FOX News reports that the Washington State Supreme Court has established alternative paths to licensure for would be lawyers. I think you can still go the Bar exam route though and it's a good thing because the alternative paths include hundreds of hours of intern-type work. My own thinking is that they've taken leave of their senses, but we shall see. Washington State has long been an outlier with regard to making lawyers. The Bar itself runs a four year clerkship program that replaces law school. There, I agree with them absolutely. Here's what's interesting...the Supreme Court says that there's a desperate need for new lawyers throughout the State. I doubt that. I suspect that the problem is that there isn't the economic activity outside the largest cities to support lawyers. The notion that there are too few J.D.s in the world seems highly questionable to me. But what do I know?
Interesting...the one thing the Washington State Supreme Court apparently WON'T accept is a law degree from a non-ABA approved school. At least, not right away. They've long allowed out of state lawyers with a few years of experience to take the Bar regardless of their law school.
Thanks. Read it. That's a big list of changes. Adopting the NextGen Bar Exam, and slight cut in the passing score - 270-266 as in the pandemic, and the alternative paths / practicums etc. I like to think that lawyers trained this way will come out of the gate VERY well prepared. The new routes are probably not good for the Student Loan business - and I see that as a plus. I like their rationale: "The traditional bar exam disproportionately and unnecessarily blocks marginalized groups from entering the practice of law, and the traditional bar exam is at best minimally effective for ensuring competent lawyers." I hasten to add that a mandatory four years of law school - without these alternatives would be at least as big an obstacle for marginalized groups, due to cost.
I've never understood the Bar exam. Oh, I'm all for setting standards for admission to a profession, sure. But what does it do or add? Generally speaking, the ABA is the gatekeeper to the profession. (Yes, I know about exceptions and outliers.) They accredit law schools. It would seem that someone graduating from a law school they accredit would be admitted to the profession they control. Yes, other professions have exams. But, for the most part, you can practice them without passing that exam. Accounting, project management, construction, engineering, the list of professions that have certifications, yet you can practice without them, is huge. But law isn't one of them. Maybe I'm putting too much faith in the accreditation process, but I hardly think that exam--as narrow as it is--buttresses any law school deficiencies. And if law schools are graduating unqualified students--and a grad failing the bar exam is that by definition--shouldn't that be the issue?
The presser says that the WASCT did extensive research, or had it done for them, but I confess that I don't see how requiring applicants to explain why a will wasn’t validly executed or explain when a party admission is evidence can unfairly prejudice any applicant regardless of background. Those are the rules and they apply to everybody. You either know the rules or you don't and if you don't you shouldn't be practicing law. I also wonder how they reached the conclusion that the Bar Exam is not very effective at establishing competence. What did they do for a population of unexamined lawyers to look at?
I catch a faint whiff of a distant results-driven low tide. I also seriously doubt very many applicants will seek admission under a Bar Exam alternative. Taking the Bar exam is a two or three day marathon but most applicants pass the first time and most of the rest pass on their second or third attempt. 500 hours of supervised practice is a much less convenient undertaking.
Couple of interesting points in the Executive Summary...first is the description of the proposed NextGen Bar exam. I like what I read about it. Second, it makes the point that no one has really identified what knowledge and skill a new lawyer needs to possess. I hadn’t thought about it but that's true and it matters. I still sense mudflats not far away though.
If you earn a JD from the University of Wisconsin you can practice in that state without sitting the bar exam: https://law.wisc.edu/current/diploma_privilege/
When I got into this stuff, there were five states who admitted law graduates to the Bar without the bar examination, provided they had studied law in that respective state. I understand that condition has degraded over the years. (Back then, California was the only state that admitted candidates to the Bar by "reading the law," and California and the District of Columbia were the only two who would allow graduates of non-ABA-accredited schools to sit for the Bar. I think that's largely the same today (?)
I know that Virginia still allows reading law, but it's very rare that anyone actually does it. When I look it up, Wikipedia says that "California, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington permit students to take the state bar exam after reading law with the help of an attorney as an alternative to law school. New York, Maine, and Wyoming allow students to study in a law office together with some period of time in law school."
No. They aren't. There are bad law schools who admit poorly prepared students and hold onto them to extract their student loan money. That's why the ABA imposed a bar pass rate requirement. If you eliminate the Bar Exam you remove the one check on such abusive institutions and (I think) you lose an important protection for the public.
Perhaps the ABA should do a better job applying effective accreditation standards. From an educational standpoint, it is nonsensical to (a) approve the process by which law school students graduate, then (b) fail them from actually practicing law.
Why would they do that? The ABA's member schools are doing what they want to do and their professors are overpaid and underworked so everything is hunky-dory, right? The only ones to suffer the consequences are the students who pay far too much money for the training they get. Look, the biggest problem I have with ABA approval is that the vaunted Standards for Accreditation measure inputs almost entirely. That's lousy management and leads to exactly what we've got; rigid training programs that are largely the same thoughout the country. This is why I'd rather we abandoned mandatory law school accreditation, or indeed mandatory law school altogether, in favor of an enhanced Bar examination and perhaps a clerkship to qualify for admission. Make the standards objective and output driven and take the gatekeeping function away from the law schools and the ABA. They've milked the system long enough.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/15/supreme-court-bar-exam-will-no-longer-be-required-/ And this!: https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2024/Q1/indiana-supreme-court-decision-moves-purdue-global-law-school-forward.html#:~:text=The%20ruling%2C%20issued%20Thursday%20(Feb,a%20physical%20campus%20for%20accreditation. I never thought I'd live to see the day. Dr. Bear, I hope you're still reading this forum, because change is happening as we speak.
