Where to Go With the New York Bar Exam: A View From the Bench

Justice Mark Dillon, Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department, since August 2005 and Adjunct Professor of New York Practice at Fordham Law School since 2008, wrote in the February 2019 issue of the Westchester Lawyer Magazine that "[t]he current method of testing for the bar is, in my observational opinion, a disincentive to choosing the very New York grounded subjects which will, for many students, have the greatest practical utility early in their legal careers."  Justice Dillon cited in support of his concern the decline in enrollment in his New York Practice course from 90 students each semester before the 2016 adoption of the UBE to between 19 and 32 students in subsequent years.  

Please join the Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar to hear in more detail about Justice Dillon's observations from the bench and classroom regarding the impact of the current New York Bar exam on students' and practicing lawyers' familiarity with the aspects of New York law that distinguish it from the UBE-tested "law of nowhere" and a discussion of the opportunities and options available to New York to revise and improve the State's bar examination and licensing standards.

Speaker:  The Hon. Justice Mark C. Dillon

Moderators:  Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus and David Marshall, Co-Chairs, Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar

Co-Sponsor:  The Young Lawyers Section of the New York State Bar Association