In being enrolled in a California Registered, Unaccredited law school, all ICOL students are required, by law to take and pass the First Year Law Students’ Examination (FYLSX), the Baby Bar. The reason this requirement is based on two separate, but related public policy concerns of the California Legislature, each of which is related to public protection. The first is the concern whether each unaccredited law school allowed to operate offers its students a sound program of legal education that will adequately prepare its students to take and pass the California Bar examination. To meet this concern, an unaccredited law school is required to meet scores of academic, scholastic, and operational standards.
The second concern is whether students admitted into an unaccredited law school, after completing a full year of law study, can demonstrate that are capable of someday passing the California Bar Examination. This concern is intended to alert the law school and the student who fails the FYLSX after having three opportunities to pass, that further expenditure of their time and money to remain enrolled is not in their best interest given the extremely low odds that they will pass the Bar Examination.
Based upon these public policy concerns, the FYLSX works to achieve both goals; it keeps law schools like ICOL working hard to maintain and improve its program of legal education, while it helps students realistically evaluate whether the significant investment of their time and money (four years and $40,000) is time and money well spent. While upon passing this significant challenge, ICOL students find themselves better prepared to succeed in completing law school and better prepared for the bar exam.