In 2017, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia and possible ties to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Some more memorable exchanges came between Sessions and the then-Senator Kamala Harris of California. I won't go into the merits of the back-and-forth between the two. But the merits of some of the responses on social media showed a lack of appreciation for what some very famous attorneys have gone through to practice their craft.
Several users on social media have pointed out that Harris failed the California bar exam on her first try. Granted, that footnote is a fairly common talking point in profiles of Harris.
There are many higher-profile examples of bar failures to add to these four Californians:
There are others out there, including New York Governor David Paterson, the first blind governor of a US state, who could not complete the New York bar exam due to a lack of accommodations for his lack of sight.
What you learn from this list is three things:
| Year | Overall | First Time |
| 2007 | 67% | 79% |
| 2008 | 71% | 82% |
| 2009 | 68% | 79% |
| 2010 | 68% | 79% |
| 2011 | 69% | 79% |
| 2012 | 67% | 77% |
| 2013 | 68% | 78% |
| 2014 | 64% | 74% |
| 2015 | 59% | 70% |
| 2016 | 58% | 69% |
A pattern emerges of a first-timer score 10 to 13 percentage points higher than the overall group. Test takers from non-ABA-approved schools scored at a 19 percent rate. The pass rate for repeat bar exam takers for 2016 was 33 percent (38 percent for those from ABA-approved schools). So if you're trying to pass on your second time in any given year, there's a 1 in 3 chance you won't.
Much like its New York counterpart, the California bar exam is notoriously difficult (don't yell at me; I know it's an understatement). According to Above the Law, the California exam's 2016 pass rate of 43 percent was the lowest since 1984, when it was 41.8 percent. First-timers scored at 56 percent. Here are the numbers for Harris's years—1989, the year Harris received her JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and 1990, when she passed:
| California Bar Exam | 1989 | 1990 |
| Total Exam Takers | 6,997 | 6,990 |
| Total Passed | 4,163 | 4,054 |
| Pass Rate | 59.5% | 58% |
| First-Time Takers | 4,909 | 4,964 |
| Total Passed | 3,544 | 3,644 |
| Pass Rate | 72.2% | 73.4% |
| Repeat Takers | 2,088 | 2,026 |
| Total Passed | 619 | 410 |
| Pass Rate | 29.6% | 20.2% |
In 1990, the gap between first-timers' success rate and the overall rate jumped to 15.4 percent, while the overall pass rate dropped by 1.5 percent. Harris and her fellow repeaters were far less likely to have passed that year. The repeater rate in 1990 means that about 4 out of 5 of Harris' fellow repeaters failed.
That's intimidating.
But Harris's passing score means you can beat the odds when you retake the bar exam. Missing out on a passing score is painful, but it is not a permanent barrier to becoming a lawyer. Instead of "could not pass on their first" exam—which implies some level of failure—why not accentuate the positive and say someone "passed the bar on their second try"? Or third? Or fourth?
Or 14th? Paulina Bandy passed that ol' California bar exam after missing the mark 13 times over eight years. What does she do now? She runs a program for California bar exam "repeaters."
The amazing thing about the social media nitpicking of Harris here is that it's only become a "fun fact" since the election. There were only three tweets referencing her failed first attempt at the bar exam before the November 2016 election, yet dozens since then. It wasn't even bandied about via the low bar of election-season sound bite that sounds good at first glance but doesn't tell the whole story.
This is the story: Harris went on to be elected and re-elected as San Francisco District Attorney and Attorney General of California to serving as the first Indian-American senator, the first black senator from California, and just the second black woman to serve in the Senate, to the vice president of the United States. If you're retaking it this summer, don't let the odds get you down. You can totally do this.
Think about all this next time someone snarks about one whiff on one of the hardest tests known to higher education. Many law students will be more than willing to take their shot at success if that's what can happen after they fail the bar exam.
Shortly after posting this article, we reached out to the Cardozo School of Law's Twitter handles for clarification on their namesake's bar exam history. In response, Christine Anne George, faculty and scholarly services librarian at the Dr. Lillian & Dr. Rebecca Chutick Law Library at Cardozo, went—and we quote—"full-on librarian on this question." And it turns out that the story about Cardozo's bar exam failures is complete urban legend. George writes:
So let’s lay this rumor to rest and remember to always, always, always cite sources, no matter what the medium.
