Law Schools

Ever Wonder How Many People The Bar Exam Keeps Out Of The Profession? We Finally Have A Number!

There's more than enough to go around. Now we know how many people are missing out.

By  
on

lawyer-3268430_1280Assuming you haven’t been under a rock, you know that there has been some extended discussion over the utility and fate of the bar exam over the last few years. Proponents have argued that there needs to be some way to separate the the worthy from the unworthy before being granted the privilege of working in the profession; opponents have argued that the exam allows for law schools to skimp out of the obligation of actually preparing their students for the practice. And that bar passage rates are more indicative of socioeconomic status rather than aptitude. Or that it doesn’t really make that much sense for a lawyer who only intends to do family law to be prevented from practicing because their evidence scores were a little too low. Look, there are a lot of reasons to be against our specific hazing ritual, but a major one is that it can keep out otherwise qualified future lawyers. And, as the title of this article suggests, we finally have a concrete estimate of how the labor supply is effected. From ABA Journal:

If jurisdictions eliminate the bar exam as an entry to attorney licensure, the labor supply of lawyers would increase by 16%, according to new research by Kyle Rozema, an associate professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

…

Additionally, Rozema found that the labor supply of lawyers would increase by 8% if states adopt the most lenient bar exam policies and would decrease by 14% if the strictest policies are adopted.

Now that is a lot of people! According to the ABA, there were about 1.3 million practicing attorneys in 2022. By rough estimates, our labor pool is missing out on about 208,000 lawyers. And while it is likely that the lion’s share of those potential attorneys are skewed toward metropolitan cities (about 25% of lawyers work in New York and California, for example) it is just as likely that a couple thousand of those potential esquires could work in the states that are currently suffering a dearth of capable hands like parts of Florida, North Carolina, and Idaho.

While increasing amount of people able to do much needed work was already a check in the bar exam abolition column, it is nice to know that we now have a workable number along with it.

Law Prof’s Research Examines How Alternative Licensure Could Alter Lawyer Labor Supply [ABA Journal]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

Sponsored

Topics

, ,