Well, it removes some pretty heavy financial obstacles for the profession and will allow a broader diversity of people to enter the field. Plus, anyone who has ever been to law school will tell you that it doesn't teach you dick diddly about practicing law. Serving as a clerk/intern/junior associate is where you really cut your teeth. Some jurisdictions even have restrictions on your ability to practice on your own if you haven't observed or participated in different types of legal matters. To that end, I think it's terrific that this program has a fairly strong practical requirement.
The bar is a way to show that you can at least think like an attorney in a variety of fields. That thought process is applied differently based on where you practice. I can't get out of my own speeding ticket, but I can breeze through your average regulatory exam for my industry. I can do that because I've spent time in a few different disciplines within the legal field. I'm not sure if 16 weeks is necessarily a substitute for the exam, but that's more time than I spent studying for it.
Source: I'm a lawyer, and my uncle works for Nintendo.
+1 to this. Just wash it out before you put new mints in it. The Altoid flavor can be pretty persistent and mess with the flavor of whatever else you put in there. They're curiously strong, after all.