It actually began a couple of months ago, so I am the one late in writing this. I apologize.
But I still want to give my thoughts about it—hopefully to light the fire in the belly of all our law students now nervously preparing for the biggest moment of their lives.
In the “Age of Google” people have grown too lazy to do what God has given us brains for: think and reason.
When we don’t know something, we just type a question in that tiny dialog box of the Google search engine, click “go” and wait for the results to come scrolling up on our screen.
Usually, we are treated to a smorgasbord of alternative answers galore. It’s all up to us to choose which answer fits our present need the most. But just as usually, also, none of the answers is an exact fit.
So we are left with two choices: to give up and say our research turned up nothing relevant, or to go ahead and use some, many or all of the imperfect answers as components in building a likely answer that is not offensive to logic or reason.
However, such an answer is necessarily composite. There is now no more guarantee that the whole we put together is an accurate equal to the sum of its parts.
In other words, the research will equip us with sufficient data but we must still contend for the answer that WE synthesized ourselves, relying on our own power of reasoning.
THAT was the thinking process BEFORE computers.
Sadly, today the average person is too afraid to get his feet wet, unconfident to assert an argument or, having asserted one, too half-committed to defend it.
Like astronauts on a long interstellar journey in a gravity-free environment, our reasoning bones have atrophied, our logical muscles have lost much of their mass. God forbid, should we arrive at our destination where there is gravity once more, we may no longer be capable of standing up. Our softened bones will be unable to bear our own body weight.
You must not allow this to happen to yourself. Review under the most adverse conditions. It's not just hard--it's MEANT to be. Don't despite the gravity, it's what's building your strength to jump.
During recitations in class, I am partial for the law student who gives a WRONG answer but passionately argues for it. Students who can quote the right legal provision, recite the correct case or quote the appropriate legal maxim in Latin—those are “average” students to me.
But the bold mavericks who color outside the lines with “crayons” of innovative thinking, those who are persuasive even in their ERROR, I see in them the makings of future Supreme Court justices. If they are this determined when they are wrong, imagine how fiercely unstoppable they would be if they were right!
They are the kind of jurists of the future who would plunge headlong into the thicket of legal ambiguities, swashbuckling away with the sword of reason, and hacking a clear path for liberty and justice to tread upon. It is these intrepid few who can push the envelop ever farther beyond the bounds of the known space, into the uncharted void where no one has dared to go—yet.
Most colleges of law in the Philippines—indeed, I would even hazard to say ALL of them—have the same goal: to produce as many graduates as they can who will PASS the Bar Exam.
When we teach law in class, it is with the purpose of preparing our students to answer questions ABOUT law. It is only a passing thought for many of us that we are preparing these students to also PRACTICE law. I confess I think that way, too. But I sense the direction of the wind slowly shifting.
It had to take a Baguio boy, Senior Associate Justice Marvic F. Leonen, to take that bold first step—and instantly he got tremendous pushback from the legal dinosaurs.
When he chaired the committee to conduct the first Bar Exam after the COVID-19 pandemic last year, he pioneered de-emphasizing on naming the traditional “Bar Topnotchers.”
In other countries, like in most states in the US (there are 41 state Bar Exams there, no single “Federal Bar Exam”)—they have the correct perspective about the subject too. I suppose if one tries hard enough, it’s possible to find out who did the best in any state Bar Exam. But in general, they don’t really care. They do not publish or glorify who those bar topnotchers are.
Why should they? The Bar Exam—like any professional qualifying exam—is a LICENSURE test. It’s not an academic contest. You’re not comparing a thousand candidates and ranking them. You want to examine EACH candidate and see if he or she is competent enough to practice law.
That is a black-and-white proposition. It’s either a “go” or “no-go.” Otherwise, when 5,000 people “pass” the Bar Exam, the “Number 1” passer is no more a lawyer than the “No. 5,000” who is no less a lawyer, either.
So the pressure is off, maybe for some if not for all. Of course, there will always be the hyper-competitive elite students with driven personalities raring to rub their rivals’ faces on the hard concrete floor—God bless these neurotic overachievers. They are such as they are mostly because of neurotic over-expecting professors, too. God bless them BOTH.
I could rain on their parade right now and cautiously warn them that under the right circumstances, their unassuming classmates who had to repeat a couple of subjects could still plaster them onto the wall in a real-life court of law. So don’t be too cocky, kiddo.
But, really, I am rooting more for those in the back row. They who have developed the skill of shrinking in size in their seats while I shuffle their classcards. And if you could just catch all their perspiration in a pail every time they’re called to recite, there wouldn’t be a drought problem in this country. Yes, you—lowly average ‘mediocre’ law student you.
Let me teach you how to answer in the Bar Exam.
Before you even go into the examination room, ask yourself the most important question already. “Why did I want to become a lawyer?”
Forget the glitz and glamour, the big paycheck (it’s shrinking fast in this economy, believe me), the flashy car and trendy gadgets requsites to life in the fast lane, or the ego-massaging sound of your own booming voice in the sala of a judge who is your fraternity brod (the only reason you are bold to raise your voice).
That is lawyering Hollywood-style. In my day, it was Perry Mason. In yours, it’s “The Practice”, “Boston Legal”, “Law and Order”, “L.A. Law”, “Better Call Saul” and “A Few Good Men.”
None of those actors answered one Bar Exam question, right or wrong, so don’t look up to their CHARACTERS. Just look to be YOU. But do you know who you are?
You were probably only able to enrol in the college of law because your parents sacrificed unbelievably to pay your tuition fee. Or you are a working student. You staggered late into your evening law class after darting from your daytime job as soon as you bundy-clocked out.
You had no time to cram on reading your assigned cases because failing to prioritize finishing your office reports carries a heavier penalty of unemployment. Your ‘law books’ are all hardbound violations of the Intellectual Property Law. Your test scores in college all just barely made the cutoff—who needs any of those percentage points in EXCESS of 75?
Put all of that behind you now.
At the moment, the Supreme Court has given you a set of facts and OFFERING to be your partner in an undertaking, albeit only a mental exercise one.
The Supreme Court will supply the facts, YOU supply the law and your reasoning. And the only task at hand is JUST PUT TOGETHER the facts given to you by the Supreme Court, and the LAW you will access from your personal database—and use YOUR reasoning to stitch them together.
What database? All the passive information we loaded into your brain when you were half paying attention in class. It’s all there in your brain. However, we did not provide with the SEARCH ENGINE. Because that search engine is YOU.
When you read a question and you feel panic, realize that that is NOT because you don’t know the answer. It’s because a torrent of answers is scrolling up your screen, you couldn’t decide which one is right. They are ALL right. So start building your answer from all those elements.
It’s scary, yes. Because you are DEFENDING your answer, something we most likely failed to teach you in school. We were too busy checking your memory capacity.
All that the Supreme Court is asking you is to submit five or six sentences—seven or eight would be pushing it—that states a legal conclusion, a legal philosophy or principle, or a short enumeration of certain rights. And you get there by applying the SAME principle the Supreme Court itself uses—seeing to it that RIGHT and JUSTICE prevail.
Where do you go to “find” right and justice?
It is a universal creed and a persistent longing in the conscience of man. The yearning for truth and justice is what fuels your legal logic. Reasoning is its language.
Justice resides in every soul. It beats in every heart. It started beating in your heart the day you were born, and it gave you the answer to your question “Why did I want to become a lawyer?”
Just meditate on this. You will do just fine.*
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