Coming to America – Poppy Mulligan reflects on studying stateside

Poppy Mulligan

Studying abroad in New York

I decided that I wanted to sit the New York Bar exam in my third year of university. I was enrolled in the LLB program at Glasgow University and offered a study abroad seat at St. John’s University School of Law in New York. I was thrust into a very practical law degree, which focused on courtroom litigation skills and applying legal knowledge to hypothetical scenarios under the pressure of the public, but effective, Socratic teaching method.

The litigation courses let me live out my fantasies of the courtroom drama I’d come to expect in America through the entertaining, but misleading, scenes depicted in films like Legally Blonde. However, it was the American work ethic that stuck with me. Having always been surrounded by the self-deprecating attitude that the British have to success, I was shocked to re-adjust to the new-found confidence I felt. I have carried this confidence with me ever since and I believe that I owe all of my subsequent success to the lessons I learned about my own capability in the small lectures halls in Queens, New York.

I realised that I wanted to be a lawyer at the end of my study abroad program in 2016 and decided I wanted to stay and work in America for the summer, but my school didn’t really know what to do with me. They had never had a study abroad student manage to secure an internship – but my naïve confidence pulled me through. I managed to secure an internship with the Legal Aid Society, Juvenile Rights Practice in Brooklyn, New York. This experience changed my life.

I represented children in abuse and neglect and juvenile delinquency hearings. This experience was monumental for me because it burst my bubble. I grew up in a middle-class family in Edinburgh and although I understood that I was sheltered in many ways, it didn’t register with me just how privileged I was until I was confronted by the systemic discrimination inherent in the criminal and family court systems in America.

I’m ashamed to admit just how surprised I was by how harrowing the lives of my clients were. There was one case that will always stay with me in that respect. I was representing a girl only a few years younger than me. I was 20 years old at the time and I think her story was particularly difficult to handle because I related to her in so many ways. It was with that case that I truly recognised my own privilege as a young, white, middle-class woman.

She was forced to face the difficulties of the judicial system in circumstances where I believe I would have been afforded the benefit of the doubt. There was no difference between us in terms of our personality, intelligence or aspirations. The only distinction was the circumstances she was born into, and this really shook me when I was confronted by it.

Prior to this experience, I was undecided about following a legal career path, but after I witnessed the devastation suffered by people every day in family court, I knew that I needed to use my platform to help people through their darkest days. After you see that volume of anguish, how can you not rawly recognise your own privilege and pledge to help those in need? Naturally, this outlook led me to pursue criminal defence work.

From that point, I knew I wanted to sit the bar exam and work in the US. It was the path I needed to take in order to pursue a public interest career in America and fight for the rights of people who had inspired but also devastated me.

After returning to Scotland in 2016, I graduated with a first class LLB (hons) from Glasgow University. After my graduation, I wanted to build upon my experience in America so I pursued an LLM focusing on criminal law. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. I sat the various components of the New York Bar exam throughout my year in America, culminating in a two-day Uniform Bar Exam in July 2018.

The New York Bar exam

The New York Multistate Bar Exam consists of the MPRE (an ethics examination), the NYLE (New York Law Exam) and the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE). The Uniform Bar exam is the one that will cause most candidates to suffer through painful flashbacks! It is a two- day exam testing each candidate on the intricacies of 14 areas of law. It consists of six thirty-minute essays, 200 multiple-choice questions and two MPT exercises. The MPT tests your professional competence by supplying you with a hypothetical legal system and a task you must complete to demonstrate your ability to digest these regulations and apply the relevant details to the issue(s) under tight time conditions.

The preparation for the UBE was the most challenging task I have ever encountered in my academic or professional career. I decided to take the same prep course as the American students at my university instead of opting for the extended course for foreign educated students. I studied for around 10 weeks in total and my days could easily include 10-12 hours of study. I was fortunate to have a close group of friends that I studied with every day. We helped keep each other on track and offered (helpful) distractions when needed!

When I found out that I passed the bar exam on my first attempt I was shocked and overwhelmed. The pass rate for foreign student this year was only 41 per cent, with the overall pass rate for all candidates was only 63 per cent.

Needless to say, the odds were against me so I am extremely grateful that I was afforded a passing grade and, more importantly, I am ecstatic that I don’t have to repeat the process again!

Click here for part two of Poppy’s story