Porter, W. L.

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University of Kentucky

Kentucky Law JournalVolume 14 | Issue 1 Article 31925Legal Education and Admission to the Bar inKentuckyW. L. PorterKentucky Bar AssociationFollow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kljPart of the Legal Education Commons, and the Legal Profession CommonsRight click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefitsyou.This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Kentucky Law Journalby an authorized editor of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact UKnowledge@lsv.uky.edu.Recommended CitationPorter, W. L. (1925) "Legal Education and Admission to the Bar in Kentucky," Kentucky Law Journal: Vol. 14 : Iss. 1 , Article 3.Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/klj/vol14/iss1/3LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSION TO THE BARIN KENTUCKY*It is of the utmost importance, not only to the professionbut to the public, that a high standard at the bar be strictly main-tained because reforms in procedure and in the administrationof justice can not be carried on except to the lawyer's level ofthe profession. The lawyers at the bottom will drag down thestandard of excellence in procedure. The Court of Appealsix now suffering from overwork. Its labors could be immenselylightened, and it could probably get all the relief needed, ifwe could institute some of the reforms prevalent in a largenumber of states, and even obtaining in such a state as Arizona,by legislation, since 1898. In Illinois, for example, the SupremeCourt has no typewritten or pen written records nor briefs.It does not have dumped upon it undigested records and doc-uments as we have; it requires the lawyers to make an abstractof the record. The Supreme Court's labors are thereby light-ened manifold. A pleading of twenty pages can sometimes becondensed into two pages, the prolixity being eliminated. Wetried the reform over a quarter of a century ago but our courtbalked. It would not have balked had the profession been be-hind the court as the reason given was that there were too manylawyers who would never be able to make a proper abstract ofthe record. The element at the bottom, therefore, controlledand probably will always control legal reforms. We must,therefore, get rid of the element at the bottom.We probably cannot eliminate it. So we must educate it.Ours has always been called a "learned profession." How thencan we'complain of being compelled to obtain at least a highschool education before entering the profession?DeTocqueville, I believe, declared that the lawyers were thearistocracy of the United States. They are not so now. Onereason is that collegiate education is so much more extensivethan formerly. This, then, is a reason for advancing the stand-*This article constituted the report of the committee of the Ken-tucky Bar Association on Legal Education and Admission to theBar and the following action was taken thereon by the Association:"Upon motion, duly made, seconded and carried, the report was receivedand filed, and the committee instructed to take up the matter containedtherein with the Court of Appeals and to urge the court to adopt valuesIn accordance with the report."--Ed.LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMSSION TO THE BAR N Ky. 37ard of education in the bar. If the profession cannot maintainits former superiority it must at least maintain equality andnot accept inferiority.Again, if we do not require at least a high school educationwe can not keep pace with the lawyers in other countries andin our most forward states. France, Germany, Great Britainand Canada require a sufficient course of academic educationbefore permitting the study of the law, and Germany requireseven four years of legal study, the other countries three years.Our best law schools have requisites equal to those of the coun-tries just mentioned, and a number of our states have similarrequirements. Mr. Bryce gives us precedence in legal educa-tion, I believe, over all other countries-but he refers to ourmost forward states.Canada -has certainly set us an example which we oughtto imitate. If we are willing to trail Great Britain, France andGermany, we certainly ought not to be willing to trail Canada,a country much smaller than our republic and much younger.The* bar of Canada is controlled by two corporations, and allbarristers must be members of these corporations. The corpora-tions have committees on legal education and on discipline. Amember of the bar is thus started right and kept right. Wehave nothing comparable to it. The Canadian corporation is thelegitimate successor of the English Inns Court. They educateand they discipline their barristers, and the rivalry betweenthe different Inns hgets excellence in the barristers.The French Order of Barristers is possibly the most high-toned of all the institutions of legal learning and discipline,but it is doubtful if the English and Canadian can be ex-eelled, and Germany, too, seems to have reached a high degreeof excellence.Twenty-eight states now have the requirement of a highschool education and twenty-nine require three year studyof the law; Kentucky ought to be among these states. Mostof the applicants for the bar have a high school education, fewa collegiate academic education; soe have a three year coursein a law school, but the majority have only a two year courseand some only one.Until the rules promulgated by the court require theseKENTUCKY LAW JOURNALstandards there will be some unfit men who will manage toprepare definitely for the bar examinations and succeed in pass-ing them, difficult though they be. These standards will noteliminate the unfit but it will reduce the numbers and will