PORTLAND, Ore. 鈥� Before Bailey McQueeny-Rose attended law school at the University of Oregon, she worked in reproductive health care, first as a medical assistant and then as a trainer, teaching others to do the same job. The work opened her eyes to how access to health care differed based on the laws in the six states where she oversaw training, and she began to consider becoming a civil rights lawyer.

She鈥檇 planned to take the bar exam after law school, but in late 2023, Oregon began offering graduates an alternative pathway to practicing law. Instead of sitting for the multiday bar exam, which most states offer twice a year, new graduates can be admitted to practice in Oregon through on-the-job training.

The graduates are required to work 675 hours under the supervision of a licensed attorney as well as submit a work portfolio for approval to Oregon鈥檚 Board of Bar Examiners. And just like anyone who takes the traditional bar exam, those approved under what鈥檚 known as a , or SPPE, are required to pass an ethics test.

鈥淭he bar exam is not going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer,鈥� McQueeny-Rose said. 鈥淏ut the SPPE pathway, working with civil rights employers, learning what the day-to-day duties and what the day-to-day job looks like, it鈥檚 a hands-on way. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer.鈥�

Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Meagan Flynn said in an interview that she鈥檚 been astounded at the various approaches emerging in other states since Oregon鈥檚 move. She serves on a national committee of lawyers and court officials who will recommend practical changes to help diversify the bar admissions process through the National Center for State Courts, an administrative organization.

鈥淎nd really, no two look alike,鈥� Flynn said. 鈥淓very state looking at this is coming up with very, very state-specific approaches.鈥�

States administer their own bar exams and determine passing scores. Most states use the Uniform Bar Exam, and some states have their own specific tests. Critics of the bar exam say that in most states, it doesn鈥檛 assess minimum competency to practice the law, especially when it comes to skills that involve working directly with clients, such as handling negotiations or counseling people facing incarceration, divorce, bankruptcy or other stressful matters.

Multiple-choice tests fail to assess whether someone has the necessary skills to be a good lawyer, said Catherine Bramble, an associate professor at Brigham Young University Law School in Utah. And research has found that new lawyers perform better if they鈥檝e had practice and supervision.

鈥淲e all know this intuitively,鈥� said Bramble, who has been pushing for change in Utah. 鈥淪ome things are not best assessed through a multiple-choice test. For example, the ability to fly an airplane. We would really hope a pilot has time in the cockpit under observation of an experienced flight instructor before we allow them to fly a plane.鈥�

Real-world skills

In Utah, the state Supreme Court, which oversees licensure, is considering a supervised practice proposal that would require applicants to take a core curriculum during law school. They would be required to complete 240 hours of supervised practice, which could be paid or unpaid. Twenty of those hours would have to be client-facing work, and 50 pro bono, meaning the services are provided to clients free of charge.

Utah encourages lawyers in the state to commit to 50 hours of pro bono work each year, Bramble said, and they鈥檝e found that those who are exposed to such service early in their careers tend to continue it. The proposal would require that prospective licensees take a six-hour well-being online module that teaches lawyers how to manage the stress of a legal career. Finally, there would be a three-hour test, which would require test-takers to write a basic legal motion using a sample law and case materials.

For Nevada, its proposed rules emphasize 鈥渢he necessity of representing clients well,鈥� said Joan Howarth, a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There, the proposal in front of the state Supreme Court would allow law students to complete most of the requirements for licensure during law school.

The Oregon Supreme Court is considering approving a similar, third licensure path 鈥� in addition to the traditional bar exam and SPPE 鈥� that would allow students to take coursework and complete supervised practice requirements during school so that they are licensed when they graduate.

Even the national bar exam is changing: The National Conference of Bar Examiners will begin rolling out a NextGen test in select states in 2026, with a focus on more foundational lawyering skills such as client counseling and advising, dispute resolution, and client relationship and management.

Law schools for several decades have been incorporating more real-world skills into their curriculum, said Deborah Jones Merritt, professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, who has studied the bar exam鈥檚 deficiencies in producing good lawyers. Merritt鈥檚 research has determined that the exam is far more challenging to pass for people of color, those with caretaking responsibilities, or those who come from low-income households.

