Scary News About the Bar

As if the Bar Exam did not frighten law students enough, it looks like they may have a harder time prepping for the exam. If a firm cancels your offer it appears unlikely that students will be able to get a loan to cover their bar expenses

CQ Politics reports:Bar Prep Loans Getting Scarcer

If you’ve had difficulty getting a bar prep loan this year, you’re not alone, Leah Nylen reports in CQ Weekly.

Since 2005, students have been able to use government-backed loans to cover professional tests, such as bar exams, with one catch: the money can’t be spent on test prep.

In better times, law students simply turned to private lenders for the cash to cover bar review. But because of the credit crunch, only four lenders are offering bar prep loans this year, down from 19 in 2007.

Access Group, a nonprofit lender, and more than 75 law schools have teamed up to push for a change to the law, but Department of Education officials say it won’t be a quick fix.

Because the law does not mention preparation costs, they say they can’t change the regulation unless Congress changes the statute. And even if rewriting the regulations started now, the earliest a final rule would be issued is July 2010 — leaving the 2009 and 2010 grads out of luck.