Yes, I know. The gap in content around here is inexcusable. Every week or so I should at least post this gif to keep people interested.
Today though we offer content. We are spurred to drop all the other projects and write because two things happened today. First, of local interest, the results for the latest round of the bar exam in Tennessee come out. I wish all of those who find out today that they passed the bar a lifetime of success in the practice of law. I also wish for all of those who are successful that they join many of their colleagues in continuing to demand that we no longer condition admission to the practice of law on performance on a test. To repeat myself from past posts: Very, very little of the work of an attorney involves memorizing things and knowing answers off the top of one’s head. Success during a law school career spread out over three years is a much more reliable indicator of whether someone should be issued a law license.
The other thing that happened today is that the California Supreme Court rejected an effort in California to embrace a path to licensure other than passing a test. If you want to read the entire order the court entered to explain its rationale. You can download it below.
In addition to, at least somewhat ironically, rejecting a path that might obviate problems of disproportionate impacts based on race, gender, ethnicity, disability, and other immutable characteristics by saying that the problem with a supervised practice approach is that some applicants might have better supervisors than others, the court talked superficially about potential ethical problems such an arrangement could create. Each of those alleged ethical issues, however, could readily be guarded against in many of the same ways that jurisdictions throughout the United States do in terms of the law-student practice that is routinely allowed.
It also appears that California is also going to make its own examination rather than embrace the Uniform Bar Examination. [I could be wrong about this as I might be missing something in the context and that the idea is California is creating an additional exam, but it does not sound like that at all.]
This is disappointing, but not at all surprising. Time and time again, California has rejected opportunities to take the lead in helping push for regulatory reform in the practice of law. Given this, and past instances where the years-long work of dedicated professionals has been tossed aside, it is kind of amazing that California lawyers are willing to continue to invest their time and talents in trying to move these kinds of efforts forward at all.
Le sigh.