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Committee on Bar
Admissions |
In 2005, the Committee administered exams during the weeks of February 14, with a passage rate of 61% and July 25, with a passage rate of 68%. This compares to an average nationwide pass rate of 54% for February and 68% for July . Justice John L. Weimer addressed 215 new attorneys during April 22 admission ceremonies; Justice Catherine D. Kimball did the honors on October 28, when 425 new attorneys were admitted. In addition, a special admission ceremony was held on November 16, where 18 new attorneys were admitted . Both Justice Kimball and Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero, Jr., delivered addresses at that ceremony .
The examination is conducted by the Committee on Bar Admissions, 15 active members of the Louisiana State Bar Association appointed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Approximately 450 volunteer Assistant Examiners work with Committee members in the grading process.
When Hurricane Katrina made landfall, virtually all of the July 2005 exam answers—over 5,000 sets of them, since most of the 735 applicants took all nine parts of the exam—were in the hands of Assistant Examiners, most of whom were displaced by the storm.
The Supreme Court granted a two-week extension for completing grading and announcing final grades. Despite additional setbacks from Hurricane Rita, the Committee met that deadline, thanks to extraordinary efforts by the Bar Admissions Committee members and staff, and especially the Examiners and Assistant Examiners.
Lost in the flooding were 73 sets of answers to the Code I section of the exam. Some of those answers were retrieved from an electronic back-up copy maintained for applicants who took the exam on personal laptop computers. Of the lost exam answers that could not be electronically retrieved, only 13 affected whether the applicant passed or conditioned the exam. A Code I make-up test was given November 5—the first in the history of the Bar Admissions Committee. All 13 applicants passed the make-up test and were admitted to the Bar in a special swearing-in ceremony on November 16.
In 2006, the Testing Committee will resume its dialogue with the Court and law schools about possible bar exam improvements, including whether the bar exam should be restructured to shift the orientation toward legal practice and away from testing traditional categories of substantive law and procedure; whether the Multi-State Performance Test should be added; how ethics should be tested; what weight different sections should be given; whether there should be one numerical score; and whether all applicants should be required to take the entire bar exam, eliminating “conditional failure.” The committee hopes to finalize its recommendations during 2006.
FEBRUARY 2007 EXAM RESULTS
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