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Adding Legal Research To The Bar Exam: What Would The Exercise Look Like?, Patrick J. Meyer

Akron Law Review

Various authors have criticized the current bar exam format for not testing law practice skills. This is in spite of the ground-breaking MacCrate Report, the seminal publication of the practice-ready movement, which nearly 30 years ago listed ten fundamental practice skills. One of these ten Fundamental Lawyering Skills is legal research, which is still not tested on bar exams. The focus of this article will be on deficiencies pertaining to a lack of legal research readiness in the practice of law. My proposal is to add an interactive legal research exercise to the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), requiring applicants …