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 ...
Given the demonstrated laughable performance of certain “lawyers” in the news lately, ‘twould appear that the passage of the bar exam was perhaps ignored. Now, we wouldn’t want to mention any names, but those clowns have done a great job of bringing disdain on an already not very respected profession. Today’s lawyers are doing to the profession what Boeing executives are doing to engineering.
Perfect prediction.
Yep.
I agree, now attorneys will have to compete with illegal aliens flooding the market. Just like everyone else.
So much for those high wages.
Considering that the ABA is firmly in the grips of Wokeness I have a feeling the current exams deal more with DEI than hard core legal wrangles. So this may be a blessing in disguise.
. Piker. Took me four. Passed all 4 in one sitting. 🤣
WIKI
Lincoln served as New Salem’s postmaster and later as county surveyor, but continued his voracious reading and decided to become a lawyer. Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed legal texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone’s Commentaries and Chitty’s Pleadings, and read law on his own. He later said of his legal education that “I studied with nobody.”
He was admitted to the Illinois bar on September 9, 1836, and moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd’s cousin. Lincoln emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments. He partnered several years with Stephen T. Logan, and in 1844 began his practice with William Herndon, “a studious young man”.
In his Springfield practice, Lincoln handled “every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer”. Twice a year he appeared for 10 consecutive weeks in county seats in the Midstate county courts; this continued for 16 years. Lincoln handled transportation cases in the midst of the nation’s western expansion, particularly river barge conflicts under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests, but ultimately represented whoever hired him. He later represented a bridge company against a riverboat company in Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Company, a landmark case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge.
Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases; he was sole counsel in 51 cases, of which 31 were decided in his favor. From 1853 to 1860, one of his largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad. His legal reputation gave rise to the nickname “Honest Abe”.
Lincoln argued in an 1858 criminal trial, defending William “Duff” Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for Lincoln’s use of a fact established by judicial notice to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After an opposing witness testified to seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers’ Almanac showing the Moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Armstrong was acquitted.
Leading up to his presidential campaign, Lincoln elevated his profile in an 1859 murder case, with his defense of Simeon Quinn “Peachy” Harrison who was a third cousin; Harrison was also the grandson of Lincoln’s political opponent, Rev. Peter Cartwright. Harrison was charged with the murder of Greek Crafton who, as he lay dying of his wounds, confessed to Cartwright that he had provoked Harrison. Lincoln angrily protested the judge’s initial decision to exclude Cartwright’s testimony about the confession as inadmissible hearsay. Lincoln argued that the testimony involved a dying declaration and was not subject to the hearsay rule. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as expected, the judge, a Democrat, reversed his ruling and admitted the testimony into evidence, resulting in Harrison’s acquittal.
On February 27, 1860, powerful New York Republicans invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union, in which he argued that the Founding Fathers of the United States had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. He insisted that morality required opposition to slavery and rejected any “groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong”. Many in the audience thought he appeared awkward and even ugly. But Lincoln demonstrated intellectual leadership, which brought him into contention. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, “No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
Incompetents are admitted to law school based on affirmative action. Said incompetents are then presented law degrees because failing them would be racist. Said incompetents are then elected as prosecutors and judges. US then continues its march to third-world status.
Another outstanding example of the dimmocrap way to deal with inability to pass any sort of standard: eliminate it. Minority students can’t pass tests? Eliminate the tests. Illegals can’t vote? Eliminate the need to be a citizen. High school students can’t get decent ACT or SAT scores? Eliminate the tests. And so on. Now, YOU can have a lawyer who could not pass the bar, so good ol’ Washington State eliminated that nasty little requirement! Waiting for surgeons who don’t need to get M.D. degrees!
For D.E.I. Yay!!!
“The BAR is just a lawyer’s union with a fancy name”
My daughter and son-in-law both took the New York State Bar. This was ten years ago - it was very difficult and required months of study. They passed easily the first time. However, they both were in the top 10% of their graduating class at W&L, considered a top tier law school. (at least it was when they attended.)
It is not uncommon to have to take the NYS bar exam several times before passing. It is a challenging exam and does weed out the incompetents. Getting rid of the bar would result in a definite decrease in qualified candidates in the law field, including judges down the road. Dreadful idea.
States have to have reciprocity with one another. You'd be surprised at how few do. I practiced in Maryland for twenty years and then when I moved to Virginia had to take the full Virginia bar exam.
In reality, people learn more about "black letter law" when studying for the bar exam than they do in attending law school. Law school is more about teaching students how to think about law rather than teaching actual law.
American law schools graduate TWICE as many lawyers every year than the American legal system can employ.
There are thousands of young people with law degrees who are retail store clerks or food servers.
Law schools have been exposed by books and articles as gigantic scams to take the money of suckers and provide them with a worthless degree. They brag to potential students about the employment opportunities which are proven lies.
Law schools are organized fraud upon the unsuspecting.
All public university law schools should be closed for at least ten years, if not PERMANENTLY.
My error was going to work for EF Hutton. I passed the Series 7 two months before the company pleaded guilty to 2000 felony counts of check kiting.
It all worked out for the best, though. I applied what I learned from Hutton's fraud to a financial investigation I'm involved with at work. The end result is a 100+ item complaint filed against the former manager of one of our properties in the South.
Our asset managers are not schooled in accounting, they never questioned the harm generated by a commingled bank account that involved several different companies.
Top tier is generally defined as the top fourteen, Harvard, Yale, etc. Second tier is generally considered 15-100. W&L has always been considered among the better of the second tier schools, but has never been in the top tier.
“People will visit the prospective lawyer and see he/she/it is not white. They’ll leave. So, any legitimate non-white lawyers will be hurt.”
I hired the lawyer for my mother’s estate at the courthouse.
I found that he was satisfactory.
I think the lawyer that appeared for Trump in the first Carroll trial did a good job.
Given that Fani Willis apparently passed the bar exam in Florida, along with her lover Wade...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.