How to get ready for the Bar
Five days from now, the first Sunday of November, and three more succeeding Sundays thereafter, more than 7,000 Law graduates from all over the country shall gather in UST to take the Bar. They shall tackle very difficult questions in Political law, Labor Law, Civil Law, Taxation, Commercial Laws, Criminal Law, Remedial Law, and Legal and Judicial Ethics (including Legal Forms and Practical Exercises). Not all of them, sorry to say, are really prepared.
I gained a lot of insight on this based on my experience as a Professor of Law since 1977, (when I was still 27 years old my alma mater, UV Gullas Law School, asked me to teach where I had the honor to have acted as the professor of such famous former students as Michael Rama, the late Cerge Remonde, Demetrio Casipong from Dumanjug, and Alhambra Llenos-Alfafara), until today, I am still teaching in various Law schools in Metro Manila. My insights tell me that the first preparation for the Bar is an excellent command of English. This skill is essential for the barristers to understand the facts of each problem, as well as to formulate a responsive answer to every question.
Secondly, the examinee must have sufficient mastery of all the laws, both in letter and spirit. They must fully understand the fundamental principles behind all legal provisions (and there are hundreds of thousands of them). In Labor Law alone, there are seven books on the Labor Code with more than 300 articles. Added to Code, are the Migrant Workers Act, the SSS Law, the Employees Compensation Law, the PhilHealth Law, the Pag-Ibig Law, and the thousands of cases that form the landscape of Philippine Labor Jurisprudence. Graduates who did not master all these laws not prepared to take the Bar.
Thirdly, Bar candidate must have a logical mind, able to lay down the law in answers, as the major premise to legal solutions. He must also be able to capsulize the facts in summary form to constitute as minor premise to his syllogism. Then he provides the logical conclusion, which is a resolution of the issues that the examiner wants him to resolve.
Fourth, the examinee must have excellent penmanship so as to make sure that the examiner can decipher his answers. Many Bar candidates failed because their answers were not legible. There are even worse handwritings that irritated and angered examiners, causing the barristers to flunk. And so, I wish that this year's contingent from UV, SWU, USP and USJ-R follow the example of UC and USC in shining brightly for the Bar. God Bless all of them. Mabuhay.
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