Bar exams, Saul Ewing’s innovation drive, wrongful conviction tracker and legal advice from non-attorneys ??
Reuters Legal
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?? Good morning! The national average score on the Multistate Bar Exam administered in February ties with an all-time low set in 2020, columnist Jenna Greene explores the results of Saul Ewing’s new innovation challenge, the National Registry of Exonerations completes one decade with 3,000 cases to show for, New York civil legal services oppose non-profit Upsolve's plan to give debt collection law advice. Here's a look at the latest in the industry from?Reuters Legal ??
It's shaping up to be a season of disappointment with 12 of the 20 states reporting their pass rate for the February bar exam so far showing a downtrend, while another six saw modest increases and two states matched their pass rate from 2021.
In the country’s largest bar exam jurisdiction of New York, the February overall pass rate declined to 45% from 49% a year ago. Florida saw its pass rate fall to 43% this February from 47% last year. Pennsylvania’s overall pass rate plummeted to 37% from 51% in February 2021, while just half of North Carolina’s February examinees passed, down from 60% a year ago.
Aside from?Nevada , all February 2022 bar examinees took the exam in person at testing sites. By contrast, just 16 jurisdictions administered an in-person exam in February 2021, with the rest opting for a remote test due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new report from the state’s auditor found that the State Bar of California’s attorney regulators bungled attorney misconduct cases by too often resolving allegations behind closed doors and not consistently addressing conflicts of interest with the lawyers who come under investigation.
Small things can make a big difference in people’s satisfaction with their jobs, especially as firms return to in-person work and the war for talent rages on. Reuters columnist Jenna Greene takes a look at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s new innovation challenge, which attracted scores of participants split evenly between lawyers and staff. The teams pitched “SAULutions” (get it?) to what managing partner Jason St. John termed “pain points,” with the winning ideas unveiled at a recent town hall meeting.
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The National Registry of Exonerations, since its founding in 2012, has detailed more than 3,000 exonerations for crimes ranging from fraud to murder, becoming a resource for advocates, policymakers and the media.
Last year it added 161 new exonerations from 2021 and 65 from earlier years to its database, according to an?annual report ?released last week.
Nearly half of the 2021 exonerees were convicted of murder, and almost 70% of last year's cases involved official misconduct. Just 19 of the 2021 exonerations involved DNA evidence. The exonerees spent an average of more than 11 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, the report said.
Registry co-founder Samuel Gross, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School, said:
“It has had a major impact by producing information that provides the background for a lot of policy debates.”
The registry is run as a partnership between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University's law schools and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society.
New York civil legal services and rights organizations?are opposing non-profit Upsolve's?efforts ?to seek a preliminary injunction to allow it to train non-lawyers to give limited advice to low-income New Yorkers on responding to debt collection actions.
Upsolve and a South Bronx pastor sued New York Attorney General Letitia James' office in Manhattan federal court in January, arguing that applying unauthorized practice of law (UPL) rules to the planned program would violate the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Groups including Legal Services NYC and Volunteers of Legal Service said in last week’s friend-of-the-court brief? that rejecting Upsolve's injunction motion wouldn't cause "irreparable harm" because its proposal "does not address a pressing need." Organizations staffed by attorneys and supervised non-lawyers already offer a range of services for low-income New Yorkers sued on consumer debt, they wrote.
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2 年Could this be because the pandemic disrupted more effective in person learning at colleges?