Conference on Alternatives to the Bar Exam

Dear Colleagues,

In late April 2010,  Franklin Pierce Law Center and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) are co-hosting a small national conference of law faculty, law deans, state Supreme Court justices, and state Bar Examiners interested in learning more about Franklin Pierce Law School's Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program (DWS) with an eye toward potentially developing a similar program in their states. 

DWS is designed to help make students “client ready.”  Students enrolled in DWS take a variety of doctrinal courses, simulation courses, clinics, and externships.  Professionalism experiences are infused through this course of study.  DWS students develop a portfolio containing both written and videotaped material.  Their portfolio and skills performances are assessed by law faculty, practitioners, Justices of the NH Supreme Court , NH Bar Examiners, and “standardized clients.” Students successfully completing the DWS program are licensed in NH without having to take the traditional bar exam.  The program integrates doctrine, skills, and ethics, and successful completion of the program serves as an alternative to the traditional two-day NH bar exam.

DWS came into being through the collaborative efforts of law faculty, deans, members of the bar, state bar examiners, and state supreme court justices.  If you believe that these stakeholders in your state may be interested in exploring an alternative licensing program based upon the DWS model, please contact Tim Floyd, Chair of the SALT Subcommittee on Alternatives to the Bar Exam, at [email protected] to get more
information about the upcoming April conference.  (Also, I will be at AALS this week, and I will be glad to meet with anyone in person to discuss this.)

More detailed information about DWS can be found in an article co-authored by John Garvey, the DWS Program Director: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477391. 

Thanks,

Tim Floyd

Timothy W. Floyd
Professor of Law
Director, Law and Public Service Program
Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law
1021 Georgia Avenue
Macon, Georgia 31207-0001
Telephone: 478-301-2631
Fax: 478-301-2259
[email protected]

Comments

[Barbara Wilson]

The Franklin Pierce Law Center website also has a section dedicated to Daniel Webster Scholars, http://www.piercelaw.edu/websterscholar

It's been an incredible program that is gaining momentum as more classes graduate. One of the grads of 2009 argued a case in the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the fall, before his non-Daniel Webster Scholar classmates had even received their Bar results!

(Full disclosure: I work for Franklin Pierce Law Center.)

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t's been an incredible program that is gaining momentum as more classes graduate. One of the grads of 2009 argued a case in the New Hampshire Supreme Court in the fall, before his non-Daniel Webster Scholar classmates had even received their Bar results!