Taking stock of New York’s new bar exam

A milestone for generations of newly minted lawyers – the New York State bar exam – is about to undergo an extreme makeover, and for UB School of Law students, it may open doors to new opportunities.

After a months-long period of study, focus group conversations and public comments, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and the Court of Appeals has decided that the state will adopt the Uniform Bar Exam, or UBE. New York will become the 16th state nationwide to use the UBE, and the largest and most influential. In addition to the UBE, prospective New York lawyers will be required to take two state-specific licensing components: an online “New York Law Course” with embedded test questions, and a separate online 50-question multiple-choice “New York Law Exam.”

The change is scheduled to be implemented at the July 2016 bar exam, though some law deans, including UB School of Law's interim Dean James A. Gardner, are lobbying for a later start date in order to study how to support students in the endeavor.

Diane Bosse ’76, of counsel to the Buffalo law firm Hurwitz & Fine and chair of the New York State Board of Law Examiners, served on the nine-member advisory committee that recommended the change. She says adoption of the UBE promotes mobility in the profession, because new lawyers can be licensed in jurisdictions besides New York that recognize the exam.

“The tests that are part of the UBE are elaborate, very reliable and an appropriate measure of competence for the purpose of protecting the public,” Bosse says. “In law school everybody learns the same general principles, and those principles are tested on the UBE.  There are differences across the states and the rules about practice may vary. What you learn in law school is how to access those rules and understand their application.”

The “score portability” of the new arrangement, she says, opens new options for students wishing to practice in other states. “It’s a great opportunity for them to take an exam that’s going to allow them to get a job in many jurisdictions,” she says. “The test opens up many opportunities for SUNY Buffalo Law School students as they start their careers. Another advantage is that if a candidate takes the bar exam here and doesn’t achieve the passing score that is required in New York, they could still go to a jurisdiction with a lower passing score and be qualified to begin practice there or to get a federal job.”

In addition, she said, more law firms are engaging in cross-jurisdictional practice and need associates who are admitted in multiple jurisdictions because clients have problems that cross state borders.  If family circumstances require a move, a new lawyer can get a job in another jurisdiction without the delay, cost and anxiety of taking another bar exam.

Professor Kim Diana Connolly, director of clinical legal education and vice dean for legal skills, was a commenter on the proposed changes as a member of the national Clinical Legal Education Association and the state bar association’s Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. From her perspective, School of Law students are already well-prepared to take on the new bar exam.

“Our job at the School of Law is to get students ready to be lawyers,” Connolly says. “We do not teach to the bar exam per se, and our courses are not bar prep courses. We teach future lawyers to analyze and think effectively. We’ve never required students to take all the subjects that are going to be tested on the bar exam. We offer the opportunity for people to choose courses that will help prepare them, but most students also choose to take a commercial prep course for the exam.”

One advantage of UB School of Law legal training, she says, is that many courses are holistic – they teach multiple aspects of legal knowledge and practice. For example, she says, in the environmental law clinic she teaches, students learn environmental law, of course, but also do hands-on work in areas like local government law, contract law, and experience some basics of practice such as how to relate to clients and negotiate with other stakeholders.

Vice Dean for Student Affairs Melinda Saran serves on the same NYSBA section and helped run focus groups of law students, recent graduates, practicing attorneys and judges about the proposed change in the bar exam. She says the push to adopt the UBE came largely from younger practitioners who wanted the flexibility to be licensed in multiple jurisdictions.

The change, she says, complicates matters for current students who entered law school expecting to take the exam as it’s currently constituted. “There are more hurdles for our students to be admitted,” Saran says. “But our professors generally teach common law, and their instruction is consistent with what should be on the UBE.”

Nearly 90 percent of School of Law students take the New York test as their first bar exam, Saran says, and it’s a high-pressure and emotional experience for many. “I listen to the tears when they don’t pass,” she says. “The personal stories can be heartbreaking.”

Which is why law faculty work hard to give students the tools to succeed. Barbara Sherk, the school’s director of academic support who also was involved in the discussions, says internal considerations are now focusing on answering the faculty’s questions about the change and providing them with resources about the design of the exam “so they understand what students are facing.”

Under the new rubric, students will write six essays, timed at 30 minutes apiece. The former exam required five essays in 45 minutes each. So now, she says, students will have to be “more strategic in that the essays will be succinct, more condensed, but still with a lot of law required.”

Each spring Sherk teaches a bar prep class for graduating students, a course she will now adapt for the new testing regimen. Still, she said, no matter the test, three years at SUNY Buffalo Law School gives students the grounding they need to pass. “We’re addressing many of these topics already at the Law School,” she says. “The curriculum as it stands will serve our students even better. I see us as being in a reasonable position to adapt to this change.”