South Dakota’s Pilot Bar Alternative Switches Out Studying Outlines For Community Service

Hankering for a way to earn the right to practice without being subjected to a rushed and poorly executed bar alternative that resulted in refunds and a “Come back next time, it’ll be better!” certificate? What if instead you could get some hands-on lawyering experience and help others along the way? South Dakota is working on implementing a program that will let you do just that. The Public Opinion has coverage:

As many as 50 South Dakota law students will be able to bypass the bar exam over the next five years under a set of rules for alternative licensure recently approved by the state Supreme Court.

The public pathways pilot program is an outgrowth of a yearslong debate on the value of the bar exam as a measure of fitness for legal service in the state. Those who pass an ethics test and successfully complete two years in a public service legal position, such as in a state’s attorney’s or public defender’s office, would be in line for admittance to the state bar without a passing score on the exam.

The program will be open to up to 10 USD law students a year over a period of five years. Small sample size sure, but it still should be big enough to make a longitudinal assessment of whether the program meets the burden of sussing out minimum competency. Not too long ago, the bar exam was the metric to determine if law school grads were ready to make the jump from J.D. to Esq. As minting events like community service programs or outsourcing the tests to private companies like Kaplan proliferate, we’ll see states experiment on what the signs of minimal competency really are and how to best evaluate for them.

Pilot Program Will Allow New Lawyers to Swap Public Service For South Dakota Bar Exam [The Public Opinion]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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