I was never a Journey fan but I truly am astonished that after all these years of preparing lawyers for practice, and after two years of an unprecedented undermining of the rule of law in our nation, law schools still live with a disconnect between the profession’s licensing exam and what business, government and society needs lawyers to be and do, which includes protecting the rule of law.
The National Law Journal recently discussed two new major studies which will analyze whether the current exam is the best measure of new lawyer competence. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) is in the midst of a three year study to “ensure that the bar examination continues to test the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for competent entry-level legal practice in the 21st century.” (Hmm, continues? that’s a bit biased) and has already held 30 listening sessions.
The second study, “Building a Better Bar: Capturing Minimum Competence” is an initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System in partnership with Ohio State Law Professor Deborah Merritt, and aspires to develop a “fair, evidence-based definition of minimum competence” to improve the current licensing process. Funded by Access-Lex, the researchers:
will be holding 60 focus groups in 12 locations around the country. While these focus group participants will primarily be new lawyers, we will also hold a number of specialized groups with supervisors. Additional specialized groups will include only women and only people of color, as well as groups in rural areas; traditional job analyses can mask the views of these lawyers, yet their perspectives are essential to create a more fully representative view of minimum competence and how to test for it effectively. Through these focus groups, we will be able to capture key information from a diversity of perspectives and provide concrete data on the definition of minimum competence that the profession can use to improve the bar exam and how lawyers are licensed.
Readers may remember that IAALS has provided helpful research in the past through its Foundations for Practice research, which identified the competencies over 24,000 legal employers value in new hires (most of which go untested by the current licensing process) as well as the evaluation of the graduates of the Daniel Websters Honors alternative to the bar exam in “Ahead of the Curve: turning Law Students into Lawyers ”
I suppose I should be delighted that more studies are being launched. They are addressing the exact issues so many of us have raised for decades. However, my reaction is uncharacteristically pessimistic. (Readers here who have tolerated my enthusiastic use of exclamation points and emphasis will agree it is uncharacteristic). Perhaps it is the August humidity. Perhaps, it is the sorrow surrounding our nation after a week of grief from senseless gun violence But more likely, it is the fact that I am feeling frustrated that we have already studied this to death! For example, working with state bar associations The Foundations for Practice Project already studied new lawyer competencies with 24,000 lawyers from all 50 states participating and found
… the foundations that entry-level lawyers need to launch successful careers in the legal profession.
In a first-of-its-kind survey, we asked, “What makes a new lawyer successful?” More than 24,000 lawyers from all 50 states answered.
What we learned is that new lawyers need more than IQ and EQ to be successful. They also need CQ: Character Quotient. In fact, 76% of characteristics (thinks like integrity, work ethic, common sense, and resilience) were identified by a majority of respondents as necessary right out of law school.
Beyond character, new lawyers are successful when they come to the job with a broad blend of legal skills, professional competencies, and characteristics that comprise what we call the “whole lawyer.”
So why is the NCBE, who clearly has a stake in the outcome, refusing to respond to the outcome of that 3 year old study but instead promising only to do its own study. JEESH! We tweak here and there, we add more pro bono or experiential requirements, but no one truly influential will admit that our insistence on anchoring the gateway to the profession to a timed, written exam instead of clinical excellence is the problem.
Starting as early as 2008, this blog has discussed the problems with the bar exam and its role as an unhelpful, anxiety producing, discriminatory, skewed, and unnecessarily speeded, gate-keeping device. For a sporadic history of posts between then and now, in fairly chronological order, click on the links below.
Did You Know That “Bar Courses” Don’t Matter?
New Article: No Excuses Left for Failing to Reform Legal Education
Working with State Bar Associations on Best Practices
Bar Passage and Best Practices for Legal Education
The Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program
NYSBA Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession Report
New Requirements for Bar Exam Stress Clinical Education
Existential Crisis and Bar Exams: what is really cruelest?
The Bar Exam Inhibits Curricular Reform
NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION VIGOROUSLY OPPOSES PROPOSAL TO BRING UBE TO NY THIS JULY
Preparing Students for the Multistate Bar Exam
Musings on the Bar Exam and Legal Education’s Attitude toward it
Bar Exam Musings, Part II: Skillfully Changing the Bar Exam Narrative
Experts in the Legal Field Question the Bar Exam…
What’s going on in California? “TFARR- recommended” 15 credits of competency training
Keeping an experiential identity in bar passage reform
Whither Clinical Courses and Bar Passage – by Prof. Robert Kuehn
Professor Merritt’s Blog post on attorney discipline and bar exam WORTH A READ!
Scholarship on Bar Exam Alternatives Needed
ABA Commission on Future of the Profession & ABA Vote on Bar Passage Proposal
Drafting Exams With Test-Taking Speed in MindConcrete Suggestions for Bar Exam Reform
We have to talk about the bar exam
More Resources Re Teaching, Learning, and Bar Passage
A Fresh Look at the Uniform Bar Examination
Letters raise concerns about changes to the bar pass accreditation standard
Time to Remedy the Ills Afflicting ABA Council’s Standard 316 Proposal
Shifting the Focus of Legal Education Back to Just That: Education
How Practice Tests Reduce Anxiety in Bar Preparation and the Exam
Quite a listing, huh? I suspect that the IAALS and Merritt project will provide us with extraordinarily helpful insights into measuring minimum competence. But political clout is also needed. Will this BLOG simply be adding more posts for years to come on the unfairness and inappropriateness of a slightly modified, unnecessarily stressful, timed, bar exam — a continued hazing tradition? I hope the NCBE and other institutional influencers proves me wrong.
Filed under: academic freedom, Bar Exam, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Disruptive Leadership, Diversity & Social Justice, Uncategorized | Tagged: bar exam, best practices, education, law, law school, lawyers, Social Justice |
Best Practices for Legal Education 