For first time in state historical past legal professionals received’t be required to take the state bar examination to indicate competency to earn a legislation license. Washington joins Oregon as the one two states with alternate options to the bar examination.
There have been longtime issues inside the authorized group about whether or not the bar examination places an excessive amount of emphasis on rote memorization however does little to actually assess competency.
In 2020, some legislation faculty graduates expressed concern about taking the in-person bar examination through the pandemic. In response, the state Supreme Courtroom allowed graduates who’d utilized to take the examination to as a substitute obtain legislation licenses by diploma privilege, which means that those that certified might go straight on to be licensed to observe legislation with out passing the examination. That yr, 567 folks acquired their state legislation licenses by diploma privilege.
Then-Chief Justice Debra Stephens commissioned a activity pressure of legislation professors and legal professionals to check alternate options to the normal bar, which prompted questions concerning the efficacy of the examination. The group additionally appeared on the historical past of the examination and the way it impacts communities of shade.
The duty pressure discovered that the Uniform Bar Examination is a barrier to marginalized teams that want to observe legislation, and the examination is “minimally efficient” in guaranteeing competency amongst legal professionals. Sadly, it took COVID-19 and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery for the court docket to develop extra equitable pathways to the legislation, however the outcomes might imply extra legal professionals licensed to observe extra shortly and extra of them in underserved communities.
Beginning in summer time 2026, the state will administer the Nationwide Convention of Bar Examiners’ NextGen bar examination, a revised model of the present examination that features fewer matters and reduces the quantity of fabric that graduates have to memorize. In change, the NextGen check will present candidates with authorized materials and ask them to use it in a sensible scenario. The present bar examination will stay as an possibility.
As well as, the court docket has created different alternate options to the bar examination for acquiring a legislation license:
● Regulation faculty graduates can search their license after finishing ∙a six-month apprenticeship below the steerage of a training legal professional. The apprentice can be required to finish three programs of standardized coursework.
● Regulation faculty college students can put together to observe in the event that they full 12 ability credit and 500 hours of labor as a licensed authorized intern. They might even be required to current a portfolio of their work.
● Regulation clerks can develop into licensed legal professionals by finishing standardized materials below the mentorship of an legal professional and work a 500-hour internship.
“The check possibility doesn’t clear up all issues however it works towards fixing them,” stated Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, a co-chair of the duty pressure.
”What the court docket has completed right here deserves celebration,” stated Seattle College Regulation Faculty Dean Anthony Varona, co-chair of the duty pressure. “Totally different human beings be taught in another way and present their competency in numerous methods. So what we needed to do is to construct into the licensure regime that sort of alternative of pathway whereas guaranteeing we had been retaining rigor and we had been defending the general public.”
The adjustments are important for the authorized occupation and overdue. They need to even be evaluated by the court docket over time to evaluate their effectiveness.
