This article originally appeared in The Bar Examiner print edition, Winter 2024-2025 (Vol. 93, No. 4), pp. 3–4.By Judith A. Gundersen
Year-End Reflections
As I write this column, the busy fall schedule of NCBE committee meetings has just concluded and the holidays are still ahead. I’m always grateful for the opportunities to meet with so many good people working in legal education and bar admissions but also a bit relieved to have a few weekends at home to spend time with family and friends. I can’t seem to catch up on all the tasks at hand at home, but I’ve become very good at blissfully ignoring them.
A big part of my working schedule is filled with meetings—both remote and in-person—like many of yours. I attend NCBE policy committees’ meetings and those of outside groups that are commonly referred to as “affiliates”—other organizations in the legal education / bar admissions space. Affiliate meetings I attended this fall included those of the Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (ABA Council) and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Executive Committee. Other affiliate organizations attended these meetings, such as the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), AccessLex, and the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL), to name just some. I learn a lot at all these meetings and find it a good use of my time to attend on behalf of NCBE.
The ABA Council, the US law school accreditor, met in November. The public portion of this meeting teed up a discussion of how accreditation of fully online law schools would affect affiliate organizations’ constituencies and what the Council should consider in its deliberations of this issue. Currently, the Council permits ABA-accredited law schools to grant students up to 50 percent of JD credit hours through distance education.1 Schools can, however, seek a substantive-change variance allowing them to exceed this credit percentage.2 Nineteen schools have been granted such a variance, and three of those schools offer a fully online JD program (the remainder are hybrid).3 The three schools also have a brick-and-mortar presence.
The discussion on fully remote legal education was spirited and informative, with diverse perspectives aired and considered. NCBE’s position has been and will continue to be that we will serve jurisdictions and candidates where they are by offering a fair, valid, and reliable bar exam regardless of the manner of delivery of legal education. We also noted that NCBE cannot speak on behalf of courts or admissions boards on this issue and that they would likely not be of one mind when it comes to decisions regarding fully online legal education and eligibility to sit for the bar exam.
On the one hand, two UBE jurisdictions (Connecticut and Indiana, which are also NextGen bar exam adopters) have recently moved to permit graduates of a fully online program (with no sponsoring brick-and-mortar law school) to sit for the UBE, albeit with different procedures and rules.4 On the other, New York’s rules set eligibility to sit for the UBE at 15 distance-education credits, well below the current ABA maximum.5 Should the ABA Council decide to accredit fully online education, whether and how that imprimatur moves the dial for UBE and NextGen jurisdictions will play out over the next couple of years. It is my understanding that the Council will take up this issue again at its February 2025 meeting. I don’t know the timeframe for a final decision.
As 2024 winds down, I reflect on all the NextGen milestones NCBE has achieved in terms of test development; pilot, field, and prototype testing; internal and external systems builds; and outreach to courts, boards, bar associations, and law schools. At the end of 2023, 9 jurisdictions had announced NextGen adoption; we have now reached 32 with Virginia, South Dakota, New York, Hawai’i, and Maine having announced most recently; a couple more plan to announce early this year. We appreciate and are humbled by the confidence jurisdictions have shown in the research and resources we have put into the NextGen project to ensure that the new exam is the best assessment available to admit lawyers to the profession.
Current UBE jurisdictions that have adopted the NextGen exam have indicated that score portability will continue. Non-UBE jurisdictions have to decide whether they will participate in this as well. Virginia will also add a local law component, which will not impact score portability.6 In short, score portability will continue to thrive and expand in the NextGen era. Please watch for more information about this topic later this year.
To all NCBE committee and Board of Trustees members, I offer my thanks to you for your continued dedication and service. In early December, we convened eight of our policy committees for a weekend of meetings. Though this slate of meetings did not include any in-house committees or drafting committees, it did bring together volunteers from 35 jurisdictions. And of course there is the NCBE team of 155 employees spread among Madison and 20 states across the country, all supported by our 12-member Board of Trustees.
In short, it takes a lot of people, both inside and out of NCBE, to serve candidates and bar admissions professionals with high-quality assessments, thorough and fair character and fitness investigative services, and educational programming. We are grateful for the engagement and talent that fuels and supports bar admissions.
And finally, since this is a column about milestones, I’d like to note a personal familial milestone. My dad, Harmon, turned 100 on December 27. A former barber, now retired for close to four decades, and a passionate golfer, he continues to thrive. He is an example to me of resiliency and positivity even amid challenging times and loss.
Wishing all readers and their families and friends the very best for a prosperous and healthy 2025.
Until the next issue,
Judith A. Gundersen
Notes
- ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools 2024–2025, Standard 306: Distance Education, available at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/standards/2024-2025/2024-2025-standards-chapter-3.pdf. (Go back)
- American Bar Association, “Distance Education,” available at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/distance_education/. (Go back)
- American Bar Association, “ABA-Approved Law Schools With Approved Distance Education J.D. Programs,” available at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/distance_education/approved-distance-ed-jd-programs/. (Go back)
- Indiana Supreme Court, Order Amending Admission and Discipline Rules, cause no. 24S-MS-1, February 15, 2024, available at https://www.in.gov/courts/files/order-rules-2024-0701-admin.pdf; Julianne Hill, “Connecticut Allows Fully Online Law School Grads of Purdue Global to Take Bar Exam,” ABA Journal, 8 October 2024, available at https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/connecticut-allows-purdue-global-fully-online-law-school-grads-to-sit-the-bar-exam. (Go back)
- New York Rules of the Court of Appeals for the Admission of Attorneys and Counselors at Law, Rule § 520.3, available at https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/520rules10.htm#3. (Go back)
- “Virginia Board of Bar Examiners to Adopt NextGen Bar Exam Format Beginning July 2028,” available at https://barexam.virginia.gov/notices.html. (Go back)
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