Taking The Bar Exam More Than Once

A story in the December edition of The Bar Examiner, The Testing Column: Persistence on the Bar Exam, analyzes four years of data on multi-state bar exam testing from 35 U.S. jurisdictions, between 2007 and 2011. 85.3% of the total group took the test just once, and the assumption is that the vast majority of those passed. 9.1% of the total group took the exam a second time. 2.9% took the test three times, 1.3%  four times, and less than 2% more than four times. Although most jurisdictions limit the number and frequency of times an applicant can take the test, the story notes sources that point to a whopping 48 attempts.