Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Law quarterly:

Veteran lawyer survives ‘ordeal’ of Nevada’s bar exam

Byron

Steve Marcus

Byron Francis, managing partner of Armstrong Teasdale’s Nevada offices, is shown in the law library of the firm’s Las Vegas office June 11. Francis is a veteran attorney and recently passed the bar exam in Nevada.

When Byron Francis first took the bar exam in Missouri in 1974 there was no such thing as a personal computer, much less a laptop.

Francis was young, ambitious and had months to prepare.

This year, when he took his second bar exam, it was as a 59-year-old veteran lawyer, the managing partner of one of fastest

growing offices for his firm, Armstrong Teasdale.

And he was surrounded by 20-somethings with MacBooks who had been doing nothing but studying for the exam for months.

Francis had only seven weeks to study — and even then only when he could squeeze it in after work or on the weekends.

He was tired before the test began, but he was spurred by the thought of what he would have to tell his boss if he failed.

“If I hadn’t passed the exam, the repercussions for me would have been less than for a new person just out of law school. I have a job and something to do out here,” he said. “But it would have been humiliating and that is what I was thinking the entire time I was studying for it.”

The Nevada Bar exam is a 2 1/2-day trial by fire, a long-form essay and multiple-choice exam meant to test lawyers’ skills and memories on legal issues.

It is one of the most difficult bar exams in the country.

Pass the test and you’ve gained the right to practice law in Nevada. Fail and you’re stuck filing papers for an angry boss until the next bar exam comes around.

Despite passing the Missouri bar, his decades of legal experience and his leadership position in a large international law firm, Francis still had to take the test.

Some states will give what is called reciprocity to attorneys who have passed a bar exam in another state, allowing them to practice there. Some allow experienced attorneys from other states to only take part of the exam.

Nevada makes them take the entire test.

And since Francis had decided to make the state his home after being offered the position as managing partner of the Nevada offices, he had to pass that test.

“I could have just come out here and been an administrator,” he said. “But I felt that if I was really going to commit and lead this office, I really needed to become a member of the community and the legal community as well and get involved. And I don’t think

that would have gone over real well had I flunked the test, given our commitment out here.”

There were moments during the exam when he felt sure to fail.

His laptop, which is crammed with legal files from his work at Armstrong Teasdale, crashed within the first half-hour.

Test staff helped him recover his exam.

Then it froze.

So he dumped files to free up memory.

And then it crashed again.

“That added a little more stress,” Francis said. “But I got it over with and it was nice to meet some young people sitting around me. We chatted about our various reasons for getting into law. In that respect, it was kind of fun and interesting to meet some people and talk about our common ordeal.”

And then the waiting began. It took weeks to get the results, and Francis said he was dreading the outcome.

He got the news in an e-mail on his BlackBerry, sent by an associate while he was at a meeting in St. Louis.

The “old guy in the room” had passed.

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