For many years, the tradition of the two-day grueling bar examination has been a dreaded rite of passage for new lawyers. It is not a particularly cherished tradition, though. Few who have taken the test, nor those who administer it, consider it effective at measuring a candidate's ability to meet the minimal standard of being ready to practice law.

The Supreme Court aims to improve on that, and, in collaboration with the Franklin Pierce Law Center and the NH Board of Bar Examiners, it is launching a pilot project to develop a better means of training and evaluating candidates for admission to the NH Bar. Starting next January, a group of 25-30 students at Franklin Pierce Law Center will be selected to participate in the Webster Scholars Program, an honors program that will provide them with specially designed NH practice courses and ongoing, thorough evaluations of their development of the "MacCrate fundamental skills and fundamental values." These were identified in a well-known, much-quoted report by an ABAtask force led by Robert MacCrate that issued a report called "Narrowing the Gap," examining the gulf between what law schools teach and what the legal profession requires and expects new admittees to be able to do. Those students who successfully complete this program won't take the traditional two-day bar exam, but Associate Justice Linda Dalianis, a driving force behind the creation of this approach to training and assessment, insists that it will be a more rigorous process that will improve upon rather than "bypass" the Bar exam. "We need to be as sure as we can be that these students are capable of practicing law," she said. "The Webster Scholars process will be magnitudes more difficult than the traditional bar exam."

"We need to be as sure as we can be that new admittees will be capable of practicing law."

Dalianis has been working on various projects to improve the Bar admissions process for more than 10 years. "What drives me to work on this is 20 years of experience on the front lines of the trial court, and seeing many new lawyers coming to court, rep resenting clients without the skills and training to do so," Dalianis said. "And what I saw was probably only the tip of the iceberg." Dalianis said that an estimated 50 percent of attorneys who pass the Bar each year, whether on their own or in a small firm, are going into private practice where they have virtually no access to mentoring. "These attorneys are going into a sink-or-swim environment."

Chief Justice John T. Broderick Jr. said the full court believes that the Webster Scholar program will produce lawyers who, from the start of their legal careers, will be better prepared to serve the needs of New Hampshire citizens.

"These law school graduates will have defended their acquisition of knowledge and skills, they will have taken part in a rigorous and repetitive evaluation process and will be able to demonstrate the skills and values that the MacCrate report identified as essential to good lawyering," the Chief Justice said.

The Webster Scholars Program will use a variety of approaches to tie together the study of legal concepts and reasoning with the development of necessary lawyering skills, such as communication, negotiation, organization and management of legal work, as well as doing a better job of inculcating greater respect and understanding of legal ethics. (See accompanying chart of the MacCrate Skills and Values.)

For example, as a mandatory supplement to their law school coursework, the Webster Scholars will participate in a series of practice courses taught by practicing lawyers. The curricula of these courses will be coordinated to ensure that students are learning not only substantive law but also are developing an increasingly complex and integrated range of skills and values.

Key to the program will be the periodic evaluation sessions that will require students to provide, and verbally defend a portfolio of their work. Panels consisting of law school personnel, practicing attorneys and judges working with the program and trained in assessment, will conduct the evaluations. The evaluation panels for each student also will include a fellow Webster Scholar.

The evaluation process will be an improvement on bar exam essay questions that typically focus on applications of the law in a single area. In an article for a Pierce Law newsletter on the program, Sophie Sparrow, a legal writing professor who is part of the committee setting up the Webster Scholars project, explained: "In this program students would have to demonstrate that they would know how to analyze and begin to resolve the many legal problems that accompany clients. For example, in working through a simulation with a family facing divorce, students would show how issues of child sup port, alimony, tax, property, pensions and retirement benefits, insurance and inheritance could arise and be resolved." And instead of merely composing an essay question answer in writing, the Webster scholars would be required to explain their reasoning and present their legal "advice" on the situations to the evaluation committee.

Hutson said a focus group of law students was briefed on the program. "The unanimous consensus was that this would be a much better way to pass the bar," Hutson said. "The learning in the Webster Scholar program over the course of two or two and one half years will be better geared to the actual practice of law and will stick with the graduates much better than cramming for the present bar exam does. Under the present system in all the states, you start the info dump the moment you walk out the door of the exam room."

Fred Coolbroth, chair of the NH Board of Bar Examiners, said the Board has been involved "right along" with the development of the Webster Scholars program, and will be integrally involved in the assessment of the candidates to ensure there is a "strong evaluative component" to the program.

Under the proposed design, toward the end of the students' law school careers, they will undergo a two-day assessment process that will require them to participate and be evaluated on their performance in interviews and simulations that will show their ability to not only understand and explore legal concepts, but to verbally communicate and translate their legal understanding into common legal documents. If they successfully complete this examination-and have taken all of the required courses in the program-they will be considered to have passed the Bar and will be entitled to admission to the Bar.

In a meeting with the NHBA Board of Governors, Justice Dalianis said the Webster Scholars Program has the potential to be "breathtakingly groundbreaking." Hutson said he knew of no other state that is considering such a comprehensive approach to bridging the gap between legal education and practical skills in an alternative bar examination.

Hutson and Dalianis both stressed the fact that New Hampshire is able to blaze a trail in this area because its size makes it easier for major players to form close working relationships. "Everybody -law school, bench, bar examiners - has to be working together on this," said Hutson. "It takes people with vision and goodwill who are willing to give up some of their authority and responsibility to do this."

The law school is making a major financial commitment to the program, which will have its own director (to be hired by the summer of 2005) and a number of adjunct faculty working directly with the Webster Scholars on practical courses, assessments and mentoring. Hutson says the success of Pierce Law's graduates going into New Hampshire practice is important. "We need to do a better job of ensuring that our recent graduates can practice law when they graduate. And our reputation as a law school helps determine whether they can get a job. If we pull this off, we will be the first law school and the first state to have done this, and this will bring the state a lot of recognition."

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