TJ Walker argues Kim Kardashian's bar exam failure exposes not her incompetence but the legal profession's cartel-like protections. High passing thresholds and licensing rules artificially limit lawyers and keep costs high, while AI already does much of what junior associates do. Walker says the profession should let anyone with minimal competency practice law.
Questions this video answers
December 5, 2025.
Nearly half of more than 7,000 test takers failed the California exam (as cited).
Claim: AI can do in two minutes what law firms used to bill 10 hours for.
Legal costs have risen 100% higher (about 2× the inflation rate) over the past decade.
Chapters
The bar exam didn't fail Kim Kardashian. According to the Washington Post, Kim Kardashian's bar exam struggle is not a reflection on her intelligence. She did just fail. It's an indictment of the legal guild itself. Max Raskin, columnist appearing in the Washington Post, argues that the bar exam, the lsat, and even law schools operate, operate like government protected cartels, no different from taxi medallions or liquor licenses. In California's most recent exam, nearly half of more than 7,000 test takers failed, not because the test measures competence, but because the state sets an unusually high passing score. Raskin says none of this actually protects the public. Routine contracts and filings can now be drafted by artificial intelligence at associate level. Quality lawyers already rely on AI but rarely admit it. The real purpose of the bar, he argues, is to maintain scarcity, preserve billable hours, and keep prices high. Justice shouldn't be a luxury good, but under the current system, that's exactly what it becomes. Okay, what's the real message here? It's easy to laugh at Kim Kardashian for flunking the California State Bar, but. But the real problem here, dig a little deeper, is that the legal establishment in the United States has created our cartel and they are using the power of big government to stifle competition so they can charge you outrageously high billable hours. If you agree with capitalism and free markets, as I do, you should say, let's let anyone who can demonstrate minimal competency in the law be a lawyer and let the market figure it out. And I got to tell you, if I had some legal case where I really wanted to persuade a jury or win over public opinion, Kim Kardashian would be an excellent attorney for a case like that. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. So what this author contends, and I would agree, is that the bar exam is really about quantity control, not quality control. By artificially limiting, randomly saying, okay, only the top half of anyone taking the bar exam can get in, what you do is you instantly raise the income, you raise the pricing power of everyone who gets in the cartel. Now, it's often stated, and I'm guilty of this too, that in America today we only have 6% of the private sector workforce in labor unions, whereas back in the make america Great days, the 50s and 60s, it was 3, 30%. And that's one reason why we've seen the middle class hollow that it's not quite true, because the bar association is essentially a union. It's not called a union, but it does the same thing. It gets rid of competition. It artificially elevates prices. But since so many people in law firms and so many people with legal degrees and with their bar license are wealthy people, nobody talks about it. Since it's equally distributed in both parties, nobody talks about it now. Yes, you could make a case for having stringent requirements for a surgeon. I don't want someone, I don't want Kim Kardashian operating on me. But she hasn't asked to. But legal work is different. You don't instantly die. If someone makes a wrong decision, you can appeal. If you have an awful attorney and you get the death penalty, you can appeal and say, hey, my attorney was incompetent. Give me a decent one this time. You don't get to do that in a surgery. Let's look at some more facts here. What we're already seeing thanks to artificial intelligence is billable hours are collapsing because of AI. AI is able to do something in two minutes that law firms used to be able to bill out 10 hours for. And I don't know, the last time you hired an attorney could be $100 an hour. Unlikely. More likely to be $500 an hour. If you're in New York, you're looking at more than $1,000 an hour. Some top attorneys can charge $5,000 an hour. And they're seeing some of these billable hours just melt away. Which is all the more reason you could see them making it harder to pass the bar and gain admittance. Now they'll claim they're protecting the public. It is complete bs. It's a way of protecting their pocketbook. So the way the law works is it's not a part of the free market enterprise system. It's locked out. There are guild rules, unauthorized practice rules, multi state licenses, funding limits. There's all sorts of restrictions. You can go to jail if you try to help someone else in court and you're not an attorney. Legal cost have risen 100% higher so 2x the inflation rate over the past decade. Why not? If you can simply charge more, do it. I know, I try to, but if you. In my profession as a communications personal development coach, there's no government entity restricting people. It is about as free market as you can get. I have to scrape for every last morsel. And it's true competition. Not so in the legal world because there are tons and tons of people who have graduated from law school. They've studied a subject for three years, and Kim Kardashian is one of them. Where they're just a couple of questions shy of passing a test because they didn't memorize something. Well, these days you don't need to memorize it because you can in fact consult AI or Google or other places for basic facts on a case. So it's all well and good to, you know, make fun of Kim Kardashian. Apparently she failed the practice test from the proprietary school she went to three times. Finally passed that. It's called the Baby Bar. She, she did pass on the 4th. Then she took the actual official bar in California and didn't pass. Now, there's all sorts of other restrictions on free market capitalism. If you work for a law firm, and let's say you're the number one rainmaker, let's say you're the absolute best at getting new clients, which is the lifeblood of any law firm, you can never own a part of that law firm. Any other business you bring in business, you can get equity, you can demand equity, or walk this cartel. The legal industry has structured it to make it actually illegal for you as a non lawyer. Whether you're a rainmaker, a lobbyist, or anything, you can't actually own a piece of the business. My friends, you cannot call yourself a conservative, you cannot call yourself a capitalist and be honest and really think this is in the best interest of society, of consumers, of people needing legal services or our economy.
