California Supreme Court Rejects Alternative Path To Attorney Licensure; Bar Exam May Test CA Law On All Subjects (Not Just CivPro & Evidence)

Order Concerning Recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the Bar Exam and the Alternative Pathway Working Group, Supreme Court of California (En Banc), Administrative Order 2024-10-10-01 (Oct. 10, 2024):

The court has considered the report and recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the Bar Exam (Commission) and a separate proposal offered by dissenting members of the Commission.

As a joint effort convened by the court and the State Bar of California, the Commission was charged with evaluating whether changes might be made to California's General Bar Examination, including whether to adopt alternative or additional testing or tools to ensure minimum competence to practice law. The Board of Trustees of the State Bar forwarded the Commission's final report and associated recommendations to this court for its consideration. Separately, the Board of Trustees convened five dissenting members of the Commission, in a group known as the Alternative Pathway Working Group (Working Group), to develop an alternative to the General Bar Examination. The Working Group developed the Portfolio Bar Examination (PBE) as a proposed alternative pathway for attorney licensure and forwarded the PBE proposal to this court for its consideration as well.

Through this order, the court adopts in part, and with modifications, most of the Commission's recommendations. It declines to adopt the PBE proposal.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION
ON THE FUTURE OF THE BAR EXAM

After due consideration, and with appreciation for the Commission's work, the court makes the following orders concerning the Commission's six recommendations.

1. The court adopts the Commission's recommendation to develop a California-specific bar examination. The recommended general scope for such an examination is adopted with the following modifications:

The Blue Ribbon Commission recommends that the future, California-developed bar exam, will continue to cover legal theories and principles of general application, which would include federal law applicable throughout the United States and that for certain subject areas such as Civil Procedure and Evidence, California law and rules mav also be applicable.

2. The court agrees with the Commission's recommendation to test nine topics on the examination, but orders the list of test topics supplemented to include three additional topics [Employment Law, Family Law, and Estate Planning, Trusts & Probate] …

Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC-Berkeley), A Strange Path for the Bar Exam:

The California Supreme Court's announcement on Thursday of its verdict on several proposals with regard to the California Bar Exam is puzzling because it simultaneously rejects meaningful reform and also rejects staying with the safe path of the status quo. It approves a risky plan to shift to a proprietary company to produce California bar questions. And it leaves uncertain whether the State Bar can go forward with its terrible idea of rewarding those who take a practice exam with up to 40 extra points when they actually take the bar exam. …

The bar exam is of enormous importance to those who want to be lawyers. It is deemed a crucial part of ensuring competent lawyers. Yet, serious questions have been raised about the bar exam and whether it really measures competence to practice law. This should be a time for innovation exploring other pathways to practice, more reciprocity, new types of questions, the Uniform Bar Exam. But if the California Supreme Court was not going in that direction, it should have stayed with tests produced by the very experienced National Conference of Bar Examiners. It is hard to read the California Supreme Court's order as other than the worst of all worlds.