Exclusive: Only four out of 205 candidates have passed the latest Bombay Incorporated Law Society’s solicitors exam, with two first-timers clearing the cut-off marks. This is even lower than the 6 per cent who passed the previous two examination sessions.
“It was a very bad result,” said the Bombay Law Society’s secretary and examiner-in charge Dawood Mandviwala. “The thing is, people are concentrating on one or two subjects: most people who are doing corporate law, are not doing litigation, and people who are doing litigation are not doing corporate law.”
In this October 2010 exam a total of 71 first-time candidates sat for the exam and 134 candidates took the exam for at least the second time. The result will be announced at 5pm today (21 December).
Mandviwala explained: “A candidate needs 50 per cent marks to pass in any subject and 60 per cent marks in aggregate - only the candidates who clear in first attempt are eligible for ranks and awards if any. This time the highest score is 373, i.e about 62 per cent.”
A first-timer scored the top mark of 373 points out of 600, with the other three passing candidates achieving 366, 360 and 360 points respectively.
In the April 2010 exam the top mark was also 373 points, with the other 10 passing grades having been scattered between 360 and 369.
This time a total of 205 candidates took the test, which is higher than the previous two sessions of 171 test-takers in April 2010 and 186 in October 2009. A total of 11 candidates or 6 per cent passed those respective previous exams, with the April-May 2009 exams seeing a pass rate of 11 per cent with 14 successful candidates.
This October session only two-first time test-takers and two multiple-time test takers passed the exam, whereas in April 2010 all passes were by those who had sat the exam more than once.
Legally India published solicitors exam papers in June.
Photo by arquera
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To continue ranting, one of the 4 who cleared is the daughter of an ex senior partner of one of the top firms. He's now a partner with an upcoming firm..
How can the future of young lawyers be so badly played with by a hand full of people
#1 yes yes..it a known but unspoken legendary story...
It is therefore recommended that the contents of the answers examined of the so called exams of October 2010 and hereafter need to be clearly defined and communicated to the students so that they are made aware of what is expected for this exam. There are many students who have researched their law points and written about the latest judgements corroborating their answers with very good points in law. It appears that these have not been taken into cognisance and consideration during assessment of papers. If the examination is so transparent and so competitive to bring out the best in the legal fraternity then these students must be given their papers back with the comments of examiners in order to enable them to understand and appreciate as to what was expected of them in the paper/s. If not, then all the six papers need to be reviewed again by a different set of examiners for general faith of students and parents. If on reassessment of the papers of Oct 2010, it is found that the student/s deserved more marks then without delay needful action should be taken to see that Justice and fairness have prevailed. The career and life of students should not be tampered with because deserving students get disillusioned and frustrated after they have put in so much of hard work.
Hard work is what is needed to clear these exams, whether you then get what you deserve from a salary perspective or opportunities to join larger firms depends upon destiny.
Too muck noise is created out of solicitor vs advocates (primarily the 5 year graduates from NLS etc). I am not going to indulge in that debate because nothing is going to come from it.
I just became a solicitor for my own self-respect and confidence thats it.
BTW I never questioned what I got, just accepted it as a result of my hard work (10 hours a day, 9 months at a stretch).
Hope soon to become solicitors pay heed to my advise.
I advice students to make a representation to the Society for having the exams rechecked before any legal action is contemplated.
The Original side of the Bombay High Court is dominated by business communities and other communities who settled in Bombay during the Raj.
The less prestigious Appeal Side is dominated by Marathi speakers.
Here's a source -
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2348699
Read pg 16 and citation number 21. This paper is from 2013 so maybe things have changed though not likely.
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