Bar examiners write and administer bar exams to determine the minimum competency of lawyers. Each state in the US has its own Bar Council or Committee that administers a state-specific bar exam. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) writes and administers national exams, tracks exam statistics, and maintains information on each state’s individual requirements. Bar examiners grade completed exams and report results to their state’s bar association. The specifics of what bar examiners do and how they are selected vary widely from country to country and even state to state.
Bar examiners are officials whose job it is to write and administer parts of the bar exam. Almost all countries with a legal system have a bar exam to determine the minimum competency of lawyers. Once a student has finished his legal studies, he must pass his jurisdiction’s bar exam in order to be admitted as a lawyer and practice law. It is the solicitors’ examiners who set up the exam, make sure it is administered correctly, and ultimately grade the presentations. The specifics of what bar examiners do and how they are selected vary widely from country to country and even state to state.
Some countries have national bar exams, but not all do. In the United States, the practice of law is regulated at the state level. Each state has its own Bar Council or Bar Committee which administers a state-specific bar exam. The state bar examiners determine both the content and requirements for the state bar exam. They may decide, for example, that you must have a law degree from an accredited law school to take the bar exam and determine whether or not applicants can use laptops to type and submit their responses. One of the only things the state examiners cannot determine is the date the exam is given, since each state administers its bar exam on the same day.
In most cases, a bar examiner selects the types of questions the exam will ask and determines a score grid to assess which answers should be considered passed. Examiners also grade completed exams and report the results to their state’s bar association. If a candidate objects to her score, it is the state examiners who must assess the dispute and re-evaluate the exam if necessary.
Most of the U.S. bar exams consist of both national and state elements. National exams, such as the multistate professional responsibility exam, multistate bar exam, multistate essay exam, and multistate performance test, are written and administered by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). States usually require one to three of these national exams, but some require none.
In addition to administering the four national exams, the NCBE also maintains information on each state’s individual requirements and serves as a clearinghouse for bar exam information for all 50 states. The NCBE tracks exam statistics and compiles databases of year-to-year scores. One of the NCBE’s primary goals is to ensure reasonable, fair, and competitive standards for admission to the bar nationwide.
What it takes to become a forensic examiner varies widely by jurisdiction. Many U.S. bar examiners are lawyers themselves and have successfully passed at least one bar exam in the past. Whether an examiner should personally know about the bar exam is a matter for the state or country government to decide. Bar examiners do an important job no matter where they work, and in many ways serve as guardians of the global legal profession.
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