Sixty-Five-Year-Old Man Takes Bar Exam

One of the defining hallmarks of a profession is that its members subscribe to norms of behavior, often set out as a code. For physicians in the U.S., the major such code is the American Medical Association’s Code of Ethics. Librarians have their own ethic codes, promulgated by the American Library Association. Librarians generally are not licensed by the states in which they practice, but physicians and attorneys are. The regulatory agencies that oversee these professions can make compliance with the respective codes of ethics mandatory, and can invoke penalties for those who act contrary to the code. In the cases of physicians and lawyers, those penalties may include revocation of the license to practice.

American law schools have required their law students to take ethics courses for many decades, and at least since President Nixon’s resignation, which was the culmination of a crisis that saw many attorneys commit crimes, the law school focus on ethics has only increased. In my third year of law school at the University of Florida, I took my ethics course in the fall quarter with Professor Scott Van Alstyne. I remember well that the course met on Tuesday evenings, because I clearly recall missing the class on election night 1976. The polling place line at the J. Wayne Reitz (student) Union was hours long, and by time I had cast my vote class was over. At that time the American Bar Association’s ethics code was the Model Code of Professional Responsibility; today it has been superseded by its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Each state adopts its own rules, with most of them closely following the ABA’s Model Rules.

Since I stopped practicing law thirty years ago, I have not closely tracked changes in the Model Rules, but I have remained cognizant of them. In our technology in law practice classes at Duke and Cincinnati, I emphasize the role played by some of the most important duties of a lawyer to a client, to provide competent representation and to maintain a client’s confidences, when considering which technologies to use in a law office. For example, should a lawyer communicate with a client via unencrypted email? What are the risks to be considered before choosing a cloud-based file storage service? These are but two of the key questions attorneys must address when bringing modern technology to their practices.

So, as I again seek admission to a state bar, what is expected of me with regard to my familiarity with my first profession’s ethical norms? Since I last took a bar exam, states have implemented the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, maintained by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The exam comprises sixty multiple choice questions and is administered over two hours. I will be taking the exam on March 23, here in Cincinnati. I’ve begun my study, which I will detail further in my next post. I look forward to studying for the exam and taking it as a demonstration of my commitment to be an ethical attorney.