By Tom Jarvis
In 2025, the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law’s (UNH Law) Daniel Webster Scholars (DWS) Honors Program marks 20 years since its approval by the New Hampshire Supreme Court (NHSC). The first cohort began in January 2006 and graduated in May 2008. Since then, more than 350 lawyers have been admitted to the New Hampshire Bar through this innovative program.
According to UNH Law Associate Dean and DWS Director Courtney Brooks, the class starting this year will represent the 20th graduating class in May 2027.
What Is DWS?
The DWS Program is the first and still only competency-based bar admission pathway in the United States. Launched in 2005 through a collaboration among the NHSC, the New Hampshire Bar Association, the New Hampshire Board of Bar Examiners (NHBBE), and UNH Law, the program was designed to better align legal education with practice.
Instead of a written test after graduation, students spend their final two years of law school in a practice-based curriculum that includes simulations, skills assessments, and hands-on training with volunteer lawyers, judges, and court staff. Their work is reviewed continuously by bar examiners, who evaluate portfolios and meet with students each semester.
According to Brooks, the structure effectively functions as a two-year bar exam. Students graduate having already demonstrated the skills needed to represent clients, and are sworn in immediately upon completion.
The program traces its roots to the mid-1990s, when the American Bar Association’s MacCrate Report raised concerns about lawyer preparation and practice readiness. Retired NHSC Chief Justice Linda Dalianis, then serving on the Superior Court, was among those who took the findings seriously.
“More than 50 percent of the new lawyers each year were opening their own solo practices, and that concerned me because these folks really didn’t have much in the way of support systems,” Justice Dalianis said in a 2023 interview. “In my opinion, most people in those days didn’t have enough of the practical skills that they needed to be able to represent people right away.”
From Tri-State to Granite State
In 1995, Justice Dalianis approached then-NHBBE Chair Frederick “Fred” Coolbroth, Sr. about creating a six-week summer boot camp for new lawyers as a requirement for Bar admission. Along with colleagues from Maine and Vermont, they formed the Northern New England Task Force on Bar Admissions to explore alternatives.
“In the beginning, judges, educators, and lawyers from all three states got together and talked about how lawyers were not prepared for practice – and what to do about it,” recalls UNH Law Professor Sophie Sparrow, who later joined the New Hampshire effort in 2003. “In Maine and Vermont, there wasn’t a unified approach between the court, the law school, and the Bar, so they dropped out. When Justice Dalianis was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, she and [NHSC] Justice [James] Duggan said, ‘Let’s keep moving forward with this’ – and New Hampshire did.”
Coolbroth notes that examiners were willing to sign on once a few key conditions were in place.
“It was an honors program, so they were selecting students highly likely to pass the traditional bar exam,” he says. “Secondly, the program was a pilot. So, if it failed it could be terminated. There was also active bar examiner participation – we were actually reviewing the additional work that Daniel Webster Scholars were doing as part of their law school education.”
By 2003, Justice Dalianis had formed and chaired the Daniel Webster Scholar Advisory Committee, this time focused solely on New Hampshire, which included Sparrow, Coolbroth, NHSC Justice James Duggan, Bruce Felmly (now chair of the Board of Bar Examiners), Larry Vogelman, then-NHBA President Martha Van Oot, and then-UNH Law Dean John Hutson. That group ultimately designed the program that would launch in 2005.
Launching the Program
After securing support from the law school faculty and a rule change from the NHSC, the committee was ready to launch the program as a three-year pilot. One key step remained: someone had to lead it. In the spring of 2005, UNH Law created a position for a director, hiring Professor John Garvey to design the program’s structure and oversee its implementation before students enrolled.
“They had an idea of what they wanted to accomplish, but they hired me to do the developmental part of it,” Garvey recalled in a 2023 interview. “I went through an entire year of figuring out what it would look like before we started bringing students into it. I looked at what was already available because I don’t believe in wasting resources, especially when you’re on a shoestring budget.”
Sparrow says the team moved on two fronts: policy and curriculum.
“We had to go through a Supreme Court rule change for licensing,” she says. “A lot of lawyers and judges worried we were asking for a lower standard. We had to explain this was more like a two-year bar exam instead of a two-day bar exam.”
She recalls how the group refined the academic side once the rule took effect.
“We had to create and tweak courses, design rubrics, and flesh out the curriculum and artifacts – what evidence we’d gather to show students met the criteria to be effective lawyers,” she says, adding that the pilot structure helped address early concerns. “The result was yes, it’s effective and makes a big difference in being client-ready.”
Garvey emphasized outreach.
“If you’re going to have a program that’s going to be ground-breaking, particularly in the legal field, there is always going to be skepticism,” he said. “I immediately tried to bring in as many people as possible instead of just being the leader.”
