Delaware is making changes to its bar exam in an effort to attract more lawyers to the state. These reforms are based on recommendations from the Delaware Board of Bar Examiners.
Law students will now have two opportunities per year to take the Bar exam. Currently it is only offered in July but starting in 2024 it will also be offered in February. Test takers now need a score of 143, reduced from 145, to pass, and the essay portion of the exam was cut from eight to four essays. The number of topics that could be tested in those essays is dropping from 14 areas of the law to 10.
In a recent Joint Finance Committee meeting, Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Collins Seitz says these new rules are not lowering standards, but is modernizing the way the exam is offered.
“Like, offering the bar exam twice a year, that to me is going to be one of the biggest things to attract people because you know the risk of failing the first time doesn’t mean you have to wait a year, you can take it again in February," Seitz says. "That is huge.”
Seitz notes Delaware will now be in line with standards in most other states too.
“We are making it more attractive to take the bar exam, not by lowering our standards, but by modernizing a lot of the ways that we do the Delaware bar exam to make it consistent with the way other states have done it for years," he says.
Chief Defender in the Office of Defense Services Kevin O’Connell says state’s talent pool is too small, hurting his office where there are currently 10 vacancies.
“So hopefully we’ll be three for three with our law clerks this coming summer and they’ll pass the bar," O'Connell says. "That doesn’t always happen. As you know there was a 52% pass rate last year. But if we’re three for three we’ll be down seven lawyers.”
The Supreme Court also adopted several recommended reforms to the admissions process for attorneys such as reducing clerkship from 21 weeks to 12. Additionally, the “checklist” of activities for candidates – where potential lawyers need to sit in on certain legal proceedings – a mandatory list of 25 items is reduced to 18 out of 30 potential items.
The court also adopted a reduction in the late application fee from $1,400 for law school graduates to $900, and from $1,600 for attorneys admitted in another jurisdiction to $1,000.
There will also be other internal changes, such as partnering with the National Conference of Bar Examiners in the application process to compile the “character and fitness” application for the Board’s review.
