Those who want to practice law in Washington state will no longer have to pass the bar exam, the state’s highest court ruled, in an effort to reduce “historical barriers” that nonwhite aspirants purportedly face.
In a pair of orders handed down on March 15, the Washington Supreme Court approved three “alternative pathways to lawyer licensure,” making the state the second in the nation to move away from traditional testing for law graduates.
One option is a new apprenticeship program for law school graduates who would work under the supervision of a qualified attorney for six months. During that time, the graduates must also complete three courses of standardized coursework.
A separate option would require law students to complete 12 qualifying skills coursework credits and 500 hours of work as a licensed legal intern before graduation, then submit a portfolio of this work to waive the bar exam.
There is also an option for law clerks who are not attending law school. This would allow them to become lawyers without taking the bar exam by completing standardized education courses under the guidance of an attorney and 500 hours of work as a licensed legal intern.
On top of that, licensed attorneys from outside of the state now only need one year of experience to be eligible for a Washington license. The previous threshold was three years.
The state is also permanently reducing the minimum score to pass the bar from 270 to 266, a standard first lowered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who still wish to take the exam will be given this new, updated version that “addresses many of the identified flaws” and focuses on “real-world skills and practice,” starting in the summer of 2026.
Previous Recommendations of Task Force
The decision follows recommendations made by the Bar Licensure Task Force, which was created by the Washington Supreme Court in 2020 to examine alternative paths to becoming a licensed attorney in the state.After three years of study, the task force recommended getting rid of the mandatory bar exam, which it claimed to have “disproportionate impacts on examinees of color and first generation examinees.”
“The [exam] as it stands right now, is not doing the job we all believe it was intended to do,” task force member Jordan Couch said in October when briefing the court on the recommendations. “What it does do is prevent people of color and historically marginalized groups from practicing law.”
The task force blamed this disparity in outcomes on “racism” and “classism” that were supposedly embedded into the standardized test—which it argued to not be a valid measure of competence in the first place.
Other States With Exam Alternatives
Washington and Oregon are the only states to remove the bar exam requirement over concerns about the equity of outcomes. In November, the Oregon Supreme Court approved an alternative licensing program, with a goal to increase “accessibility to and equity in the profession by removing unnecessary barriers to admission.”Wisconsin and New Hampshire also have permanent alternative pathways to practice law, but those are not designed to boost racial diversity in the field.
Wisconsin is the only state that still offers diploma privilege—a relic of a time before the rise of the bar exam in the mid-20th century. Under the diploma-privilege policy, graduates of one of the state’s two law schools may secure a law license without taking the bar exam, so long as they have completed a specified curriculum with a certain grade point average and passed a character and fitness exam.
