Sokolove Success Blog – Our Perspective on Legal News that Matters

With Missouri’s recent decision to become the first state to adopt a plan for developing a uniform bar exam, the “Show Me” state is now poised to show us how a nationwide testing standard can transform the practice of law while benefiting both lawyers and their clients.

Missouri’s new exam will focus on key US legal principles and drop the state-specific questions, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Committees with both the American Bar Association and the National Conference of Bar Examiners have signed off on the plan’s benefits. The state expects to offer the new test in February 2011.

This movement in favor of a uniform bar exam is an important step in the right direction. Legal groups have long pushed for uniformity in the bar exam, now administered through a multi-state test coupled with individualized state exams. Advocates say a single licensing test will allow attorneys who pass it to have more latitude in where they can practice. Standardized exams are already the norm for other professionals such as architects and doctors.

The Post-Dispatch story includes a nice breakdown of this emerging trend, noting that “five to ten other states could be on board in the next few years.”

Adoption of a uniform bar exam has been a long time coming and it’s a positive change.  But there’s more to do. My hope is that this development could also help open the door to uniformity for all of the professional rules that now govern the practice of law.

Rules on professional responsibility (for example, regarding conflicts of interest and legal advertising) vary widely by state.  This has important consequences.  First, it makes being a truly national law firm (as Sokolove Law is) difficult, since it is a challenge to keep track of changing rules in 50 different jurisdictions let alone attempt to comply with them.  The effect is that competition is stifled to the detriment of the clients.

It also doesn’t make a lot of sense. To be sure, professionals in other fields must be licensed by the state in which they wish to practice, but this is often easily accomplished by proving passage of nationally accepted standardized tests (for example, the medical boards) and sufficient professional competency (usually demonstrated through experience, and lack of a disciplinary record).  The same should hold true for lawyers.

Uniformity and standardization both in the requirements for admission to the profession, and in the rules governing it, should be a goal all lawyers can agree on.

Disagree?  Show Me… (pun intended) why I’m wrong.