Current bar exam to stay until 2028, ex-Illinois prosecutor in trouble over alleged 'lies,' 'first-gen' law students have higher debt, and more ?
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The current version of the bar exam won’t disappear in July 2027 after all.
The National Conference of Bar Examiners said on Wednesday that it will continue to offer the existing Uniform Bar Exam through February 2028, while also offering the new Next Gen Bar Exam starting in July 2026. The NCBE had said in September that the test in its current form would retire after the July 2027 exam.
This means that states will have the option to use either bar exam for two years, after which the uniform exam will be retired, making the next gen version the only one available. The decision of which bar exam each state uses lies with individual state courts, bar associations or law examiners.
An NCBE spokesperson said the organization had received feedback from some courts that they needed more time to adopt the new exam and to give law schools ample notice of which test their graduates would be taking.
No jurisdiction has thus far committed to using the next gen exam when it debuts in July 2026, though the NCBE said it expects several states to do so soon.
The Florida Board of Law Examiners said in July that it will?use the current bar exam ?in July 2026 instead of the next gen exam. Pennsylvania?followed suit ?Oct. 16, saying bar officials needed more time to study the new test. A California state bar committee has also?recommended ?forgoing the next gen exam in favor of a test developed by the bar.
Early sample questions from the new test drew a?lukewarm reaction ?in July, with some saying the questions are too easy and others complaining that the revamped test won’t be significantly different from the current one.
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Illinois bar officials have recommended a one-year suspension for Scott Ian Jacobson, a former assistant state's attorney in McHenry County who allegedly misstated and exaggerated his trial experience during job interviews.
Jacobson was terminated from his position after his seniors confronted him about claims he had made about prior jobs he held, an Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission hearing panel said?Tuesday.
Jacobson's false claims included that he had tried felony drug cases as a first chair prosecutor in Cook County, which covers Chicago. In reality, he was a law clerk, the ARDC panel said.
"We do not find it plausible that a law student or new graduate would be given 'first chair' responsibility for felony matters in Cook County, as that would not only defy common sense and experience but would have violated" state professional rules, the ARDC panel said.
Jim Doppke, a partner at Chicago-based Robinson, Stewart, Montgomery & Doppke who represented Jacobson, declined to comment.
Jacobson admitted to misstating his trial experience when he applied to become an assistant state's attorney in McHenry County, the ARDC panel said. The McHenry County State's Attorney's Office announced Jacobson's hire in July 2018.
First-generation law students on average spend more time studying, earn slightly lower grades, and graduate with higher debt loads than classmates whose parents who graduated from college, according to findings of a comprehensive study.
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The findings were part of the?Law School Survey of Student Engagement ?— an annual survey part of Indiana University's Center for Postsecondary Research — which released on October 25 its first-ever in-depth examination of first-generation students, observing that they make up 26% of law students nationwide.
“Students who are first generation are really dealing with a lot,” survey director Meera Deo said, citing data that they are more likely to take care of dependents and work than their classmates.
First-generation law students are also more racially diverse, the survey found. Just 21% of white law students have parents who did not graduate from college, compared with 53% of Latino law students; 36% of Black law students; and 40% of Native American law students. Women are also more likely to be first-generation than men—28%, compared with 24%.
In 2023, first-generation law students entered with an average Law School Admission Test score of 154, which was three points lower than the 157 average among non-first-generation students, the survey found. They also earned a “B” average in law school, compared with a “B+” among other students.
This means that first-generation law students are less likely to receive so-called merit scholarships, according to the survey, and they tend to come from families with lower incomes. ?
More than a third of first-generation law students said they will leave owing more than $120,000, compared with 23% of law students with a college-educated parent.
“This disparity is especially troubling,” Deo said. “We’re talking about students who come into law school with less. And they are graduating from law school owing even more.”
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The legal artificial intelligence market is getting more crowded as new startups continue to woo investors. The latest entrant, Eve, launched on October 25 with $14 million in seed funding led by venture capital firms Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.
Eve says it offers a "personalized" AI legal assistant to help automate and save time on tasks like document review and legal research.
Jay Madheswaran, the San Francisco-based company's CEO and co-founder, said Eve's enterprise software comes with a set of "skills" for certain tasks, which law firm customers can then customize.
Eve co-founders Matt Noe and David Zeng also worked at Rubrik. Madheswaran said the now 15-person team has worked on Eve for a few years.
No clear leader has emerged so far in the evolving legal AI market, which has?generated enthusiasm from investors ?as lawyers at law firms and companies explore ways the emerging technology can speed up their work.
LegalMation, a company focused on AI litigation tools, on October 25 announced a $15 million Series A round led by Aquiline Technology Growth.
Another competitor, Harvey AI, has publicly partnered with two big law firms,?Allen & Overy ?and?Macfarlanes , as well as accounting giant?PricewaterhouseCoopers .
Law firms are also building their own proprietary ChatGPT-like chatbots, in part to make sure internal and client information remains secure.
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