Chinese Bar Exam

Many of my students took the Chinese national bar exam last weekend. In my discussions with them, I've explained that in the US you can only take the bar exam after finishing law school. Plus, each state has its own bar examination which means that if you move from one jurisdiction to another or want to practice in a neighboring state, usually you have to take another bar exam. I didn't go into the intricacies of waiving into a bar or taking an attorney's bar exam. Our system of federalism isn't the Chinese way.

Students attribute their expected results on the Chinese bar exam to work. One student said to me "I don't think I'll pass. I didn't work hard enough in July." In the US, it seems more likely that a student would attribute failure to not being smart enough or the instrinsic difficulty of the test, rather than work and effort. Another student took the exam for the third time.