Testing Research Skills - A Looming Bar Exam Burden??

At a recent law librarian seminar, ZiefBrief picked up on discussions about a proposal floated by the National Conference of Bar Examiners to add a legal research skills test to the bar examination.

Erica Moeser, the NCBE president, outlines the proposal in the May 2006 "President's Page" column of the Bar Examiner magazine. It's definitely not a done deal; the NCBE has just begun to explore the idea.

At this weekend's seminar, ZiefBrief's fellow law librarians raised the following questions about testing legal research on the bar exam —

Are research skills such that failure to demonstrate them should be the basis for denying someone a license to practice law? If we do test for legal research, how to we decide which skills are essential? And how do we formulate a test that tells us whether or not candidates in fact have those skills?

Ms. Moeser notes that the inquiry into the need for and feasibility of a legal research skills component of the bar should last through 2007 — so no matter what the outcome, this year's 3Ls can heave a sigh of relief.

[The Bar Examiner is on the NCBE web site, but the web version does not include the "President's Page." The full Bar Examiner magazine for May 2006 is available on microfiche in USF's Zief Law Library, and is likely to be available in print or on fiche at most other academic law libraries as well.]