日本朋友NY BAR经验谈

1. To begin with:

When I talk about my experiences passing the New York State bar exam, I have to begin with my struggles to bring my English ability up to a level that would enable me to gain admittance to New York University. The truth is that even after I had gotten into law school, I never stopped being anxious about my English ability. I felt that, when it came to taking the bar exam, my level of English was not only far below that of native speakers (naturally) but even lower than that of most other foreign students, so how to raise up my English to the level necessary to pass the exam was a continuing problem for me. As I have written about my experiences with this perspective in mind, I hope that other foreign students who have doubts about their English ability will be encouraged to believe that, if they have the necessary courage and motivation, they too can succeed in passing the exam, as I did.

As I mentioned previously, I took the TOEFL 25 times -- a number that, I imagine, has not been surpassed even by people who specialize in TOEFL research! The first time I took the test, I scored 447. After a year of study, I managed to raise this to 560, and right after I sent out my applications to law school (in March), I scored 587. This score was below the minimum generally required by most schools of 600 (or the 620-630 required by the really prestigious schools) and, to make matters worse, I did not have any other major strong points to compensate for my low TOEFL score, as my career had been devoted to routine domestic legal matters, so I did not have any striking legal achievements (nor had my undergraduate grades been particularly distinguished). As a result, on my first try, I was rejected by the three schools I applied to, including New York University. My wife, who had already been accepted into the Columbia SIPA program, then had to ask for a one-year deferment of her admittance so that she could wait for me while I tried to raise up my score in preparation for applying to law school again the following year.

Little did I know that my study efforts had already peaked. My scores in the tests I took after this actually became worse until the last (25th) time I took the test -- but even then I could only manage a score of 593, just six points above my previous high of 587. Despite this, to my great amazement, on my second try, I received an offer of admission from NYU -- which had rejected me the previous year with a similar TOEFL score. I don’t know if this was the result of the various extra letters I sent asking for special consideration or some other factor, but, no matter, I had finally achieved my goal!

As the main point of this page is to talk about my experiences at law school, I will only mention briefly that one of the most precious treasures I gained while at law school was the contact I had with my classmates, some of the best law students from all over the world, as well as the Japanese company employees who had survived the fierce competition within their companies to win a scholarship to U.S. law school. In fact, one of the main reasons I was able to pass the New York bar exam on my first try was due to the encouragement I received in my studies from these friends. As well, I received a powerful motivation from my determination not to be the only one among my friends to fail the exam.

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