This article originally appeared in The Bar Examiner print edition, Summer 2024 (Vol. 93, No. 2), pp. 1-2.
By John J. McAlaryAs my year as chair of NCBE’s Board of Trustees draws to a close, I am grateful for the opportunity to have served NCBE and the bar admissions community—it has been an honor.
As I reflect on my year as chair, it has been a privilege to have worked with so many talented and dedicated people, including NCBE staff, my colleagues on the Board of Trustees, and the many volunteers who served on NCBE policy committees this past year. I thank all committee members for giving their time and talent. I attended many NCBE committee policy meetings this past year, and I was very impressed with members’ level of engagement and dedication as they pursued the charges that I had given them this year.
I also had the pleasure of attending meetings and conferences with members of the bar admissions community—judges, bar examiners, and bar administrators—and it was impressive to see so many dedicated people who care about the future of our legal profession. Their commitment to public protection and the improvement of the legal profession is unwavering and inspiring.
As I write this column, the July 2024 bar examination just wrapped up. It marks the 53rd bar exam that I have administered since I joined the New York State Board of Law Examiners in May 1998. New York examined 10,392 candidates this administration, our largest number in the past decade. As I reviewed our pool of candidates, I was elated to see its makeup is as diverse as ever in both gender and race/ethnicity. Though this is encouraging news, work remains to be done in making the legal profession look more like the public it serves. I remain optimistic that we can, and will continue, to make gains in further diversifying the profession.
As I reflect on my long career in bar admissions, I have been fortunate to have met so many dedicated administrators who care about the work that they do and who strive to make the bar exam experience as effortless as possible for applicants. For readers who may be unfamiliar with the behind-the-scenes work in bar admissions, trust me when I say that it is not easy to plan, coordinate, and administer a licensing examination. Whether a jurisdiction examines 100 candidates or 10,000, bar admissions administrators face the same challenges qualifying applicants for the exam; processing an increasing number of applications for test accommodations; procuring adequate test sites, proctors, tables, chairs, and other staff and equipment; managing graders; and scoring and releasing bar examination results. I commend administrators for the work they do each day, particularly during the stressful bar exam weeks, in support of candidates seeking admission to the bar.
I have also learned over the years that it is no simple task to draft a bar examination. I recently read comments by pundits who questioned why it is taking so long for NCBE to develop the NextGen bar examination. I like to say that “they don’t know what they don’t know.” Considerable time and expertise are required to draft a fair, valid, and reliable bar exam. If I were taking the bar exam again, I would want the drafters to be deliberate in their approach in determining what should be tested and how, and then have them embark on a comprehensive editing and drafting process followed by pre-testing exam questions.
During my time on the NCBE Board I had the opportunity to look under the hood to see how the exams are crafted, and all components go through a rigorous process such as that described above. NCBE psychometricians carefully analyze questions’ performance to make certain that the exam is fair, valid, and reliable. I am awestruck by the efforts of the many members of the broader legal community who work to make the bar exam the relevant, reliable, and valid exam that we have all grown to trust. The bar exam truly is a national effort, from the law faculty, practicing attorneys, and judges who draft the exam questions to the editors and other NCBE staff who help to manage overall exam development to the jurisdiction graders who ensure that all candidates are fairly assessed for their legal knowledge and skill. We can be confident that NCBE is employing the same deliberate approach in developing the NextGen bar examination.
I am honored to pass the gavel to my colleague and friend Darin Scheer as he becomes the next chair of the NCBE Board of Trustees. Darin is a brilliant, thoughtful person with a wealth of experience in bar admissions and as a practicing attorney, and I am confident that NCBE will continue to prosper and fulfill its mission under his leadership. Please stay tuned as more information about the NextGen bar exam becomes available in the coming months and as jurisdictions administer the prototype exam in October. Thank you again for the opportunity to have served the bar admissions community this past year.
Kindest regards,
John J. McAlary
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