Of course, they’re all going to probe around into certain things–academic record, criminal record, civil judgments, etc., but which states have truly the most anal-retentive, sadistic bar applications?
Maryland’s application is 67 pages including the instructions, and includes all sorts of goodies:
A hand-written essay on one of the Model Rules
A release form to get notarized
Aside from requiring 5 personal references, a separate “certificate of good moral standing” that at least 2 people must sign
Lots and lots of signature lines, some next to rather elaborate oaths
The usual employer and school certification/reference forms
The usual stuff about mental health history, civil judgments, crimes, yadda yadda, including minor traffic violations
Repeatedly typing the same personal information over and over
Need to enclose a certified driving history
Need to report any of your credit accounts from the last 5 years, including student loans, all with complete mailing address and full account numbers
Need to enclose a sealed certification from your undergrad college attesting to your graduation AND also enclose another certification form for the bar examiners to mail to your college registrar–which is basically the same form for them to fill out again.
Ominous warnings about how your application will be returned to you if you fail to comply with one jot or tittle of the labyrinthine instructions.
Especially interesting if you have any obsessive-compulsive tendencies, double-triple-quadruple checking everything and still fretting that somewhere you forgot to mention the one time you had detention in seventh grade. (And envisioning some law examiner person sitting in a room catching your error: “Lack of Candor: REJECTED MWAHAHAHA”) :smack:
So, I imagine this is pretty much par for the course with bar applications. But are there some states that are slightly less sadistic…or perhaps somewhat more sadistic in their bar application forms? By sadistic, I mean not only length (which is one component of sadisticness), but also the complexity of the instructions and the types of questions.
Not quite responsive to the OP, but did you know that in Wisconsin if you went to one of a couple of law schools (UW and Marquette, and maybe a couple others) you don’t need to take the test?
My app was some time ago, but I remember the toughest thing was trying to comme up with names of people I was not related to who had known me for the requisite period, as I didn’t know any of my college/lawschool friends/teachers long enough, and did not still keep in touch with any high school friends.
Same with the Maryland application–each reference has to have known you at least five years, a sufficiently long enough period to root out most college professors and high school teachers. Also, law students cannot be references, and the references have to be current residents of Maryland–which rules out a lot of people who you’ve known who have moved to other states, even if you have kept in touch with them.