Posted on 03/17/2024 9:26:18 AM PDT by llevrok
The bar exam will no longer be required to become a lawyer in Washington, the state Supreme Court ruled in a pair of orders Friday.
The court approved alternative ways to show competency and earn a law license after appointing a task force to examine the issue in 2020.
The Bar Licensure Task Force found that the traditional exam “disproportionally and unnecessarily blocks” marginalized groups from becoming practicing attorneys and is “at best minimally effective” for ensuring competency, according to a news release from the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts.
Washington is the second state to not require the bar exam, following Oregon, which implemented the change at the start of this year. Other states, including Minnesota, Nevada, South Dakota and Utah, are examining alternative pathways to licensure.
“These recommendations come from a diverse body of lawyers in private and public practice, academics, and researchers who contributed immense insight, counterpoints and research to get us where we are today,” Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, who chaired the task force, said in a statement. “With these alternative pathways, we recognize that there are multiple ways to ensure a competent, licensed body of new attorneys who are so desperately needed around the state.”
There will be three experiential-learning alternatives to the bar exam, each for people following a different path of legal study. The specifics, scale and implementation plan for the pathways have yet to be developed.
Law school graduates can complete a six-month apprenticeship while being supervised and guided by a qualified attorney, along with finishing three courses.
Law students can become practice-ready by completing 12 qualifying skills credits and 500 hours of work as a licensed legal intern. Upon completion of those requirements, they would submit a portfolio of that work to waive the bar exam. ..............
(Excerpt) Read more at spokesman.com ...
“roll over”
Perhaps penalties set by the legislatures should be aligned with those actually served.
caveat emptor.... right???
Why would anyone want to hire an attorney who can’t perform well enough under pressure to pass the bar exam? I would hope that those who didn’t pass the bar exam can be identified but I doubt it because that might stigmatize them and label them as the second-rate attorneys that they probably are.
that means just ANYBODY can be a liar(that’s how we pronounce lawyer here).
Not the analogy I would draw, but it does hint at the great loss to the boxing world (and other lines of work) that will occur upon easing the standards of entry into law practice.
Already in Wisconsin and has been forever.
Demand for boxes of Cracker Jacks just went up
I am flabbergasted at some of the attorneys I know. No clue how they passed the bar.
The first two times I took it I was real young and stupid. Me and my buddies didn’t really study and got bombed the night before. After that I actually studied and took it serious as I had a child on the way.
Think that through to its logical conclusion -- non-bar lawyers will become prosecuting attorneys and judges. A neomarxist Soros wet dream. **shudder**
As a preview, Nathan Wade gradumikated from John Marshall Law Skrewel. Not the actual Chicago "John Marshall" -- which has renamed itself as "UI-Chicago" because John Marshall was supposedly a slave trader -- but Hotlanta's John Marshall version which is edumakating ex-slaves, albeit only with accreditation since 2005, and the skrewel was on probation as recently as 2017.
By the way, Nategums, you need to update your website, as this is no longer a factual representation as an officer of the court:
"As a private practitioner for many years and a recently appointed Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia, Nathan J. Wade has been recognized by his peers with numerous awards for his excellence as an attorney and for his service to his community, to include Georgia’s Top Lawyer/Legal Elite award and the Justice Robert Benham Award for Community Service."
In related news, flight school will no longer be a prerequisite to become an airline pilot.
Here comes exponentially more attorneys who are unqualified, heading
for appointments as judgeships around the nation.
After all, you don’t even have to have been a judge to be on the SCOTUS
1. anyone with a lick of sense will now have to ask prospective Washington state lawyers if they passed the Washington state bar exam ...
2. anyone hiring a non-bar lawyer will now always claim they had poor representation whenever they lose ...
heck, even Better Call Saul passed the bar exam ...
Up here in WA, if you asked that question you'd be accused of a bias crime because DEI rules here
Based on very personal experience, the Washington State Supreme Court ignores the law and Constitution, actual knowledge of the law is just an afterthought.
And in short time, that will be deemed a racially based question.
And I'd hire Saul long before any of these new "lawyers". If you are going to get down and dirty, do it with the best!
How will anyone be able to tell the difference?
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