EDITORIAL The opinions in the below editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of the SCBA or the Editors of the Sacramento Lawyer magazine. The Editors welcome the submission of articles reflecting other views on this important topic in a future issue.
WHY LAWYERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA BAR EXAM By Karen M. Goodman
T
he COVID-19 pandemic has created unwanted changes for everyone. In the case of the state bar exam, it has highlighted a bad situation and made it worse. And the State Bar, beset on all sides by interested parties who for years have pushed for modifications that suit their own needs, has made one bad decision after another leading up to the next exam administration this October. Should the exam we all had to pass in order to be certified as attorneys test professional responsibility? They say no. Should it test minimum compe-
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Karen Goodman is the principal of Goodman Law Corporation, served as Chair of the Committee of Bar Examiners and was a member of the California State Bar Board of Trustees. She is currently Vice Chair of the CLA Ethics Committee. She is a certified specialist in Legal Malpractice Law.
tence to practice law in our state? The Bar doesn’t even have a definition of minimum competence. In fact, encouraged by some of California’s leading law school deans, they are leaning toward use of a maximum incompetence standard. Should the minimum passing score be downgraded? The State Bar has been working toward that for years. Now the pandemic has prompted the Supreme Court to approve an on-line version of the Bar Exam for this Fall. With the State Bar’s urging, the Court is now considering abandoning the California focused one
SACRAMENTO LAWYER | Summer 2020 | www.sacbar.org
day testing consisting of essays and practical skills in favor of the generic exam offered by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (known as the Uniform Bar Exam). If you ask the State Bar where public protection should fall in the equation, it appears to have been forgotten. The Bar Exam has been a gauntlet that must be navigated before a lawyer can obtain a license to practice law. In California, the Bar Exam has been attacked by politicians, Law Schools Deans, unsuccessful applicants and more recently, State Bar executives. The Bar Exam has changed dramatically since the 3 days of essays to the now trimmed down 2-day exam. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic prompting the Supreme Court to move the July 2020 bar exam to October and have it exclusively “on line,” it is clear that the Bar’s admission standards are under attack. Since I served as chair of the Committee of Bar Examiners in 2016-2017, the self-interested stakeholders have been clamoring to weaken admission standards under the false guise of promoting diversity. Every time the test results hit a new low, the cries get louder that the Bar Exam is unfair, denies “good people” the privilege to become a lawyer and undermines access to justice for poor communities. This was illuminated most recently when the results of the February 2020 bar exam were published
