6,200 candidates admitted to take 2011 Bar exams

MANILA, Philippines - A total of 6,200 candidates were admitted to take the 2011 Bar examinations, the Supreme Court said (SC) yesterday.

The list of candidates admitted can now be viewed at sc.judiciary.gov.ph, the official website of the Supreme Court.

Earlier, 6,210 candidates applied for this year’s Bar, which is 23.26 percent higher than last year’s 5,038 applicants.

This entails an increase in cost in the conduct of the Bar exams.

However, the total number of candidates admitted to take the 2011 Bar examinations is only 6,200, as five petitions were denied, while five others were withdrawn.

The SC also recently approved substantial changes in the conduct of the Bar examinations, including moving the schedule of the exams from September to November 2011.

The highest number of examinees was registered in 2008 when 6,364 candidates were admitted to take the Bar exams.

Justice Roberto Abad, chairman of the 2011 Committee on Bar examinations, said this year’s Bar examinations at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) will be conducted as follows:

First day (Nov. 6): Political and International Law, and Labor and Social Legislation (morning) and Taxation (afternoon);

Second day (Nov. 13): Civil Law (morning) and Mercantile Law (afternoon);

Third day (Nov. 20): Remedial Law, and Legal Ethics and Forms (morning) and Criminal Law (afternoon);

And fourth day (Nov. 27): Trial Memorandum (morning) and Legal Opinion (afternoon).

The coverage of the Bar examinations will be drawn up by topics and sub-topics rather than by simply stating the covered laws.

Another change is the use of multiple choice questions that are to be so constructed as to specifically measure the candidate’s knowledge of and ability to recall the laws, doctrines, and principles that every new lawyer needs in his practice, and assess the candidate’s understanding of the meaning and significance of those same laws and principles as they apply to specific situations.

The examinations will also include essay type questions which will not be Bar-subject specific.

One such essay examination will require the candidate to prepare a trial memorandum or a decision based on a documented legal dispute.

This essay will account for 60 percent of the exam’s essay portion.

The remaining 40 percent will be covered by an essay which will require the Bar candidate to prepare a written opinion sought by a client concerning a potential legal dispute facing him or her.

In computing a candidate’s final grade in the Bar examinations, the results of the multiple choice examinations will be given a weight of 60 percent, while those of the essay type examinations will be given a weight of 40 percent.

Since this is the first time that the new format will be implemented, the answers of all candidates in the essay type examinations will be corrected irrespective of the results of their multiple choice examinations, which are known earlier because these will be checked electronically.

However, in future Bar examinations, the Bar chairman will recommend to the Court the disqualification of those whose grades in the multiple choice portion are so low that it would serve no useful purpose to correct their answers in the essay type examinations.

The Bar examinations this year will be held for the first time in the 400-year-old UST in Manila, the SC said.

More than 30 people were hurt as an explosion marred the last day of the Bar examinations at the De la Salle University on Taft Avenue, Manila in September 2010.

Police said a loud explosion occurred just as examinees were leaving the building.