Bar Support and Academic Support Programs (ASP)

AuthorSara J. Berman
ProfessionConcord's Assistant Dean of Bar Support Programs and is also the Assistant Dean of Academic Support and Bar Support at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California
Pages5-6
5
2
BAR SUPPORT AND
ACADEMIC SUPPORT
PROGRAMS (ASP)
Because ASP and bar support relate directly to student success, it makes sense for one
person to oversee and coordinate these eorts. (Many school budgets only allow for
one person to serve both functions.) But, it is critical to acknowledge that ASP and bar
support are distinct; the focus of the former is helping students succeed in law school
while the aim of the latter is to help students pass the bar exam. ey do overlap, for
many reasons, not the least of which is that stronger law students tend to pass the bar
exam in much higher numbers. Several studies show a signicant correlation between
law school GPA and bar passage.9
us, helping students to excel in school will likely lead to higher bar pass rates.
at said, many students benet greatly from explicitly seeing how law school diers
from the bar exam, in terms of what is tested, the style of exam questions and what is
considered a good answer, and the marathon nature of preparation. (A good exercise
for ASP and bar support faculty is to draft a “model law school answer” and a “model
bar exam answer” to the same question and show students how these two answers
dier—for instance, the former might reference more case law and be signicantly
longer and more detailed than the latter.)
Students are often shocked to realize that bar essay answers require much less
in-depth analysis than law school essays. at said, they need to learn the balance
between writing in too supercial or conclusory a manner and too detailed a manner.
Bar examiners do want to see some analysis (some “proof” if you will, of the existence
or lack thereof of each element of each applicable crime, cause of action, or defense
theory), but not as much as most law professors. And, students who attempt to provide
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