Bar Exams

State Bars Foreign Student From Bar Exam -- Next Stop, State Supreme Court

Vanderbilt grad locked out of bar exam despite being "obviously very, very qualified."

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bar-exam-LF-taking-the-barVanderbilt graduate Maximiliano Gabriel Gluzman, an Argentinian attorney who earned an LL.M. at the 11th ranked school, tried to take the Tennessee bar exam last year, only to see the state bar examiners put up a wall to, I guess, make America great again. The Tennessee Supreme Court will ultimately decide the case.

At issue is a state bar examiner requirement — put in place in 2016 — that all candidates sitting for the bar exam have a post-graduate law degree comparable to a J.D. Like most pernicious attempts to shut out people, it sounds reasonable in the abstract, but then you remember the rest of the world’s nations aren’t as committed to draining law students dry with a high-priced separate degree. As discussed in the Nashville Post:

Vanderbilt Law Professor Daniel Gervais, the co-director of the LL.M. program at the school, wrote in an affidavit supporting Gluzman’s case that the Tennessee educational standard “basically eliminates students from the vast majority of countries around the world from the opportunity to take the Bar exam in the State of Tennessee,” even though “Tennessee law firms and companies who have hired foreign-trained lawyers have greatly benefited and continue to benefit from hiring those students, as Tennessee increasingly becomes a global hub for international business.”

What possible purpose could this rule serve beyond naked nationalism? As Vanderbilt and UT argue in a joint filing, the rule — if its intent were taken at face value — should be read to require a reasonably comparable course of education, rather than a separate undergraduate and graduate degree. As an alternative take on Gluzman’s case, conservative groups are coming to his defense, using the case as an opportunity to drive home the “right to earn a living” law, because the answer to a bad licensing regulation is to gut regulatory power generally. There’ll be no shortage of avenues for the Tennessee court to take in this one.

But the most straightforward argument is still the best — there’s not a good reason to bar Gluzman from practicing in Tennessee. One fact that Gluzman’s attorney (and SCOT Blog author) Daniel Horwitz cites is that the Board of Law Examiners themselves are on record saying that Gluzman is “obviously a very, very qualified person.” That’s a pretty damning admission if you operate from the premise that the bar admission process is about ensuring that “very, very qualified” people get to practice law.

That said, one shouldn’t just take the impressions of a Board member as a guarantee of attorney fitness.

If only there were some sort of test they could give for that…

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Argentine lawyer challenging Tennessee Board of Law Examiners [Nashville Post]
National conservative groups join local bar fight [Nashville Post]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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