Before creating a licensing system, a jurisdiction must define minimum compenece. What knowledge and skills do new lawyers need to serve clients competently? Until we define those competencies, we cannot test for their presence.
Three recent studies offer the best guides to minimum competence:
- Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence, an independent study conducted by Deborah Jones Merritt (The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law) and Logan Cornett (Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System)
- Testing Task Force Phase 2 Report: 2019 Practice Analysis, a survey conducted by the National Confernce of Bar Examiners
- The Practice of Law in California, a report from the California Attorney Practice Analysis Working Group
These studies agree that skills are more important than doctrinal knowledge when defining minimum competence. The current exam, they agree, fails to test some essential skills and assesses too much doctrinal knowledge. For more, see the links below. We draw upon numerous sources in these pages, but rely particularly on the Building a Better Bar study, which was coauthored by one of this website's authors.