alsocorrect the impression which is created by the absence of defi-nite rules upon this matter that anybody, regardless of his edu-cational qualifications, may "try the bar." The bar examinershave done the best they could under the existing conditions bygiving thorough and difficult examinations, but their effortsare in part neutralized by lack, on the part of some of the appli-cants, of a sound academic education.The admission to the bar, as well as legal education, in Ken-tucky, has undergone a considerable change in the last fiftyyears. Formerly persons desiring to become lawyers studiedlaw for a time in the office of an attorney, and when they con-sidered themselves sufficiently proficient and able to stand anexamination applied to a circuit judge who, after satisfyinghimself as to the qualification of the applicant, granted him alicense which was signed by another circuit judge, usually as amatter of courtesy. This system produced many eminent andable lawyers. The legislature in 1892 provided another systemof granting license to attorneys. This provided that, after ob-taining from the judge of the county court a certificate ofhonesty, probity and good moral character, the applicant couldfile a petition in the office of the circuit court clerk in a districtin which the applicant did not reside, and the judge of saiddistrict was required to have at least two members of the barpresent who were required to be appointed by the court andsworn to faithfully perform the duties assigned them, and thejudge and these two attorneys were then required to strictlyexamine the applicant on the eleven subjects prescribed by thestatute, and if the applicant received a general average ofseventy-five per cent on the subjects, a license was granted if thejudge and the two attorneys concurred.In 1918 the legislature passed another act at the sugges-tion of the bar association that provided an entirely differentmethod of obtaining a law license. By this method the Courtof Appeals is given complete control of the admission to the barand is given authority to make and adopt such rules and regu-lations, from time to time, as the said court may see proper,LEGAL EDUCATION AND A1ThISSION TOO HE BAR iN Ky. 39fixing the moral qualifications of applicants and a standard ofacquirements, both academic and legal, to entitle them to ad-mission to practice law in the courts of this Commonwealth.The three members of the board of examiners provided forby this act are required to possess the qualifications of a circuitjudge.No better tribunal than the Court of Appeals could beselected to control the admission to the bar, as has been dem-onstrated by the operation of this law during the seven yearsit has been in force. The Court of Appeals in prescribing rulesfor applicants did not fix any academic qualifications, and theexperience of the board has made the impression upon it thatthe academic qualification should at least require the applicantto file, with his petition, a certificate showing his graduationfrom a first class high school; nothing else should be permissible,and a two year college course, in addition, would be most desir-able. The. rules prescribe that applicants who have not beenadmitted to practice in another state must have studied lawfor a period of not less than two years; such course must havebeen pursued wholly by studying law in the office of a practic-ing attorney, or wholly attending a law school, or partially bystudying law in the office of an attorney and partially by at-tending law school, and it is respectfully suggested by this com-mittee that the rules as prescribed by the Court of Appealsfor legal acquirements are inadequate to the fitness of a modernlawyer. Fifty years ago lawyers were trained partly by studyin the office of a practicing attorney, but mainly by the workdone in court as, at that time, lawyers did very little outsideof the court house, and were largely court house made lawyers.Now modern business methods are such that the greater partof the labor of the lawyer is done in his office, and there is nomethod by which he can qualify himself for the active dutiesof an office practice other than that acquired in a liberal coursein a first class law school, and, in addition to this, studyinglaw in a law office is a thing of the past, as there is no roomin an up-to-date law office for any one except the lawyers andtheir clerks and stenographers.It is respectfully suggested that the rules for legal educa-tion of applicants should be revised so as to prescribe at leasta two year course (three would be better), in a first class,KENTuCKy LAw JOuRnALchartered law school. The tendency all over the country-in-augurated by the American Bar Association-is for a higherstandard of legal education and Kentucky ought not lag behindher sister states in this respect.The chairman of the committee on bar examinations hasa hobby on another subject of the practice of law, which ispersonal, and that is a rule requiring all whom may hereafterbe granted licenses to practice law in Kentucky to become mem-bers of the bar association when their license is granted to them.Some of the states, Alabama and others, have such a law re-quiring all lawyers to become members of the State Bar As-sociation, but perhaps we are hardly ready for that in Ken-tucky yet, though there can be no reason why those who mayhereafter be granted licenses should not become members ofthe bar association.W. L. PoanT,CThairman of the Committee on Legal Educa-tion and Admission to the Bar, the KentuoWl/Bar Association.

Legal Education and Admission to the Bar in Kentucky

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Legal Education and Admission to the Bar in Kentucky

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