Beginnings of change

Many states began rethinking the necessity of the bar exam in 2020 during the pandemic, when gathering hundreds of people together in a big room for an exam was a potential superspreader event for COVID-19.

In place of the test, several states and the District of Columbia issued what鈥檚 known as diploma privilege, the ability to practice without passing the bar. Utah, for example, required their graduates to fulfill a pro bono requirement first. It was an eye-opening experiment, said Bramble, in part because 鈥渘othing crazy happened.鈥�

Then in 2021, the American Bar Association for the first time released statistics breaking down bar exam passage rates by race. White test takers were far likelier to pass the exams in 2020 than those of other races or ethnicities, according to the group. Although there are other barriers to a legal career, including law school entrance exams and the time, expense and quality of the schooling, the numbers made it clear that the bar exam itself had flaws that kept many candidates of color from becoming lawyers.

One of the biggest flaws of the bar is that it鈥檚 an expensive and time-consuming exam, said Brian Gallini, the former dean of the Willamette University College of Law in Oregon and one of the architects of the licensure push in the state. Law school graduates often pay for a law review class, which often can cost more than $1,000, to study for the test in the months following their graduation, as well as put off earning a living in their degree field until they鈥檙e licensed and can begin working as lawyers.

Those who work a job while they study are more likely to fail, but many students cannot afford not to work 鈥� they carry an average of $160,000 in student loan debt when they exit school.

Gallini, now the dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, fielded a lot of angry emails when he first introduced the idea to the Willamette law school鈥檚 alumni in 2022. Many objections were reflexive: Critics of the proposal said they had suffered through the bar exam, so aspiring lawyers who followed them should face a similar rite of passage.

So far, only a handful of 2024 graduates from the state鈥檚 three law schools have chosen the new pathway; McQueeny-Rose said many of her peers haven鈥檛 been able to find supervising attorneys who are familiar enough with the program to oversee their work.

That鈥檚 also expected to change quickly. The state鈥檚 law schools are beginning to establish prestigious post-graduate fellowships aimed at placing SPPE participants in communities of need, including immigration law, public defense and rural law practices. Judicial clerkships also are eligible to fulfill many of the program鈥檚 requirements.

McQueeny-Rose will be joining the team at Levi Merrithew Horst, a Portland, Oregon, firm, where she鈥檒l work on police misconduct cases, class-action suits on behalf of incarcerated people and other civil rights work. Instead of studying for the bar, she鈥檚 taking the summer off to devote time to her artwork and to move to Portland for her new job. She anticipates she鈥檒l fulfill the requirements of the SPPE program in early 2025.

鈥淔or me, it was a pretty easy decision,鈥� McQueeny-Rose said. 鈥淚 knew I wanted to stay in Oregon. I鈥檓 committed to practice here, I love it here. I have a lot of ideas how to make Oregon better, and I want to stay and do my part.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

Over the past several weeks, they鈥檝e been putting 鈥檚 through its paces on any number of professional-grade exams in law, medicine, and business, among others. The moves seem a natural development just weeks after the groundbreaking, free (for now) chatbot appeared. Now that nearly anyone can play with it, they鈥檙e testing how it performs in the real world 鈥� and figuring out what that might mean for both teaching skills like writing and critical thinking in K-12, and training young white-collar professionals at the college level. 

Most recently, at the University of Minnesota Law School tested it on 95 multiple choice and 12 essay questions from four courses. It passed, though not exactly at the top of its class. The chatbot scraped by with a 鈥渓ow but passing grade鈥� in all four courses, a C+ student.

But don鈥檛 get complacent, warned Daniel Schwarcz, a UM professor and one of the study鈥檚 authors. The AI earned that C+ 鈥渞elative to incredibly motivated, incredibly talented students 鈥� and it was holding its own.鈥�

Think of it this way, Schwarcz said: Plenty of C+ students at the university go on to graduate and pass the bar exam.

ChatGPT debuted less than three months ago, and its respectable performance on several of these tests is forcing educators to quickly rethink how they evaluate students 鈥� assigning generic written essays, for instance, now seems like an invitation for fraud. 

But it鈥檚 also, at a more basic level, forcing educators to reconsider how to help students see the value of learning to think through the material for themselves. 

Before he encountered ChatGPT, Schwarcz typically gave open-book exams. What the new technology is making him think more deeply about is whether he was often testing memorization, not thinking. 鈥淚f that’s the case, I’ve written a bad exam,鈥� he said.

