[WSBARP] Supreme Court Grants Diploma privilege to LLTs and ABA accredited law school grads

Fri Jun 19 19:41:17 PDT 2020

Hello Fellow Listservs and RPPT section members:

Below please find an important message from Carla Higginson, WSBA Governor
for District 2. 

"Colleagues,

As you may recall, I am on the Board of Governors.  I am writing with regard
to the Court's recent decision to allow law school graduates to skip the bar
exam this year.  Here is some background. The Board of Governors was
approached at our April meeting by law students asking that graduates be
allowed to practice without taking the bar exam due to the COVID-19
situation.  The Board voted 12 to 1 not to do so and urged the Court to
require that the exam be held.  The exam was scheduled to be held in several
locations rather than one, and in both July and September, to minimize
travel and associated virus risks by insuring that there was plenty of room
in the exam rooms to follow social distancing requirements.   The Board felt
that requiring applicants to take and pass the bar exam was important to
protect the public and ensure qualified and competent attorneys.  The Court
initially accepted this recommendation, but has now reversed itself,
apparently in response to a letter from the Seattle University law school
dean asking that their graduates be allowed to practice law without taking
the bar exam this year.  This letter (copy attached) was sent directly to
the Court and I did not know the request had been made until after the Court
issued its decision (copy attached), so there was no opportunity to alert
members to the request or obtain member comment. 

The Court's decision allows candidates who have previously failed a bar exam
or LLLT exam to automatically be granted diploma privileges to practice law
as an attorney or LLLT.  However, people who have completed the law clerk
(APR 6) program and are registered for the bar exam must still take it, and
apparently, so do limited practice officer candidates. 

The pass rate statistics are as follows:

For attorney applicants, the Winter 2020 bar exam resulted in approximately
49 percent passage rate, so slightly more than half of all attorney
applicants failed.  

For LLLT applicants, the Winter 2020 exam was a 40% pass rate (4 passed out
of 10).  The Summer 2019 exam was a 25% pass rate (1 passed out of 4).  Over
the last four LLLT exams, a total of 8 out of 24 passed. 

The Board of Governors is meeting on June 26th in virtual session and the
Court's decision to grant diploma privileges is on the agenda.  It will
probably occur about 4 pm.  Unfortunately, there will not be more than about
45 minutes or so to discuss this very important topic, but I invite you to
send letters to the Court:   <mailto:supreme at courts.wa.gov>
supreme at courts.wa.gov with a copy to me, and I will make sure that your
comments are provided to the entire Board.  If you wish to call in to the
meeting, the number is  1-888-788-0099 or 1-877-853-5247 and the meeting ID
is:  956 2364 5735. 

Regards,

Carla J. Higginson

WSBA Governor, District 2"

Warmest regards,

Michael S. Safren, Esq. 
Attorney at Law 

14900 Interurban Ave. S., Ste. 280 | Seattle, WA 98168 
11900 NE 1st St., Bldg. G - Ste. 300 |  Bellevue, WA 98005 
P: (206) 859-5098 | E:  <mailto:msafren at jennylinglaw.com>
msafren at jennylinglaw.com 
 <http://www.jennylinglaw.com> www.jennylinglaw.com |
<http://www.facebook.com/jennylinglaw/> facebook.com/jennylinglaw/ 

This communication, including attachments, may contain information that is
confidential and protected by the attorney/client or other privileges. It
constitutes non-public information intended to be conveyed only to the
designated recipient(s). If the reader or recipient of this communication is
not the intended recipient, an employee or agent of the intended recipient
who is responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, or you
believe that you have received this communication in error, please notify
the sender immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this e-mail,
including attachments without reading or saving them in any manner. The
unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this
e-mail, including attachments, is prohibited and may be unlawful. Receipt by
anyone other than the intended recipient(s) is not a waiver of any
attorney/client or other privilege. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbarp/attachments/20200619/0914209e/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Order Granting Diploma Privilege (004) (002).pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 312717 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbarp/attachments/20200619/0914209e/OrderGrantingDiplomaPrivilege004002-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Letter to WA Supreme Court 6-10-20.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 98501 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbarp/attachments/20200619/0914209e/LettertoWASupremeCourt6-10-20-0001.pdf>