Oregon High Court to Consider Dropping Bar Exam for New Lawyers

Oregon officials are weighing whether to drop the requirement that law school graduates must pass the bar exam to practice law, and, instead, allow more reliance on coursework and practical experience to earn a license.

The Oregon Supreme Court is scheduled on Wednesday to consider a task force’s newly submitted recommendations to overhaul the licensing system. A new scheme would upend decades of relying on a written test that includes essays and a multiple-choice exam, for which lawyers in training spend weeks studying and often take costly preparation courses.

The proposed alternatives to attorney licensure follow turmoil in traditional in-person exam taking after the test was made remote in many states due to the coronavirus pandemic. They also come amid an increasing focus on the high numbers who fail the exam, unnecessary high costs, and racial disparities. White law school graduates are more likely to pass the bar exam than test takers from other racial and ethnic groups, the American Bar Association found in a survey released last month.

The Oregon Supreme Court last year lifted the bar exam passage requirement at the request of three law state law schools. The court temporarily allowed “diploma privilege,” permitting last year’s law school graduates who planned to take the test last July to skip it and be deemed competent to practice law.

Louisiana, Utah, Washington, and Washington, D.C. also adopted diploma privilege. More than 1,000 recent law school graduates opted to become licensed without taking a bar exam. The programs, however, were designed to phase out in 2021.

States like California, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania – which have the largest numbers of test takers – rejected the privilege approach. Critics of alternative licensing pathways say the knowledge amassed in studying for the bar underpins good lawyering skills, while boosters say that the exam’s rote memorization is meaningless for actual practice.

The new options Oregon is considering would apply to those practicing in the state. The options before the state supreme court include a model where the second and third years of law school would be clinic-based work finalized with a major project that would be submitted for approval to the Oregon Board of Bar Examiners. A second option would be an apprentice-based where applicants to work under a licensed attorney for up to 1,500 hours and then submit a selection of work samples to the board.

Licensure applicants would still be subject to standard state lawyer vetting. The state board of examiners would have the final say on whether a candidate has the minimal level of competence to practice, and the current character and moral fitness review would still be required, according to Joanna Perini-Abbott, chair of the board’s Alternatives to the Exam Task Force.

“The task force believes there is substantial evidence to support offering alternative pathways to licensure that maintain and enhance rigor, while ensuring that new lawyers enter the profession with the knowledge and skills that they need to service clients,” she wrote to summarize the new recommendations.