The State Bar seeks public comment on amendments eliminating the requirement that an applicant for admission to the practice of law to get certified for admission and sworn in within five years of the date of the bar exam they passed.
Deadline: September 12, 2022
Comments should be submitted using the online Public Comment Form. The online form allows you to input your comments directly and can also be used to upload your comment letter and/or other attachments.
State Bar rules set a five-year expiration date on a passing bar exam score by requiring that, within “five years from the last day of administration of the California Bar Examination the applicant passes,” the applicant must meet all requirements for certification to the California Supreme Court for admission and must take the attorney’s oath. This proposal would eliminate that five-year deadline on a passing bar exam score, but to address the additional time that might pass before getting sworn in requires the applicant to have a current positive moral character finding and meet all other requirements for admission before being allowed to get sworn in if more than five years have passed.
Rule 4.17 of the Rules of the State Bar of California provides that an applicant for admission to the practice of law must satisfy all admission requirements for certification to the Supreme Court within five years of achieving a passing score on the bar exam. The applicant must take the attorney’s oath within that same five-year period. The proposal would amend that rule and related rules to eliminate that five-year requirement as an unnecessary hurdle to admission to the State Bar, which no longer furthers public protection.
Across the country, many states have set time limits for an applicant for admission to get sworn into the State Bar. An applicant who fails to get sworn in within that period is required to retake and pass the bar exam for a second time to be admitted. Some states appear to limit the amount of time an applicant has after passing the bar exam to meet all other requirements for admission. Other states require the applicant to get sworn in within a certain amount of time from when they met all requirements for admission, with or without reference to how much time might have passed since the applicant succeeded at the bar exam. And other states require meeting all the requirements for certification and getting sworn in within a set amount of time from taking or passing the bar exam. Some have adopted more than one of those timelines, and others have adopted none.
When an applicant for admission has satisfied all requirements, including having passed the bar examination within five years, having achieved at least the minimum passing score on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, and having an active positive moral character determination, the Committee of Bar Examiners, through State Bar staff, submits a motion to the Supreme Court certifying that the named applicants have fulfilled the requirements for admission to practice law in the State of California. By passing the bar exam, the applicants have been determined to possess the minimum competence necessary for entry-level attorneys. This proposal is premised on the belief that that fact has not changed simply due to the passage of time.
In considering whether an expiration date on one’s passing bar exam score is a necessary element of public protection, or just a bar to entry to the profession, a comparison to the requirements for a licensed California attorney to return to active status after a period of inactive status is useful. The full report presented to the Board of Trustees, linked below, provides a series of scenarios that led to the conclusion that supports this proposal: the same rationale that justifies allowing attorneys to switch areas of the law and allows inactive attorneys to become active without re-establishing they are minimally competent by taking another bar exam, argues for removal of the five-year window in which a person must get sworn in after having successfully passed a bar exam.
The proposal would eliminate the current five-year requirement for all applicants who passed a bar exam administered on or after July 2015. The selection of this date was intended to allow those whose five-year validity period expired during the pandemic to become attorneys without having to pass another bar exam, as long as all other requirements for admission have been satisfied.
Not Applicable
Approved by the Board of Trustees, upon recommendation of the Committee of Bar Examiners.
September 12, 2022