And like Schwarcz, many educators now warn: With improving technology, today鈥檚 middling chatbot is tomorrow鈥檚 valedictorian.

鈥淚f this kind of tool is producing a C+ answer in early 2023,鈥� said Andrew M. Perlman, dean of Suffolk Law School in Boston, 鈥渨hat’s it going to be able to do in 2026?鈥�

Fake studies and 鈥榟uman error鈥�

Lawyers aren鈥檛 the only professionals in the chatbot鈥檚 crosshairs: In January, Christian Terwiesch, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Wharton School, let it loose on the final exam of Operations Management, a 鈥渢ypical MBA core course鈥� at the nation鈥檚 pre-eminent business school. 

While the AI made several 鈥渟urprising鈥� math mistakes, Terwiesch wrote in the, it impressed him with its ability to analyze case studies, among other tasks. 鈥淣ot only are the answers correct, but the explanations are excellent,鈥� he wrote.

Its final grade: B to B-.

A Wharton colleague, Ethan Mollick, in December that he got the chatbot to write a syllabus for a new course, as well as part of a lecture. And it generated a final assignment with a grading rubric. But its tendency to occasionally deliver erroneous answers from its wide-ranging web searches, Mollick said, makes it more like an 鈥渙mniscient, eager-to-please intern who sometimes lies to you.鈥�

Indeed, AI tools often create problems of their own. In January, Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women鈥檚 Hospital in Boston, asked ChatGPT to a 35-year-old woman with chest pains. The patient, he specified, takes birth control pills but has no past medical history.

After a few rounds of back-and-forth, the bot, which Faust cheekily referred to as 鈥淒r. OpenAI,鈥� said she was probably suffering from a pulmonary embolism. When Faust suggested it could also be costochondritis, a painful inflammation of the cartilage that connects rib to breastbone, ChatGPT countered that its diagnosis was supported by research, specifically a 2007 study in the .

Then it offered a citation for a paper that does not exist. 

The AI platform has great potential for use in medicine, but has huge pitfalls, says Jeremy Faust, MD

While the journal is real 鈥� and a few of the researchers cited have published in it 鈥� the bot created the citation out of thin air, Faust wrote. 鈥淚鈥檓 a little miffed that rather than admit its mistake, Dr. OpenAI stood its ground, and up and confabulated a research paper.鈥�

Confronted with its lie, the AI 鈥渟aid that I must be mistaken,鈥� Faust wrote. 鈥淚 began to feel like I was and that the computer was HAL-9000, blaming our disagreement on 鈥榟uman error.鈥欌��

Faust closed his computer.

鈥楶roof of original work鈥�

Such bugs haven鈥檛 stopped educators from test-driving these tools for students and, in a few cases, for professionals.

Last December, just days after Open AI released ChatGPT, Perlman, the Suffolk dean, presented it with a series of legal prompts. 鈥淚 was interested in just pushing it to its limits,鈥� he said.

Perlman transcribed its mostly respectable replies and co-authored a with the chatbot.

Peter Gault, founder of the AI literacy nonprofit Quill.org, which offers a free AI tool designed to help , said that even if teachers think things are moving fast this winter, the reality is that they are moving even faster than they seem. Case in point: An online 鈥減rompt engineering鈥� channel on the social platform Discord, devoted to helping students improve their ChatGPT requests for better, more accurate results, now has about , he said. 鈥淭here are tens of thousands of students just swapping tips for how to cheat in it,鈥� he said.

Gault鈥檚 nonprofit, along with , has already debuted that helps educators sniff out the more formulaic writing that AI typically generates. 

While other educators have suggested that future ChatGPT versions could feature a kind of digital watermarking that identifies cut-and-pasted AI text, Gault said that would be easy to circumvent with software that basically launders the text and removes the watermark. He suggested that educators begin thinking now about how they can use tools like Google Docs鈥� version history to reveal what he calls 鈥減roof of original work.鈥�

The idea is that educators can see all the writing and revising that go into student essays as they take shape. The typical student, he said, spends nine to 15 hours on a major essay. Google Docs and other tools like it can show that progression. Alternatively, if a student copies and pastes an essay or section from a tool like ChatGPT, he said, the software reveals that the student spent just moments on it.

