How much does it cost to take the bar?
Several thousand dollars just to take the test. All told, it can easily go to $10,000 without even trying.
Let's see, first there are the fees to register as a candidate to take the bar exam, the fees for the character and fitness evaluation whereby they dig into every portion of your past no matter how small, basically. Then you have a character and fitness interview at a local bar association. This all takes about a year minimum last I checked, they recommended that law students start the process when they had at least 1 1/2 years of law school left. At this point, you've sunk in about $2000 in fees, certified mailing costs, etc.
Then you've gotta take a bar exam review course for all the things they frankly should've taught but didn't teach you in law school that are on the bar, yet still have nothing to do with being a lawyer. These bar review courses can easily cost $4000-$5000 lock stock and barrel with supplemental materials.
http://www.barbri.com/courseInfo/barReviewCourse/pricing.html?selectedState=OH They admit to $3250, but really it's more, because there are $500 add ons you sorta need that they nickel and dime you for later. Then of course there are entire supplemental bar exam courses.
Then, of course, there's the fact that the test takes place over the course of two and a half days in Columbus and that means if you're from out of town, you need a hotel room for about a week practically speaking. Did I mention the hotel owners know that about 1,200 law students are coming to down that week and thus jack up their prices accordingly, because they do.... You can pay up to $1000 in lodging travel (gas for driving several hours) food, parking and who knows what else. I stayed at a friend's house.
Then they charge you $110 for the privilege of using your own laptop that you must provide if you don't want to hand write the bar exam. Writing that thing out by hand means you may as well just break off your hand.... This fee allows you to use their software that will make sure you don't cheat by locking down your computer so that it doesn't boot anything else but the exam software. There are several little fees they nick you with that add up quickly.
That, naturally, doesn't include the cost of lost wages, because you don't have to take time off work to study for the bar exam, but your chances of failing it go through the roof if you don't. You do however, need at dead minimum a week off work to actually take the test just to actually physically go and take it. I took most of the summer off without really asking my boss, because quite frankly meh. I wasn't about to blow that much money to to screw it up and nobody should if they can avoid it.
Let's not forget that you really can't do ANYTHING else while studying for the bar, because it's about 40,000 pages of material you need to know and that job you desperately need after law school, good luck hunting for that, because EVEN AFTER you take the bar exam in July, they literally do not tell you if you passed until Late October/early November. No one will hire you during this period, practically, because things are nuts. You're gonna get the dreaded "overqualified" for most jobs. Then of course you can't work as a lawyer yet, because you don't know if you passed or failed the bar. Finally they won't hire you as a clerk in case you passed the bar and they think you'll split to look for greener pastures that sadly don't exist right now. It's a trifecta crapshoot.
So the answer is easily $10,000 and very possibly more depending upon how you look at it in direct costs alone. Nevermind what law school costs.
None of you should ever go to law school, it is a rip off. Between things like this, malpractice insurance, and student loans, that's why lawyers have to charge so damn much.
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