Dive Brief:
- Law school graduates in the state of New York will not have to prepare for a state-specific bar this year.
- The New York Times reports the state’s chief judge announced a shift to a standard bar exam already offered in 15 other states.
- The standard exam includes an assessment of general lawyering skills instead of testing future lawyers’ New York-specific legal knowledge, though if those students get a job in New York, they’ll have to take a shorter follow-up test to be able to practice, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
A standardized bar exam gives students mobility. Now, if a student goes to school in New York but gets a job in California, they would have to prepare for two distinct bar exams, potentially dissuading them from going to school in one state or considering jobs in another. Passing a single state’s bar is hard enough for many candidates. States adopting the common test seem to be making up for the loss of local legal assessment with companion tests that will be much less time-consuming to prepare for, and only necessary once a student is ready to practice.