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To Be Become A Lawyer

The process of becoming a lawyer involves several requirements: [1] obtaining citizenship, residency, age, and good moral character; [2] completing educational qualifications including a bachelor's degree and law school; [3] passing the bar examinations in eight subjects over four Sundays; [4] taking the Lawyer's Oath before the Supreme Court; and [5] signing the Roll of Attorneys and receiving a license to practice law. The bar examinations cover a wide range of legal topics and include essay, multiple choice, and practical exercise questions testing knowledge and skills.

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Lenneo Soriano
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128 views7 pages

To Be Become A Lawyer

The process of becoming a lawyer involves several requirements: [1] obtaining citizenship, residency, age, and good moral character; [2] completing educational qualifications including a bachelor's degree and law school; [3] passing the bar examinations in eight subjects over four Sundays; [4] taking the Lawyer's Oath before the Supreme Court; and [5] signing the Roll of Attorneys and receiving a license to practice law. The bar examinations cover a wide range of legal topics and include essay, multiple choice, and practical exercise questions testing knowledge and skills.

Uploaded by

Lenneo Soriano
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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TO BE BECOME A LAWYER

Romulo V. Borja
Associate Justice (Ret)
Court of Appeals

The process of becoming a lawyer is a long and winding road.


Perhaps the better analogy would be to call it a roller-coaster ride because,
indeed, the process involves wild emotional swings.

That process is laid down by the Supreme Court. Specifically,


Sections 1 to 16 of Rule 138 of the Rules of Court (on Attorneys and
Admission to Bar) provide the process in some detail. The student may
want to consult Rule 138 (this is included in your Basic Legal Ethics course,
a first-year, second-semester subject).

The following is an outline of that Rule.

The Rule begins with a requirement of a Pre-Law degree. Since you


are now enrolled in Xavier Ateneo College of Law, I presume you have
complied with this requirement. The other requirements may not seem
important to you now but a lot of candidates have suffered 11th hour
anxieties over lack of documentation pursuant to these requirements. So
let’s go over all of them.

The requirements for becoming a lawyer are:

1. Citizenship, residence, age, moral qualifications


2. Educational qualifications
3. Passing the bar examinations
4. Taking the Lawyer’s Oath before the Supreme Court itself.
5. Signing the Roll of Attorney’s and Receiving from the clerk of
court of the Supreme Court the certificate of the license to practice
law.

Specifically:

REQUIREMENT NO. 1

• Citizen of the Philippines – If you don’t have a copy of your birth


certificate, you.ve got a problem. You may have been allowed upon a
promise to secure the original or duly authenticated copy of the certificate. If
this is so, don’t procrastinate on this matter. Last minute problems have
bedeviled many bar candidates.

• Resident of the Philippines

• 21 years of age

• Good moral character – Usually, it is sufficient for any of your law


professors to execute an affidavit of good moral character upon your
graduation. But keep in mind that the maintenance or attribute of a good
moral character is required throughout your residency in law school
precisely because of this ethical requirement by the Supreme Court. The law
school can actually deny such certification if the student had not exhibited
such a character during his stay in law school even if he/she had passed the
academic requirements.

• No charges involving moral turpitude filed or pending before any


court
REQUIREMENT NO. 2

Anyone seeking admission to the College of Law must have the


following qualifications:
 A graduate of Bachelor’s Degree in Arts or Science, or a higher
academic degree, from an authorized and recognized university or
college. The applicant must have earned at least –

— three (3) units of Rizal course,


— eighteen (18) units of Social Sciences subjects,
— six (6) units in Mathematics, and
— eighteen (18) units in English.

 Passed the Philippine Law School Admission Test (PhiLSat) or


possess a Certificate of Exemption.

 Admission test of the individual law school

o General knowledge
o Logical analysis
o Reading comprehension
o Ability to express one’s self

Suffice it to say that at this point it is safe to assume that you


have satisfied this requirement. But I hasten to add that if, for
example, you lack the 18-unit English course requirement and you
were allowed enrollment on a promise to take a remedial course, do
not dilly-dally.

The other educational qualification is that you must have


passed the law course.

An outline of the courses in law school follows:


The “bar subjects”, so called because they are the subjects that
are included in the bar exams are: civil law, commercial law,
remedial law, criminal law, public and private international law,
political law, labor and social legislation, medical, taxation and legal
ethics.

The non-bar subjects include: statutory construction, legal


research, practice court, legal counseling, etc.

There are a few electives such as environmental law.

The curriculum of Xavier Ateneo Las School follows closely the


“model curriculum” laid down by the Legal Education Board or LEB.

Undoubtedly, the curriculum is designed is designed to


support the student’s goal of becoming a lawyer the main hurdle to
which is the bar exams. Law schools in the country have been
criticized for being to “bar-exam oriented”. There is some merit to
this. But, nonetheless, no one can be a lawyer without passing the bar
and, inevitably, emphasis on passing the bar exams is unavoidable.
You can see this in the way the law school curriculum matches the
subjects in the bar exams.

REQUIREMENT NO. 3

The Philippine bar exams are probably unique in the world. No other
country features such a festive atmosphere at its licensure exams for
lawyers. The mood is tense, somber and serious for the bar candidates
inside the testing center but outside the fraternities and sororities, the bar
operations people, the law schools themselves engage in carnival-like
behavior.

The reader should watch the slide presentation ”Nothing Like It in


the World” to get an idea of this.

The subjects in the bar exams are as follows:

• 1st Sunday –

• Political law (Constitutional law, Law on Public


Corporations, Law on Public Officers, Election Law,
Public and Private International Law)

• Labor and Social Legislation

• 2nd Sunday –

• Civil Law ( Persons, Property, Obligations and Contracts,


Torts and Damages, etc.)

• Taxation (National, Local Taxation, Real Property)

• 3rd Sunday –

• Mercantile Law (Corporate, Insurance, Transportation,


Banking, Business)

• Criminal Law (Revised Penal Code and special penal


laws)
• 4th Sunday –

• Remedial Law (Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure,


Evidence)

• Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises.

What grade do you need to obtain to pass the bar exams?

You need to obtain Weighted General Average of 75% for all the
bar subjects. The weights of he subjects are:

Political Law – 15%


Labor and Social Legislation – 10%
Civil Law – 15%
Taxation – 10%
Mercantile Law – 15%
Criminal Law – 10%
Remedial Law – 20%
Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises – 5%

Traditionally, this weighted average must be obtained without failing


below 50% in any one subject. Right now this condition has been
suspended. So the achievement of a 75% weighted average is sufficient.

What type of questions are asked in the bar exams?

They fall into four general types:

Essay type
• Hypothetical problems
• Direct essay type

Multiple choice questions (MCQs)

Practical Exercises

• Prepare contracts, pleadings, memoranda, briefs.

Objective type – Definitions, distinctions, enumerations.

REQUIREMENTS NOS. 4 AND 5

These need not detain us. They are self-explanatory.

###

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