Bar Exam

A growing number of states are exploring the permanent implementation of alternative licensure approaches that would allow law school graduates to obtain their license through nontraditional avenues that run adjacent to—or bypass entirely—the bar exam.

The goal of any licensure process should be to make sure the public is protected from incompetence without serving as an artificial barrier to people entering the legal profession. Indeed, this is precisely what the bar exam purports to do. But does the bar exam actually do those things?

In October 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing—with the goal of improving the bar exam and the overall licensing process. Here, we cover the fourth, fifth, and sixth building blocks of minimum competence.

In October 2020, IAALS published its groundbreaking report on the 12 building blocks of minimum competence to be a lawyer, our 5 insights for assessment, and our 10 recommendations for better legal licensing—with the goal of improving the bar exam and the overall licensing process. Here, we cover the first three building blocks of minimum competence.

The pandemic’s disruption to the status quo brought with it a critical view of the bar exam, how it is administered, and whether it actually tests what it purports to. The status quo—and tinkering around its edges—is not good enough. It is time we had the courage and will to look beyond the assumptions that underpin the current bar exam and towards outcomes and purpose for a new era.

In a groundbreaking report, IAALS, in partnership with Professor Deborah Merritt at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, has defined the minimum competence that new lawyers need to be qualified to practice law—and provides recommendations for how legal licensing processes like the bar exam must change to be more fair to bar applicants and to better protect the public.

The legal profession is fraught with systemic barriers to entry that form ripple effects on the road to becoming a lawyer. The pathway is much like narrow pipeline—entry is limited and every segment is springing leaks, disproportionately affecting people of color along the way—creating a profession that is among the least diverse in the country.

Unauthorized practice of law rules grant lawyers a monopoly on providing legal advice and prevent “nonlawyers” from providing any meaningful legal assistance. This mindset codified in the UPL rules, along with our country’s staggering racial wealth gap, have a chilling effect on Black Americans' access to the legal system.

In 2018, the NCBE created its Testing Task Force to conduct a three-year project that, in part, examines whether the bar exam is a valid measure of minimum competence to practice law. Last month, NCBE released a report detailing the findings of Phase 2, a national practice analysis, which will provide a foundation of data for bar exam reform.