Sixty-Five-Year-Old Man Takes Bar Exam

I spent a good deal of my time outside of work in early October reviewing North Carolina’s rules for becoming a lawyer, or “being admitted to the bar.” After all, I am not new to this rodeo. I attended law school immediately after graduating from college, and I had taken a bar exam—in Florida—before. I actively practiced law in Florida for about nine years; since graduating with my library school degree I have worked in two law schools for a total of nearly thirty years.

There is an obvious difference in available technology since I last practiced and even since I began my work as a librarian. Foremost is the World Wide Web and the means of accessing it through a multitude of devices, large and small. Thirty years ago I would have had to send a note to the Board of Law Examiners to get the information I needed, or go to a library or a law school to pick up a print copy of the ABA and National Conference of Bar Examiners Guide to Bar Admission Requirements. This time I simply visited the website of the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners and quickly found all the relevant information. I found information on the minimum requirements to be a lawyer, the dates of the exam, the deadline for applying for admission and taking the exam, the fees, and the scoring used to determine passage. I learned that North Carolina would begin using the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) with next month’s exam. The UBE allows for portability of the exam score among most of the jurisdictions that have adopted it.

In addition to passing a comprehensive exam, like most states North Carolina conducts an in-depth examination of a bar applicant’s “character and fitness.” Bar applicants provide minute details about their lives, going back to their attaining adulthood at age eighteen. This includes every address ever called home, every job held, every school attended, every interaction with a court, and much more. I completed such a form for my admission in Florida after law school; however, this time I had an additional forty-two years of personal history to account for in my application. Some forms have to be notarized and executed in duplicate, and applicants must be fingerprinted and submit the fingerprint cards with the application. Note also that law schools are obligated to submit a character assessment for each graduate, stating whether in the school’s opinion the applicant is fit to be a lawyer.

In addition to the law school’s opinion, applicants must submit the names of several references, sometimes numbering more than a dozen. North Carolina requires applicants who have been admitted elsewhere to provide contact information for other attorneys who know the applicant and clients or former clients. While the character and fitness forms do not require the legal knowledge that will be tested on the bar exam, they can require a bit of detective work to find all the required information.

In October, after noting the early January deadline for submitting the application without paying a late fee, I resolved to submit my application by mid-December. I got to work on the forms, getting fingerprinted, and getting the two passport-type photos I needed. I mailed my application to Raleigh in the first week of December; Priority Mail tracking confirmed its delivery a few days later.