Shafroth, Will

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Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law

Indiana Law JournalVolume 6 | Issue 8 Article 55-1931The Part of the Bar Association in Fixing Standardsof AdmissionWill ShafrothAmerican Bar AssociationFollow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/iljPart of the Legal Education Commons, and the Legal Profession CommonsThis Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the LawSchool Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized administrator ofDigital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contactwattn@indiana.edu.Recommended CitationShafroth, Will (1931) "The Part of the Bar Association in Fixing Standards of Admission," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 6: Iss. 8, Article 5.Available at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol6/iss8/5THE PART OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION IN FIXINGSTANDARDS OF ADMISSIONTheodore Roosevelt once said, "Every man owes some of histime to the upbuilding of the profession to which he belongs."That many lawyers have this view of their obligation to thelegal profession is shown by the fact that there are some 1,200separate and distinct bar associations in this country which func-tion only through the sacrifice of time and labor which is madeby their lawyer members:If the question is asked, "What have these associations ac-complished?" the answer may not be readily at hand. However,a close study would undoubtedly reveal that they have had avery considerable effect on legislation.This is perhaps easier to demonstrate in reference to the rulesof admission to the bar than in other matters, because that is afield which is particularly appropriate to the lawyer and one inwhich his advice may be considered that of an expert. In manystates at the present time, active work is under way to increasethe standards for admission to the bar. The overcrowded con-dition of the legal profession is receiving attention although itis not universally admitted. Nevertheless it is beginning to berealized that whether the law is overcrowded at the present timeor not, it soon will be if the number of those admitted continueto increase as fast as it has for the last ten years, or even re-mains stationary. The leaders in the profession realize that theremedy is not arbitrarily to cut down the numbers who are ad-mitted, but it is to make the standards sufficiently high to insurelegal competence, so far as that is possible, in the new licenseesand to improve on the methods of character committees so as toweed out the candidates who are ethically unfit for the rigors ofan increasingly intense competition.Bar Associations have taken a constantly more importantpart in raising the requirements for admission. Active commit-tees have framed bills and supported them vigorously in order tosecure their passage by legislatures. Bar Association represen-tatives have appeared before Supreme Courts and induced thosebodies to improve on their rules for admission where this powerlies in them.COMMENTSEver since its founding in 1878 the American Bar Associa-tion has had a Committee or Section on Legal Education whichhas always been largely concerned with the requirements for be-coming a lawyer. Gradually, with the growth of facilities forgeneral education and the increase in the number and quality ofthe law schools, it has raised its standards until in 1921 the Sec-tion under the chairmanship of Eiihu Root secured the approvalof the National Association to the recommendation of two yearsof prelegal college training (or its equivalent as it was later in-terprcted) and the successful completion of three years of lawstudy at an approved full time school or four years at an ap-proved part time school. The adoption of these recommenda-tions has been largely due to the work of state and local BarAssociations and it is in their approval by those associations thathope for continued advances lies. In addition to the fifteenstates' where substantially all candidates for admission are nowrequired to have two years of college work or its equivalent inaddition to their law training, eighteen State Bar Associations2have gone on record as being in favor of this requirement, thelast two-Arizona and Florida-having approved it only thisyear.Objections to closing the portals of the bar to any honest sonof the soil have gradually been yielding to considerations of thepublic good. James Grafton Rogers, now Assistant Secretary ofState, and formerly dean of the law school of the University ofColorado, recently expressed a point of view which has been con-stantly gaining ground when he said :3"The lawyer is needing steadily broader and deeper educationand he is going to get it. If American university facilities werenot as wide flung and easy of access as they have come to be, Ishould regret this. I am eager to leave the gates of the profes-sion open to the ambitious boy, not for his sake but for the sakeof the public. We cannot sacrifice the administration of justice,however, to grant this opportunity. The two today are entirelyconsistent."I Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota,Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wis-consin and Wyoming.2 Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mis-souri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island,South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Washington.3In an article in the New York State Bar Association Bulletin forJanuary, 1931.INDIANA LAW JOURNALRecent progress which is due in considerable degree to BarAssociation activity has been recorded in New Jersey, where therequirement of two years of prelegal college education has justbeen adopted by the Supreme Court, and in Indiana where thelegislature has recently passed a bill which has been signed bythe governor giving the Supreme Court power to fix qualifica-tions for admission, including, presumably, the right to appointa state board of bar examiners. A bill providing for two yearsof college education for aspiring candidates for the bar is nowpending in the Nebraska legislature and also in the North Caro-lina legislature. The Nebraska bill includes a provision forgraduation from law school. In California a bill is pending giv-ing the board of governors power to fix requirements subject toa maximum of preliminary education of a four-year high schoolcourse and graduation from law school or four years outsidestudy. In Arizona, Iowa and Tennessee bills are pending givingthe power to fix qualifications to the board of governors of theState Bar or to the Supreme Court. The Bar Organization Actrecently passed in Utah does the same thing. In Rhode Islandthe matter of increasing the standards is now before the Su-preme Court and the State Bar Association has recommendedpractically the American Bar Association standards.And so it is evident that everywhere there is activity alongthis line and that results are being secured through the work ofAssociations and of Boards of Bar Examiners, whose membersperform the same work of public service that the active and con-scientious leaders in the Bar Association are called on to per-form. Accurate information is at last being published to showexactly how many candidates are applying for the bar yearly,how many are being admitted and how many rejected. Also, inmany states the preliminary education and legal training of thesecandidates has been tabulated. The increase of lawyers in thelast four years as shown by Martindale's Legal Directory is ofconsiderable interest. This publication lists 3,041 lawyers inIndiana in 1926 and 3,646 in 1930. While these figures are notcomplete and must be regarded as quite conservative, they areprobably fairly accurate in showing the increase in numbersover the last four years. Whether or not it is true as has beensaid that statistics are the fourth and most immoral form oflies and whether or not these statistics have any special sig-nificance, at any rate they should be known and every effortshould be made to have them as accurate as possible. The 1920COMMENTScensus listed 3,307 lawyers in Indiana, which at that time had apopulation of 2,930,390. This is equivalent to one lawyer forevery 886 people as compared with one to every 862 in the coun-try at large. At that time Indiana was the twenty-second statein the Union in the number of lawyers per capita.If we are to act intelligently we must know the facts. BarAssociations can help to get these facts and they can make themknown to the profession when they are secured. In most caseswhere a legislative enactment is passed or any rule of court pro-mulgated raising the standards for admission to the bar, it canbe marked as an achievement of a bar association if traced backto its source, and often it may be counted as a milestone whichdenotes further progress of the legal profession toward unifica-tion and toward making its voice heard as a definite organizedgroup.WILL SHAFROTH.** Advisor to the Council of American Bar Association on Legal Edu-cation and Admission to the Bar.

The Part of the Bar Association in Fixing Standards of Admission

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The Part of the Bar Association in Fixing Standards of Admission

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