true that this plan of examination differs from that which, for many years, had existed in some of the Judicial Departments of this State, and from that which now exists in many other States ; it is not, however, new. A few weeks ago I read the following account of the method of examination which was applied by the late Charles O'Conor. of the class what legal proceedings he would take if applied to in such a case." Our plan of examination is identical with that adopted by Mr. O'Conor. During the first year we retained the oral, in addition to the written, examination. Failure, however, to pass the written examination was followed, almost invariably, by the display of further ignorance on the oral examination. Even when that did not happen, correct answers to the few questions that the neces- sary limits of an oral examination permitted, did not cure the ignorance which the written answers had disclosed. Cleverness and fluency might enable some to make a good impression, but could not be accepted as substitutes for knowledge of the law. Unless each applicant can be examined separately and apart from the others, and examined at leisure, as is done in some
 * Mr. O'Conor stated certain facts and asked the one at the head