Readers of this blog and followers of the NCBE’s expansion remember that this past Spring New York became the 16th state to adopt the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), changing its longstanding bar admission requirements. Many voices opposed adoption including the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) (see Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar (CLEAB) report 10-29-2014 and vote of House of Delegates), the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) and the Society for American Law Teachers (SALT). Despite these and other opposition voices, the proposal was adopted with the new changes going into effect for the July 2016 bar examination.
During discussion of the adoption of the UBE, the Court was encouraged to include clinical or experiential requirements for licensing so that lawyers admitted to the New York Bar would be ahead of the curve — a position I firmly support. On the opposite coast, California had been engaged in a multi-year process examining licensure and profession readiness which resulted in a proposal requiring 15 credits of experiential learning before admission. In response to the movement to incorporate experiential learning in bar admission, the New York State Court of Appeals formed a Task Force on Experiential Learning and Admission to the Bar. Just last month, that Taskforce requested comments on its proposal that
New York adopt a new mechanism for ensuring that all applicants for admission to the bar possess the requisite skills and are familiar with the professional values for effective, ethical and responsible practice. In light of New York’s diverse applicant pool, and in an effort to accommodate the varying educational backgrounds of applicants, the Task Force suggests five separate paths by which applicants for admission can demonstrate that they have satisfied the skills competency requirement.
The New York Law Journal examined the proposal in an article found here. In addition, the Honorable Judge Jenny Rivera, chair of the Taskforce attended a meeting of NYSBA’s Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar (CLEAB) to explain the proposal and answer questions.
It is heartening that the Court is concerned about and wants to require the development of essential lawyering skills and professional values acquisition. However, without more, Pathway 1 of the current proposal will not actually ensure that applicants to the bar experience the kind of skill development and value formation that the Taskforce desires. Pathway 1, referencing new ABA standards, requires schools to confirm that they have published their “plan for incorporating into their curriculum the skills and professional values that, in the school’s judgment, are required for its graduates’ basic competence and ethical participation in the legal profession.” It also requires law schools to certify that law graduate applicants for admission “have sufficient competency in those skills and sufficient familiarity with those values” which are publicly available on the law school’s website. Although Judge Rivera believes that the certification process described in Pathway 1 can have some real bite, as pointed out in comments submitted by the Clinical Legal Education Association (11.9. 15 CLEA SUBMISSION ON EXPERIENTIAL REQUIREMENT ), Pathway 1 simply mirrors the experiential training requirements already mandated by the American Bar Association.
New York’s law school deans, not unexpectedly, submitted comments supporting the “flexibility” of Pathway 1. The CLEAB report to the Experiential Taskforce expressed concern that without additional content to Pathway 1 “little will be accomplished” by the proposal. And as one member of the NYS bar committee argued, “what law school is going to admit that one of its graduates did not acquire the skills or values promised on its website?”
In my opinion, the most important concern is whether applicants to the bar have ever represented or interacted with a client, or operated as a lawyer, in a live setting under guided, experienced supervision before admission. In its comment to the Taskforce, CLEA urges that a “three- credit clinical training requirement” be added for all J. D. applicants to the New York Bar. This makes sense. Law school clinics and faculty-supervised externships are designed to create the very kind of skill development and value acquisition with which the Court is concerned. And clinical faculty have developed the formative assessment tools to maximize skill and professional identity formation.
I am hopeful that, in its next iteration of the proposal, the Taskforce will heed CLEA and CLEAB’s comments and come back with recommendations that will ensure applicants for the bar are ready to engage in competent, ethical and professional representation of New York’s citizenry, corporations, and not–for–profits.
Filed under: Bar Exam, Best Practices, Uncategorized | Tagged: ABA, aba standards, Assessment, bar exam, Best Practices and Curriculum; Catalysts for Change, best practices for legal education, CLEA, clinical legal education, Court of appeals, law schools, law students, legal education, legal education reform, New York, NY BOLE | Comments Off on New York Proposes “Experiential Learning Requirements” as Condition of Licensure: CLEA and NYS Bar Committee Respond
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