Irish Woman Among Youngest Ever to Pass New York Bar

When the results of the July New York Bar Exam were posted this fall, Aoife Moore Kavanagh (right), a law graduate of Dublin City University from County Louth, became one of the youngest people ever to pass the grueling test, at age 22.
“A lot of my fellow classmates and people I met while in New York didn’t know that it was even an option to sit the Bar Exam without going to an American law school,” she told IrishCentral. “But I am proof that it can be done.”
Kavanagh spent time in San Francisco on a J-1 Visa two summers ago and saw there would be more opportunities as a law graduate in the U.S. than in Ireland. She first took the Bar in February of this year, but failed by ten points.
“I had to try again. I owed it to myself to give it my very best shot and now that I knew New York was where I wanted to be I had this new-found drive and longing,” she said. “For the next two months I focused solely on the exam. There were times when I couldn’t even remember the last time I got dressed. I lived and breathed the American law materials. I recorded myself reciting rules and fell asleep listening to it. I studied 9-plus hours a day, six days a week.”
Kavanagh intends to move to New York with the aim of becoming a judge, she told the Irish Mirror. “I can’t wait to get stuck in.” ♦