Addie Tobin Smith (left) and Joanna Perini-Abbott co-chair the Licensure Pathway Development Committee for the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners. (Photo by Michael Schmitt/ABA Journal)
When the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners opened up applications for its Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination in May, some members of its Licensure Pathway Development Committee were nervous.
They knew the success of the program allowing ABA-accredited law school graduates to work closely with a supervising attorney instead of taking the bar exam hinged on the buy-in from the state’s potential employers. If no licensed lawyers signed up for the program, which consisted of a 675-hour paid apprenticeship under a qualified supervising state-licensed lawyer, there would be no places for the candidates to work and the program would fall apart.
Instead, within a month, 62 attorneys from 57 employers had applied to serve as supervisors. By early October, those numbers had grown to 101 attorneys from 87 employers ranging from Nike to Public Defender Services of Lane County to the Oregon Judicial Department.
“It’s more popular than we could even have imagined,” says Joanna Perini-Abbott, co-chair of the committee and a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. Taking the traditional bar exam produced by the National Conference of Bar Examiners remains an option to join the bar.
Other states are considering Oregon-style plans. In March, the Washington Supreme Court approved, in concept, additional pathways to the bar involving supervised practice. Nevada’s new three-pronged licensure plan includes supervised practice. And members of Oregon’s committee have consulted their counterparts in Ohio, Minnesota and Utah, says Addie Tobin Smith, the other committee co-chair and a legal consultant in Portland.
Brian Gallini, a former dean of Willamette University School of Law and a former committee member, believes the portfolio exam can do to the traditional bar exam what “the iPhone did to the Blackberry.
“Oh, wait—we can help people get licensed while addressing legal deserts and racial disparities and a host of other issues? Sign me up,” he says.
The committee was made up of 14 members, including deans of the state’s three law schools, a law student, practicing attorneys, the CEO of the Oregon State Bar, and representatives of the Oregon State Bar Board of Bar Examiners, the Oregon State Bar Board of Governors and the Oregon bench. A separate working group representing various stakeholders also offered input, Smith says.
The state’s move comes as jurisdictions consider if and when they will use the NextGen Bar Exam in place of the NCBE’s Uniform Bar Exam, which sunsets in 2028.
But the glimmer of inspiration dates back to just before the pandemic, Perini-Abbott says, as data emerged showing racial disparities in bar exam performance and other research questioned whether the bar exam was a good measure of minimum competence. Then when COVID-19 hit, Oregon scrapped the rigid rules surrounding the UBE and offered an option to take the bar exam remotely and grant diploma privilege to 2020 graduates.
In May, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved a policy shift allowing states to use methods of licensure beyond the traditional bar exam. The May 2024 graduating class is the first to be offered the new pathway. By October, 49 applicants had received their provisional licenses to practice law and 27 were in process, according to the committee.
“It is not a rubber stamp,” says Smith, who has graded some of the provisional attorneys’ portfolio work, some of which did not meet standards. “It’s still an exam.”
Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt
