03947nam 2200649 450 991081380540332120230201171628.09781503633698(electronic book)1503633691(electronic book)9781503613560(cloth)10.1515/9781503633698(MiAaPQ)EBC30160277(Au-PeEL)EBL30160277(CKB)24892770000041(DE-B1597)642273(DE-B1597)9781503633698(OCoLC)1353269230(EXLCZ)992489277000004120230201d2023 uy 0engurcnu||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierShaping the bar the future of attorney licensing /Joan W. HowarthStanford, California :Stanford University Press,[2023]©20231 online resource (xii, 226 pages)Includes index.Print version: Howarth, Joan Shaping the Bar Redwood City : Stanford University Press,c2022 9781503613560 Includes bibliographical references and index.The crisis in attorney licensing -- Becoming a lawyer in the young nation -- Shaping the bar in the twentieth century -- The 1970s legacy of activism, psychometrics, and good faith -- Pressure points in contemporary licensing -- Decades lost without research -- Doubling down on the errors of legal education -- Finally, research on minimum competence -- Who fits? -- Fixing character & fitness -- Twelve guiding principles -- Clinical residencies -- Asking more of law schools -- Escaping the conceptual traps of today's bar exams -- Bar exams : better, best, and other fixes."Joan Howarth describes how the twin gatekeepers of the legal profession -- law schools and licensers -- are failing the public with devastating consequences. Attorney licensing should be laser-focused on readiness to practice law with the minimum competence of a new attorney. According to Howarth, requirements today are both too difficult and too easy. Amid the crisis in unmet legal services, record numbers of law school graduates, disproportionately people of color, are failing bar exams that are not meaningful tests of competence to practice. At the same time, after seven years of higher education, hundreds of thousands of dollars of law school debt, two months of cramming legal rules, and success on a bar exam, a candidate can be licensed to practice law without having been in a law office or even seen a lawyer with a client. Howarth makes the case that the licensing rituals familiar to generations of lawyers -- unfocused law degrees and obsolete bar exams -- are protecting members of the profession more than the public. Beyond explaining the failures of the current system, this book presents the latest research on competent lawyering and examples of better approaches. This book presents the path forward by means of licensing changes to protect the public while building an inclusive, diverse, competent, ethical profession"--Publisher's description.Admission to the barUnited StatesBar examinationsUnited StatesLawStudy and teachingUnited Statesbar exams.competence.disparities.law schools.legal profession.licensing.minimum competence.psychometrics.public protection.testing.Admission to the barBar examinationsLawStudy and teaching344.730176134Howarth Joan W.1722802MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQ9910813805403321Shaping the bar4123496UNINA