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 ...
Algonquin J. Calhoun, “Not only do I deny the allegations, I deny the allegator.”
I think every state permits reciprocal licensing for working lawyers.
That is, if you've been practicing law in state X for five or seven years and you move to state Y, then state Y will admit you to practice law without requiring you to pass state Y's bar exam.
So move to Washington, become a lawyer, then move to any other state after a certain number of years. Easy peasy.
Sounds like a plan. Thanks!
Wonder if you'd feel the same way if fighting a murder frame up and you have to depend on a lawyer for a defense that could take many months of intense preparation when that "lawyer" couldn't prepare for and handle a simple bar exam.
This is only and expressly to license those who can’t pass their bar exam.
Took me 3 times to pass it, but that was according to plan. Knocked out Theory and Practice the first time, second time was the following May, right after tax season. Passed the last two in November.
Essay questions got me over the hump. I had the same professor for 30+ hours, his tests were all essay.
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.
For graduates, this would entail a six-month apprenticeship under the guidance and supervision of a qualified attorney; during that time, the graduates would be required to complete three courses of standardized coursework.
For law students, the experiential pathway would allow them to graduate practice-ready by completing 12 qualifying skills credits and 500 hours of work as a licensed legal intern; they would be required to submit a portfolio of this work to waive the bar exam.
For law clerks (enrolled in a non-law school course of study), creation of additional standardized educational materials and benchmarks to be completed under the guidance of their tutors that dovetail with the requirements of the law school graduate apprenticeship, and 500 hours of work as a licensed legal intern to be eligible to waive the bar exam.
not enough blacks can pass the bar exam, so the lefts answer is simply to get rid of the exam!
What, no alternative pathways to licensure in Georgia yet? They seem perfectly suited for this.
Yes, the bar exam is indeed an impediment to marginalized stupid people becoming lawyers.....
Abraham Lincoln never went to law school.
The BAR is just a lawyer’s union with a fancy name.
The idiotic black equal opportunity affirmative action lawyers going after Trump aren’t stupid enough. We need some even dumber ones.
About 30 years ago no one passed the Washington State Bar Exam. Everyone failed the ethics test. No need to worry about the ethics if no bar exam.
Doctors are next. Your prediction is already taking place.
What they are doing is accomodating Sharia Law.
Last Hurrah for lawyers. In just a handfull of year, AI will run laps around lawyers with ease. Complete near instance recall of every case. A completely history of winning and losing arguments. I would think layers could be among the first white collar jobs to fall.
Proof of participation in an Antifa riot should work.
;-)
do they mean Stupid People?
what groups are marginalized? Double A's? Im not following this logic. If you go to school, learn proper english, do your home work, go to college, then apply to law school. You get to prove you are a capable and knowledgeable enough to handle the U.S. court system.
Whos being marginalized? is this D.E.I.?
“AI”
garbage in -> garbage out
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