It's Not What you Know, It's Who You Know: It pays to have Friends When Taking the Bar Exam

South Carolina does not have appeals or re-grading of failed bar exams, yet, some children of politicians who failed nevertheless magically passed after complaining.

Comments

[E.C. Hopkins]

So much privilege, so many advantages relative to their peers, and still they failed? Even if the test was slightly unfair or slightly more difficult than normal, why would the daughters of South Carolina’s power elite, people who had access to every prep resource money could buy, even come close to failing the bar exam? After all, 428 folks (78%) passed it, and I suspect the majority of them were far, far less privileged than the daughters of South Carolina’s power elite. Now that's one form of grossly unmeritocratic and transparently power-based discrimination that we probably should shun in the legal profession.