Virginia law deans back use of Uniform Bar Exam

The eight deans of Virginia’s law schools unanimously have recommended that Virginia adopt the Uniform Bar Examination, according to a letter sent to the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners earlier this year.

If adopted, Virginia would join 38 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands in adopting the Uniform Bar Examination, or UBE. Every state that borders Virginia has adopted the UBE.

“We believe the time is right to pursue meaningful change to the manner in which our state determines whether an applicant to the state bar possesses sufficient competence to practice law,” the letter states.

According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, who administers the exam, the UBE is “a uniformly administered, graded, and scored bar examination that results in a portable score.” The exam is administered over two days and in three sections: a task-based Multistate Performance Test, a six-essay Multistate Essay Examination and a 200-question Multistate Bar Examination.

Additionally, the letter recommends continuing to test Virginia procedure in a separate, stand-alone component taken prior to the UBE. Multiple states that have adopted the UBE maintain a state-specific component in their evaluations.

In the letter, the deans wrote that the portability of scores would benefit law students by giving them a wider range of employment options. Currently, the Virginia examination is only valid for jobs within the commonwealth. If the UBE were adopted, then scores would be transferrable to other states that have also adopted the UBE.

“That is enormously beneficial for recent graduates, both in deciding where they are going to take the exam and then giving them a much broader marketplace to work in,” said Wendy C. Perdue, dean of the University of Richmond School of Law.

Perdue added that for law school students, passing the bar exam can be a condition of getting hired. She mentioned that smaller firms and government jobs typically won’t hire someone until they are bar admitted.

“I think it has a particularly big impact on practice areas such as public defenders,” Perdue said. “The fact that Virginia is not a UBE state has a big detrimental effect on [public defenders’ offices]. They would like to recruit public defenders from around the country to come to Virginia, but it’s a hard sell.”

In addition to score portability, the deans’ letter cites “lawyer well-being” as another benefit to adopting the UBE. The deans wrote that the bar exam as currently administered in Virginia “significantly favors those who have the financial means and support to singularly focus on preparation for the bar exam for roughly two months, with the aid of costly bar preparation courses.” The National Conference of Bar Examiners has free study aids for the UBE which, along with a reduced need to memorize doctrinal law, makes the UBE “slightly less intimidating,” according to the deans’ letter.

“While the licensing procedure inevitably will be demanding and therefore will generate a considerable degree of stress, it is worth exploring whether the bar exam can be made more manageable while serving its critical function,” the letter states.

Additionally, Perdue said that adopting the UBE would make the bar exam more in line with the real-world demands of the legal profession. She particularly highlighted the Multistate Performance Test component, which is made up of two 90-minute items designed to test an applicant’s ability to adapt the skills learned in the classroom to realistic, real-world situations.

“The practice piece of the UBE is intended to more closely mirror what lawyers actually do,” Perdue said. “Practicing lawyers rarely have occasion to take multiple choice tests.”

An evaluation on how new attorneys get admitted to the bar in Virginia has been underway for years. Perdue said the deans had a meeting with the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners in 2017 to discuss the bar exam in an agenda-less, information-sharing environment.

Two years later, the deans sent a recommendation to Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons to convene a group of stakeholders to evaluate the bar exam and discuss what the approach should be in the future to assure competence to practice law.

“The backdrop to this is that deans throughout the country have been increasingly talking about the bar exam. There are a variety of groups that have been exploring whether the bar exam, as it currently exists, is the best way to assess minimal competence,” Perdue said.

The push for change has resulted in multiple states adopting the UBE in recent years. Indiana and Oklahoma will administer the UBE for the first time next month, while Pennsylvania will begin administering the UBE in July 2022.

The deans of Virginia’s law schools do not have the authority to make a change to the bar exam in the commonwealth. By statute, that decision lies with the five-member Virginia Board of Bar Examiners. There is no word on when, or if, a decision to change Virginia’s bar exam could be made.

Perdue said the National Conference of Bar Examiners itself is re-examining the UBE and has suggested that “significant changes” could be made to the exam by 2025. Perdue cautioned against waiting until after those potential changes are made to adopt the UBE.

“Now you’re looking at a pretty long lead time. A change in four or five years, then you see what it looks like and see how it plays out for four or five years, and now you’re looking at another 10 years before we potentially join up with the majority of states,” Perdue said.