鈥淲e have these tools that can do the thinking for us,鈥� Gault said. 鈥淏ut as the tools get more sophisticated, we just really risk that students are no longer really investing in building intellectual skills. It’s a difficult problem to solve. But I do think it’s worth solving.鈥�

鈥楻esistance is futile鈥�

Minnesota鈥檚 Schwarcz flatly said law schools must train students on tools like ChatGPT and its successors. These tools 鈥渁re not going away 鈥� they’re just going to get better,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd so in my mind, ultimately as educators, the fundamental thing is to figure out how to train students to use these tools both ethically and effectively.鈥�

Perlman also foresees law schools using tools like ChatGPT and whatever comes next to train lawyers, helping them generate first drafts of legal documents, among other products, as they learn their trade.

In the end, AI could streamline lawyering, allowing attorneys to spend more time practicing 鈥渁t the top of their license,鈥� Perlman said, engaging in more sophisticated legal work for clients. This, he said, is the part of the job lawyers find most enjoyable 鈥� and clients find most valuable.

It could also make such services more affordable and thus more available, Perlman said. So even as educators focus on the technology鈥檚 threat, 鈥淚 think we are quickly going to have to pivot and think about how we teach students to use these tools to enable them to deliver their services better, faster and cheaper in the future.鈥漃erlman joked that the best way to think about the future of AI in the legal profession is to remember that old 鈥淪tar Trek鈥� maxim: 鈥� ‘.’ This technology is coming, and I think we ignore it at our peril 鈥� and we try to resist at our peril.鈥�

As a teenager, Phil Miller dreamt of becoming a CIA field officer 鈥� a spy, he says. But incarceration derailed that dream. It seemed to derail any future ones he鈥檇 have, too.

鈥淚 was arrested at 19. I was given a 20-year sentence,鈥� says Miller. 鈥淚 definitely thought my life was over. During those years, you hear you lost all your rights because of your conviction, and there鈥檚 a whole world of opportunities that are just closed off to you.鈥�

The CIA off the table, Miller became a jailhouse lawyer 鈥� an incarcerated person who informally helps others challenge their convictions while in prison. It suited him: He had success winning appeals and sentence reductions from inside. Still, he assumed his own sentence had imploded his future, especially the idea of one day taking his law practice beyond the prison walls.

Miller wasn鈥檛 wrong to assume this: The catalogues around 40,000 official restrictions limiting or excluding people with convictions from accessing employment, education and more in the United States. For aspiring lawyers with convictions, the pinnacle of their restriction manifests as the 鈥渃haracter and fitness鈥� portion of the Bar Exam, a labyrinthine mandatory background check that often excludes people with criminal records. That is to say, the bar to pass the Bar as someone with a record often feels almost impossibly high.

And yet, Miller might have been wrong about his own future. This year, he鈥檚 finishing his first year of law school at the City University of New York, deciding between a specialty in criminal or entertainment law. But, he says, he wouldn鈥檛 be where he is without support: at CUNY Law that came from the Formerly Incarcerated Law Students Advocacy Association (FILSAA). Today, a future that once seemed impossible is close within Miller鈥檚 grasp.

FILSAA is part of a growing movement of organizations working to change the overwhelming scrutiny that discourages 鈥� and often disqualifies 鈥� people with records from pursuing a law degree.

While other organizations work to tackle the barriers to the Bar on a political level, FILSAA works on a deceptively simple level, offering free LSAT training, mentorship and a needed supportive space at school for people with records.

Accustomed to hiding his past, Miller felt not just welcomed by FILSAA, but understood.

鈥淚t was like, 鈥極h wow, I can truly be myself among this group of people,鈥欌�� he says.

Research backs up FILSAA鈥檚 model. , a 2019 study from Stanford Law School, found 鈥渃oncerns about satisfying moral character requirements,鈥� as well as a lack of resources for those with records to navigate the character and fitness assessment, and unequal employment opportunities that 鈥渄eter interested individuals from applying to law school.鈥� Because people of color are more likely to interact with the legal system, they also bear the disproportionate weight of the problem.

Elsewhere across the country, others doing similar work are also finding success, on both individual and political levels.