That outreach included inviting federal judges to hear students’ simulated arguments and enlisting court reporters to demonstrate real-time transcripts during depositions. Volunteers across the system, from judges to court staff, helped make the simulations as authentic as possible.
“It was a community effort,” Garvey said.
Today, the program is overseen by a standing DWS Oversight Committee, which includes members of the NHSC, the NHBBE, and all the DWS examiners.
Curriculum and Outcomes
The DWS curriculum spans the 2L and 3L years and uses the MacCrate skills and values as its framework. Courses include Pretrial Advocacy, Trial Advocacy, Negotiations, Business Transactions, a capstone, clinics or externships, and pro bono work. A signature assessment comes at the end of the 3L year.
“The capstone’s final piece is interviewing and counseling simulated clients – actors without legal backgrounds – at the end of 3L,” says Brooks. “It’s the ultimate test of client-readiness, and it remains a big part of the final assessment.”
She notes that the program’s architects used the MacCrate Report as the overall framework and developed rubrics to ensure every skill was practiced at least once.
“That shifted the focus from just substantive learning to hands-on skills and values,” Brooks says. “Twenty years later, what we’re really seeing is that the DWS graduates’ success goes beyond exposure to practical skills to include development of necessary ‘durable skills’ – working in teams, handling stress, managing legal work, and working with supervisors.”
Coolbroth, who reviewed student portfolios during his tenure, says one constant stood out: “It was kind of amazing to watch them grow as they progressed through the program.”
Sparrow adds that students emerge with what she calls “authentic confidence.”
“When they’re thrown a problem, they don’t panic; they think, ‘I can learn this. I can get up to speed,’ and they do,” she says. “It comes from doing the skills, working with others, making mistakes, and learning from them.”
In 2015, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System did a study – Ahead of the Curve – and reported that DWS students outperformed practicing lawyers in client interviewing and counseling. A follow-up study is underway, with results expected in 2027.
Brooks says that more than half of DWS students still sit for another bar exam and, historically, about 98 percent pass. Roughly 30 percent of graduates enter public service each year, with some classes closer to 40 percent. About 60 percent of DWS alumni practice in New Hampshire. Of those alumni, many return as speakers, mentors, and volunteers for the program, adding another layer to its community.
The program has also expanded over time, growing from 15 students per class to 20 in 2011, and 24 in 2013.
Interest from outside the state has continued. In 2023, Brooks and NHSC Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald presented the program at the Conference of Chief Justices. Courts and law schools in South Dakota and elsewhere have expressed interest in replication.
A Recent Graduate’s View
Graduates of the program continue to report employment benefits and early responsibility. Alex Attilli, a 2025 DWS graduate, now serves as associate counsel for the State Employees Association in Concord. She said the program directly shaped her career path.
“The job was hiring in October of my 3L year,” she says. “Because I was in DWS, I could start as a legal resident in January and then be automatically admitted in May. Having someone who was automatically going to be admitted was a huge plus for them.”
Attilli says the work in the program was demanding, but beneficial.
“It was a lot… I felt like I was working 12- to 13-hour days, and even when I was ‘off’ I was thinking about DWS,” she says. “But I wouldn’t be here without this program. This is a dream job for me… As rough as it was in the moment, the end goal made it worth it.”
She also highlights the program’s peer network. Students are divided into small practice groups, known as “firms,” where they collaborate on simulated cases.
“The teamwork and friendships make it valuable, too,” she says. “Our ‘firm’ still talks every day; we go to each other’s weddings and everything. And when I see a classmate as opposing counsel, I know we’ll have great rapport.”
Looking Back and Ahead
In a 2023 interview, Garvey commended the students who first enrolled.
“They were willing to go into a program that was a three-year pilot program that had no track record and no graduates,” he said. “They were pioneers and they should get a lot of credit for that.”
Sparrow says the program has continued to evolve under Brooks’ leadership.
“The program keeps improving,” she says. “Courtney Brooks has done a phenomenal job – she secured approval to add more writing modules in the 2L miniseries. That direct writing instruction is a really helpful change.”
Brooks, who became director in 2020, says the framework of the program has remained intact.
“We’ve kept the solid curriculum and added pieces like an e-discovery segment and advanced writing work,” she says. “I would love to see other states do it… I’m happy to share what we’ve done because it’s a solid curriculum with good outcomes.”
Justice Dalianis said the aim from the beginning was straightforward – and the results have borne it out.
“We essentially tailored whatever we did to New Hampshire and ensured that the law school offered enough practical, on-the-ground curriculum to make sure that the graduates were, in fact, client-ready when they finished law school – or at least more client-ready than they had previously been,” she said. “We exceeded pretty much everybody’s expectations. These graduates are essentially two years ahead… And even better than that, they get to start work the day they graduate.”