Get access to
MEMBER LOGIN

Bar Exam

Andi Curcio, Chair of the Bar Exam Committee

The Department of Education continues to pressure the ABA into adopting a "bright-line" bar passage rate for law school accreditation. SALT continues to oppose the tactic of using state licensing exams, which do not test the skills necessary for the practice of law, as a way of gauging the quality of institutional instruction in law schools.

The Department of Education should instead be addressing the dearth of people of color in the legal profession and the bench. According to the ABA's own reports, the legal profession is less racially diverse than medicine, engineering, or accounting. A rule that undermines the law schools that are doing the most to diversify our profission is not worthy of support.

On January 3, 2008, Eileen Kaufman, former co-president of SALT, testified at a special hearing convened at the AALS conference in New York City, to oppose the newly revised Interpretation 301-6. Click here for a copy of her remarks to the ABA Standards Review Committee.

On February 1, 2008, SALT submitted a Statement to the Outcome Measures Committee, created to look at alternative ways to evaluate student skills. For many years SALT has been advocating for an assessment process that truly examines the skills novice attorneys need in order to enter the legal profession.. A growing number of clinical programs and law school programs across the country are looking into these alternatives. In response to the Carnegie Report, George State University School of Law is holding an international conference on the future of legal education on February 20-23, 2008. Click here to learn more about that conference.

For a fuller discussion of SALT's Bar Exam Committee, click here.

Bar Examination Resources

Supplemental Comments on Contested Standard 301(a) and Proposed Interpretation 301-6, dated February 1, 2008, submitted to the Council of the Section of Legal Education & Admission to the Bar.

Comments on Revised Proposed Interpretation 301-6, dated December 28, 2007, opposing a further revised "bright-line" bar passage rate for law school accreditation.

Comments on Revised Proposed Interpretation 301-6, dated July 11, 2007, opposes a "bright line" bar passage rate for law school accreditation.

Potential Alternatives to the Existing Bar Exam, proposes other measures of skills necessary for the practice of law.

SALT Statement on Bar Exams, July, 2002, also is available at 52 J.Leg.Ed. 446 (2002).

SALT Statement on the LSAT, December, 2003, argues that law schools place too much emphasis on the LSAT exam to the detriment of non-traditional students.