The July administration of the New York bar exam is officially off and the New York State Bar Association’s Bar Exam Task Force has put forward a number of proposals, asking for a September administration and seeking practice waivers in the meantime to allow students impacted by the delay to practice immediately for some period of time under the supervision of admitted attorneys.
The students who wrote the mass letter requesting diploma-privileged admission for the classes dealing with all of this are sticking by their position that a September date doesn’t solve the problem if it just gets pushed off again after the students put in weeks of studying and resist practice waivers as a flawed solution because it just pushes off the bar exam to a future date when they have to study and perform their day jobs simultaneously.
Into this mix, the deans of the 15 New York law schools have offered a letter outlining the issues they see with the bar exam question. In the short-term, the ideas don’t drift far from what’s already on the table, but the letter outlines the opportunity to make some broader changes to the licensing process while we’re at this crossroads.
Delay in the admission of our 2020 graduates to the New York bar is likely to cause our students profound harm in a time already marked by suffering, intensifying financial hardship and exacerbating the unfairness of their plight. Even if a date for a September examination is set quickly, the unpredictable public health situation means that our graduates will still lack the certainty needed to structure their lives and finances. This uncertainty will particularly disadvantage graduates who already would have struggled to piece together financing to bridge the time between graduation, taking the exam, and starting work⎯even if the exam had been administered in July. Graduates in those circumstances are disproportionately likely to come from communities underrepresented in the profession. Many such graduates have relied upon loans to finance their legal education and do not have families able to support them financially, and some are in the position of financially supporting others. Delaying the date of admission to some unknowable future date threatens real harm for these graduates.
The deans also note that almost half of the graduates of ABA-accredited law schools take jobs with the government, public-interest organizations, and small firms of under 25 attorneys — all employers that tend to serve the public interest or clients that are in some way underserved. That’s why the deans say an 18-month practice waiver requiring graduates to take the bar exam in 2021 is the minimum accommodation required.
But those key employers are also the employers with fewer resources available to let new hires just take a bunch of time off to go take a test. Biglaw could, if it wanted to, tell its new blood that they’re getting the summer of 2021 off — with pay — to take the test, a luxury the public sector just can’t afford and one lawyers working in the public sector and hoping to keep roofs over their heads definitely can’t afford. That’s why the deans are recommending a solution that we’ve forwarded here at Above the Law, but never really thought would get this kind of high-profile traction:
In addition, we ask the Court to give serious consideration to going beyond this temporary, practice-order approach in one important respect. In light of the challenges of preparing for the bar examination while holding down a full-time job, we believe the Court should consider allowing members of the Class of 2020 who successfully complete a period of supervised practice to seek admission to the bar without sitting for the bar examination. Even more than a regime of provisional permission for supervised practice while preparing to sit for the bar, such an approach would mitigate the harm caused to the Class of 2020 by the postponement of the July 2020 bar examination.
A functional apprenticeship track! It may not be the right solution for everyone, but in a world where we’re constantly concerned that law school creates lawyers on paper that lack practice-ready skills, what if the bar to licensing actually focused on “building practical skills”? A bar exam does nothing but make sure people who already passed law school can… pass another law school test. Making a practical route to admission would be revolutionary for New York.
The deans aren’t advocating for such a wholesale change right now, but if this proposal were to work out, it would be hard to imagine putting the toothpaste back in the tube. And maybe that would be for the best. Since getting a job is already hard, over the long-term, these apprenticeships should be handled through law schools and replace the third year, but I digress. That can be an article for next year when we’re all wondering why we don’t just go forward after a successful pilot program.
But it’s such a drastic departure from the status quo that it will face opposition. How does one guarantee that an applicant is actually learning anything practical while employed? What about supervising lawyers who are themselves… bad at their jobs? Maintaining quality control will require a lot of thought. We’ve done this before, but it could prove a difficult transition even in the short-term.
And then the deans just throw in this last grenade and close the door:
We further urge the future consideration of the administration of the bar exam online. Although we recognize that moving the exam online requires careful exploration of technological complexities and coordination among jurisdictions, it is evident that, were such an option feasible now, it might enable the profession to adapt more deftly to the unanticipated challenges of this global emergency.
Moving the bar exam online. Where nothing ever goes wrong.
That’s just daunting enough to make everyone think that apprenticeship might be doable after all.
Check out the full letter on the next page.
Earlier: Over 2,000 Law School Students Sign Letter Seeking Diploma-Privileged Licensure
Bar Exam Task Force Eyes September Test, Proposes Practice Waivers
July NY State Bar Exam Officially Off
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.