Best of luck to all the local folks sitting down for the first installment of the 2-day New York Bar exam this morning (including one of my favorite people these days.) While I’m loath to concur with anybody from the von Mises Institute, I’ve always been inclined to agree with this article, which points out that, much like the AMA over on the doctor side, the primary purpose of bar organizations ever since the progressive era has been to create arbitrary barriers to entry and thus raise the salaries of practicing lawyers, to say nothing of the cost of both law school and legal services. Having now witnessed the bar-prep experience from some remove, I have to say that my suspicions about the somewhat shady nature of the whole enterprise have been sharpened, what with the seeming Bar/Bri monopoly on prep courses and what appears to be the test’s extreme emphasis on rinkydink legal minutiae that could very easily be looked up when (or if, so much of it being archaic and obsolete — dueling, anyone?) it ever became necessary. All that being said, the bar is obviously aptly named, so here’s hoping any and all GitM readers/lawyers-to-be in the NY area hurdle it with maximum dexterity and minimum fuss over the next two days. 🙂