New York will next year begin using the uniform bar exam for lawyers that would enable them to practice in 15 other states, depending on their scores, the state's top judge said Tuesday.
In his Law Day address, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman called New York's change "a huge step" toward a single national exam. Last year, more than 15,200 people took New York's licensing test, more than any other state.
The judge said the move will allow more mobility with "a portable score," particularly important now that it's common for lawyers to switch jobs multiple times and relocate to different states. Also, it would make it easier for law offices to handle cases across state and international borders. It will help address some of the profession's economic difficulties, he said.
"Employment prospects for recent graduates are still grim, and more people are choosing to leave the field of law altogether," Lippman said to a courtroom full of judges, other officials and lawyers. "Law school enrollment for first-year students has declined 30 percent in the past four years and is at the lowest level since 1973."
The uniform exam is now used by Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
The exam has 200 multiple choice questions, two tasks on basic lawyering and six essay questions that test on laws of general application, Lippman said. The current New York exam already uses those same multiple choice questions and skill tasks. It also has five essay questions and 50 multiple choice questions on New York law.
Along with next year's switch to the uniform exam, applicants will have to take an additional online course to practice law in New York, which the judge called "the legal center of the United States, if not the world." That will consist of videotaped lectures on New York-specific law and a "thorough and rigorous" online test, which will be developed by the State Board of Law Examiners, with help from legal academics and scholars.
Local
Court officials plan to collect data for three years to see whether there are "adverse results" from the change, he said.
