Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Another State Does Away w/Mandatory Bar Exam for Attorneys" video.

@l.baughman1445 That right there is the issue. There's plenty of lawyers when the standards for guaranteed representation are so low. Simply being present physically, even if the attorney has Alzheimer's or some other issue is considered good enough. And there's no legal requirement at all if you are dealing with civil proceedings.
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The idea behind the bar was to make sure that attorneys had a specific set of knowledge. Initially, it shocked me a bit, but the reality is that the amount of knowledge that's probably needed is a lot less than it used to be. You still want a lawyer that knows as much as possible, but research is far more efficient in the past. The main reason why you'd likely want an attorney with more knowledge is that you do need to know what to look for when you're doing searches for precedence and what the courts have been seeing. And in the state of Washington, you just needed to pass the bar in order to have the right to practice law, whether or not you attended law school had little to do with it.
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The bar was found to be marginally effective at best. This system would still filter out the stupid and lazy, but would likely be somewhat less harsh on those with temporary issues like family illness.
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That's not necessarily what's going on here. Previously, you just needed to pass the bar, as in you just cram enough to pass it, which was probably something on the order of the 2 days that Steve referred to and that was it. This change makes it take longer in a sense as there's apprenticeship and the like, so it's a bit less pain at any given time over a longer period of time. It remains to be seen whether this will have any impact on the quality of attorneys practicing in the state.
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Yes, I'm keeping an open mind, but at least they're maintaining a way of becoming an attorney without going to law school and having prospective attorneys apprentice should help to reduce the issues that come from high-stakes testing. This could go well, or it could go very, very wrong. But, given that the state supreme court is the one that decides who is and isn't allowed to keep their license once granted, they've hopefully thought this through.
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There are still standards, I'm not sure what gives you the impression that there won't be standards. There will be a portfolio that gets evaluated the same way it's done for some other licensed professions. Having a test be the thing that ultimately decides if you're going to be licensed or not is rather problematic.
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@cobracommander9138 Yes, if anything this is likely to increase the standards for folks that aren't attending law school. Previously, you just needed to pass the bar, the law school was optional. Now, you don't have the bar exam, but there is a more thorough and longer process by which one gets licensed.
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Not really, there are still going to be standards, it's just that the court recognizes that the barrier to entry is both disproportionate to the need and doesn't do much to prevent incompetent attorneys from being licensed anyways. If it had kept incompetent attorneys out to some significant degree, they may have opted to not take this approach.
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Have views that are less toxic to the majority of voters and you'll see more of your views being reflected in legislation. If anybody has marginalized you, it's yourselves. Perhaps if rather than spending all that effort trying to screw over Seattle, you spent that effort building yourselves up, you wouldn't have those issues. The funny thing is that those of us in the West basically don't give you any though because you're just not significant enough. On second thought, you probably shouldn't remind us that we're subsidizing you.
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I take it you didn't watch the video, because the bar isn't very effective at that.
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That was already the case, or at least it was a couple decades when it came up with an attorney I knew.
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