Adopting the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) is important for the State of New York, and carefully studying the implications of adopting the exam is essential.
Though supporting the UBE is not official policy of the American Bar Association, I have served as the 2nd Circuit Governor of the ABA’s Law Student Division, where I represent all New York state law students in ABA related matters. I also serve on the Law Student Division Board of Governors, which is composed of 23 law students, of varying geographic and demographic backgrounds, each of whom are elected by our approximately 35,000 law student members. It is the task of this group to create and suggest policy and initiatives on behalf of law students nationally. After speaking to many law students within New York on the subject, I drafted a resolution that urged all jurisdictions to expeditiously adopt the Uniform Bar Exam. In October 2014, the resolution passed unanimously in the ABA Law Student Division Board of Governors.
I urge New York to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam as soon as possible. New York’s pre-eminence in the legal field requires that this committee and this judiciary consider not only the implications in New York for current attorneys, but implications for the entire legal profession, including future attorneys.
In August 2002, the ABA’s Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice found “that geography no longer dictates the substantive law a lawyer practices, nor the location in which that practice takes place.” Rebecca S. Thiem, The Uniform Bar Exam: Change We Can Believe In, B. Examiner, Feb. 2009, at 12, 13.That was 13 years ago; the need for a portable law license for multijurisdictional practice has only grown.
Though I currently attend law school in New York, I grew up in Maryland, and attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. As you know, most jurisdictions require an individual to have practiced for more than five years before admission through motion. Even still, as a result of reciprocity rules, admission after 5 years isn’t guaranteed; New York is not a reciprocal state with Maryland, where my family resides, and as such I couldn’t move for admission after five years of practice in New York. As a result of this tangled web, and as Chief Judge Lippman has noted, law students who take the exam in one state, such as New York, but must move to another state for employment or other reasons, “must study for, pay for, wait for, and take multiple bar exams with uncertain results.” Jonathan Lippman, Uniform Bar Exam: A Template for New York?, N.Y.L.J. (Jan. 26, 2015). Chief Judge Lippman continues, saying, the “employment rate for fresh law graduates has fallen for the sixth year in a row… [and] dependable avenues of post-graduate employment have continued to erode in the face of economic pressures.” While I may have a preference and an idea of where I hope to be employed after law school, the reality for law students today is that we go where the market demands, or suffer from decreased job prospects. Administering duplicative exams serves to increase the expense of a test taken mostly by recent law school graduates, already saddled with student loans, facing poor hiring prospects. Ill. State Bar Ass’n, Final Report, Findings & Recommendations On The Impact Of Law School Debt On The Delivery Of Legal Services (2013). Adopting the Uniform Bar Exam allows current law students and future lawyers the flexibility to go where their circumstances dictate.
I understand the desire to protect the value of a New York law license and, ultimately, to protect clients. The UBE allows each state to set the passing score for their own jurisdiction. In the current proposal, New York would set the passing score at 266, a score lower than 10 of the 14 current UBE jurisdictions. I understand the need to maintain the quality of attorneys in New York, I really do; if that is the concern, New York has flexibility: set the passing score at 276 as in Colorado, or 280, as in Idaho. Setting a higher pass score than other UBE jurisdictions would allow those who sit for and pass the UBE in New York to transfer their scores elsewhere. Through a higher pass score, a state-specific multiple-choice component and continuing legal education, New York can maintain rigorous licensure requirements.
The adoption of the UBE in New York would set the legal profession on a course towards a uniform licensing structure while maintaining attorney quality. At the same time, it would also provide better options for law students who face an unprecedented legal employment market. I urge the committee and the judiciary as a whole to consider the benefits of the Uniform Bar Exam for current and future law students, and to adopt the UBE as quickly as possible.
Based on remarks by Chris Jennison, 2nd Circuit Governor of the ABA Law Student Division, on Thursday, February 26, 2015, at the Appellate Division Fourth Department. This was the third of four hearings held by the Advisory Committee on the Uniform Bar Examination, which is charged with studying the potential implementation of the UBE in New York.