Testing the Staying Power of the Bar Exam

Published March 18, 2014

A test more dreaded than the SAT and the LSAT is the bar exam, but nightmares about this assessment might become less frightening in the future because a Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) seems destined to replace the traditional state exams.

The UBE is currently offered in fourteen states. This exam enables anyone who passes it to practice in any of the other states that offer the UBE. No other exam is required. However, states may set their own passage score requirement for applicants.

The UBE is a sensible alternative to the traditional state bar exams. A lawyer who wants to practice in more than one state need take only one exam, saving time and money in preparing for multiple exams. Most lawyers take a course after law school in order to prepare for the bar exam. This can run several thousand dollars, an added expense to the already high cost of going to law school for three years. Imagine that cost times the number of states in which a lawyer would like to practice! Furthermore, the bar exam is usually given twice a year and takes several months to be graded. Thus, a lawyer’s employment and income-earning abilities are put on hold in each state in which he wants to practice for a minimum of six months.

With the monetary savings related to the UBE, it may be possible to encourage graduates to open a practice in “underserved” communities. This might help address the concern expressed by some bar executives recently that we have a mismatch of a supply of lawyers and demand for their services.

With close to 30 percent of the states currently offering the UBE, the idea of a federal licensing system no longer is outside the realm of possibility. The staunch state’s rights philosophy may be overcome quietly.

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