On Monday, the left-leaning Washington Supreme Court filed a pair of orders approving “alternative pathways” for people to become lawyers, nixing the requirement to pass the universal bar exam. The court claimed the test “blocks marginalized groups from entering the practice of law” and that bar has “racism and classism written into the test itself.”
By doing so, the Evergreen State joined Oregon, the only other state to officially approve alternatives to the bar exam.
The Bar Licensure Task Force, chaired by Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis and Seattle University Law School Dean Anthony Varona, studied options to the traditional bar exam following a year of pandemic-related bar exam modifications.