For Roland Acevedo, a solo attorney based in New York City, that means personally prepping people with convictions for the character and fitness process. Acevedo uses his experience having served time to guide others. He estimates he鈥檚 worked with around 50 prospective lawyers, 鈥渢he vast majority鈥� of whom passed the Bar.

While he understands people鈥檚 hesitation and agrees the character and fitness assessment is overly restrictive, he says passing is achievable by relying on a few key principles: candor, consistency and a 鈥渘on-adversarial鈥� approach that emphasizes growth.

Dr. James Binnall also mentors prospective lawyers with convictions and claims a nearly perfect success rate, too. Binnall is the co-executive director of the , an industry group dedicated to getting more formerly incarcerated people into the legal profession. For him, progress has come through fostering community within the organization and moving the needle statewide.

Internally, CSIBA鈥檚 organization runs a listserv numbering around 200 participants. Those participants get advice and support from each other and CSIBA鈥檚 40 organizational members. Externally, their statewide educational campaigns paired with the Unlock the Bar study have reached the California State Bar, resulting in changes including less adversarial character and fitness conferences for people with convictions, and more consideration of rehabilitation and treatment progress.

鈥淭he [California] Bar is now far more receptive to people with records as a general proposition being admitted,鈥� Binnall summarized.

Seeing both success and need, more organizations are springing up. At Columbia University, the , designed to help formerly incarcerated people become paralegals, is in its pilot phase. The National Justice Impacted Bar Association (NJIBA) recently launched a division for current and prospective law students, already counting around 300 members.

Acevedo says that, with preparation, direct experience can actually help prospective law students stand out in the application process and be an immeasurable benefit should they become lawyers.

鈥淵ou have one thing other lawyers don鈥檛 have,鈥� says Acevedo. 鈥淵ou have instant credibility with a lot of your clients. They understand you鈥檝e taken the journey, and they appreciate the fact that you鈥檝e basically overcome. You can鈥檛 un-ring the bell, so you might as well use it to your advantage.鈥�

Because there is no public disclosure of convictions for prospective lawyers, it鈥檚 impossible to say with certainty whether industry representation has grown overall. And funding remains a huge obstacle. While support and community go a long way, many formerly incarcerated people remain restricted by the financial burden of law school.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy to say if you believe in yourself and work hard enough, anything is possible,鈥� says FILSAA co-chair Colby Williams. 鈥淏ut, that鈥檚 just not the reality for some people.鈥�

FILSAA鈥檚 impact has been small in numbers but deep in value. A mentorship program they organize has four formerly incarcerated participants. Their free LSAT training attracted seven. Thanks to what Williams calls 鈥渕ythbusting鈥� , they鈥檝e heard this year from 12 currently or formerly incarcerated people expressing interest, two formerly incarcerated students applied to CUNY Law and one has been accepted so far.

Still, FILSAA sees their model as simple and replicable. Virtually any law school could launch a similar concept. But Williams says it鈥檚 important to remember the purpose of the work and expertise at hand.

鈥淚 think early in the organization it was sort of a catch-all for people鈥� who want to support disenfranchised people,鈥� says Williams. 鈥淎ll that鈥檚 great, but it seems like when a formerly incarcerated person has an idea and the other members rally around them, we鈥檝e made the largest strides.鈥�

Phil Miller was one of them. He credits FILSAA with helping him to help others coming from similar situations.

鈥淎 lot of guys come out, they struggle, they stay in the same situation that led to their incarceration, and don鈥檛 really aspire to do much more. One of the reasons is because they don鈥檛 have the hope or the example that it can be done. That鈥檚 definitely the biggest value. Once you realize it鈥檚 a possibility, it really inspires and motivates you to achieve it.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 sure you hear this all the time,鈥� said one email FILSAA received, 鈥渂ut it means everything to learn that there is a team of people at the school who understand the challenges we face as formerly incarcerated people on this journey. Learning about FILSAA has been a game changer.鈥�

Williams says that their understanding of opportunity鈥檚 value keeps FILSAA working.

鈥淗ope is a necessity. It鈥檚 like food and air but for whatever it is we call our spirits,鈥� he says. 鈥淔inding out there鈥檚 something big that you鈥檙e able to do, you鈥檙e allowed to do, and that other people value you for, that can help you take yourself seriously.鈥�

This article originally appeared at and is published in partnership with