The bar exam is named after the "bar" — the physical railing that divided courtrooms.
The public sat outside it; the judge, attorneys and their clients were permitted inside.
The exam took its name from that dividing line, and lawyer organizations took the name too: they became "bar associations."
Here is where the word comes from, what it does not stand for, and how the phrases fit together.
Where "bar" comes from
In this name, "bar" is a physical thing: a railing.
A February 2024 Library of Congress post on the history of the U.S. bar exam traces the name to the physical "bar" railing that divided courtrooms.
The railing split the room in two.
The public sat outside it; the judge, the attorneys and their clients were permitted inside.
The exam's name derives from that idea of division: the word for the line that separated the public from the court became the word for the exam itself.
The documented origin is furniture, not language — the name traces to the railing itself, not to a longer phrase it abbreviates.
What the name attaches to today — the test and the lawyers' organizations — is what the rest of this page sorts out.
Does BAR stand for anything?
Not as an abbreviation — the origin on record is physical, not an acronym: the name comes from the "bar" railing that divided courtrooms, not from the initial letters of a longer phrase.
There is another BAR, though, and it belongs to a different profession.
The CPA Exam has a Discipline section named BAR, one of three choices alongside ISC and TCP, of which each candidate picks one.
That BAR is a different BAR: a section of an accounting exam, with nothing to do with the courtroom railing the legal name comes from.
If you have seen "BAR" written as a section name, the CPA Exam is one place it appears — the bar exam's name, on the record, traces to the railing instead.
Called to the bar vs admitted
The phrases point at two different milestones.
"Passing the bar" is about the test — the exam named for the railing.
"Admitted to the bar" is about the person: the applicant has completed the admission process the jurisdiction sets.
"Called to the bar" is a phrase our research did not trace: the Library of Congress account we rely on explains the exam's name and the name "bar associations," not that phrase's history or how it is used in a given jurisdiction.
The distinction this page can document is between the exam you pass and the admission you receive.
The exam side of that distinction — what is on the test, how it is scored and who runs it — is our bar exam overview.
The admission side is its own subject: the admitting authority differs from state to state, and the steps it requires are what the bar admission guide lays out.
Admission rules are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction
Bar association vs the bar
Drop "exam" and, in the account the name comes from, "the bar" is the railing itself — the line with the public on one side and the judge, the attorneys and their clients on the other.
Our research did not confirm a source for wider uses of "the bar" on its own, so this page sticks to the documented one.
"Bar association" names something else: a lawyers' organization.
The name came from the same railing — the Library of Congress account notes that lawyer organizations took the name "bar associations."
What a body called a bar association does varies with the state.
In Washington, admissions are administered by the Washington State Bar Association under the Washington Supreme Court's Admission and Practice Rules.
In Texas, bar admission is administered by the Texas Board of Law Examiners under the Supreme Court of Texas' Rules Governing Admission to the Bar — a board separate from the State Bar of Texas.
In Oklahoma, continuing legal education is administered by the Oklahoma Bar Association's Commission on Mandatory Continuing Legal Education.
The name alone does not tell you what a bar association does in a given state — its role there does.
So one railing, three meanings:
- the bar exam — the test named for the railing;
- the bar — the courtroom railing itself, the line between the public and the court;
- a bar association — an organization of lawyers, named for the same railing.
Career information, not legal advice. Admission and bar association rules differ by state — confirm requirements with the bar admission authority in your state.