Arizona Supreme Court issued its approval to amend a rule eventually allowing 3L's to take the February Bar Exam. The amendment to Rule 34 of the Supreme Court Rules were approved on an "experimental basis," until December 31, 2015. Arizona 3L's would be required to file a petition in November prior to sitting for the exam.
The amended rule is part of a pilot program to take place in Arizona Law Schools. Graduating 3L's would receive their diploma and bar results in the spring rather than having to take the exam two months after graduating. This would eliminate the additional wait until the fall that most graduates endure before finding out whether they can practice law. The third year of law school is considered a waste by many. The first two years are considered the most valuable and the third year of law school is often referred to as the year they "bore you to death."
Arizona schools are not the first to try and fix the problem with the third year of law school. NYU recently announced that they are revamping their third year curriculum to address this issue. Stanford Law school lead the way with changes to its third year of law school designed to allow students to pursue joint-degrees.
AboveTheLaw.com weighed in on the debate regarding whether 3L students should be allowed to sit for the Bar. All three Arizona Law schools had supported the change arguing that students would have a head start entering the job market. The National Law Journal discusses that a financial benefit accompanies the cahnge by helping students enter the job market as they graduate rather than have a six month lag. In this economy, many employers no longer consider law students for employment until after they have received their bar exam results and know they will have a license to practice law. Prior to the economic downturn the legal field was thriving and jobs were easily obtained before students actually knew they had passed the test.
The pilot program has been given two years to evaluate the effectiveness of this change in Arizona while legal educators will continue to evaluate ways to help students get jobs as quickly as possible in this slow economy.
