New Bar Exam Questions Approved
Article Date: Friday, January 06, 2006
Written By: Russell Rawlings
The N.C. Board of Law Examiners recently announced the approval of new questions for the mental health and fitness portion of the bar exam application, drawing applause and appreciation from the Lawyer Effectiveness and Quality of Life Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association.
The Lawyer Effectiveness & Quality of Life Committee heard complaints over the last several years that some questions on the N.C. Bar Examination Application were overbroad, vague or not narrowly tailored to achieve the Board’s purpose of screening unfit applicants.
For example, the application formerly asked whether the applicant had “within the last seven years been impaired as a result of your use of alcohol or drugs … .”
In some applicants’ views, this question sought disclosure of every instance an applicant had consumed any alcohol. Others believed they must disclose every instance whereby they had consumed more than one drink.
The old application also asked whether an applicant had “ever been impaired as a result of any other medical, surgical or psychiatric condition … ,” leading many applicants to wonder whether they should disclose every time they had been prescribed narcotics, painkillers or been under anesthesia after a surgical procedure.
The Bar Committee also heard complaints from faculty and administration at some state law schools that students were hearing that the Board of Law Examiners was not interested in learning about discrete instances of situational counseling, but the application itself made clear that these instances should be disclosed.
Law school officials also provided anecdotal information of instances where the application chilled a student applicant from seeking treatment for depression or grief counseling during law school for fear this information and the accompanying records would be disclosed to the Board.
In early 2005, a subcommittee of the Lawyer Effectiveness and Quality of Life Committee charged with examining the mental health and fitness questions on the bar exam application met with members of the Board of Law Examiners and the two groups shared common concerns about the mental health and fitness portion of the application.
The Board of Law Examiners and the bar association subcommittee were in agreement that the application should be redrafted to better address the purposes of the Board of Law Examiners. The Board of Law Examiners then worked on a draft of new questions, which it graciously circulated it to the subcommittee for comment, and worked closely with a mental health expert to fine tune the questions.
“The subcommittee felt its comments and suggestions were well-received and that every suggestion was given serious attention by the Board of Law Examiners,” said Greensboro attorney Phyllis Lile-King on behalf of the NCBA subcommittee. “The result is an application that now specifically encourages applicants to seek treatment for mental health issues, and specifically denies seeking information about situational counseling, including grief counseling, stress counseling, domestic counseling or counseling for eating and sleeping disorders.”
Rather than asking whether an applicant has been impaired by alcohol, she said, the new application asks about an applicant’s substance abuse in the last five years that has affected or could affect the applicant’s ability to practice law. Questions about previous psychiatric illness are similarly limited by time.
“The Lawyer Effectiveness and Quality of Life Committee,” Lile-King added, “is extremely pleased with the new application and hopes it will result in clearer direction for applicants, not to mention giving applicants security knowing that certain private medical, psychological and psychiatric records no longer are at risk of disclosure to the Board of Law Examiners.
“The committee is also hopeful the new questions are more narrowly tailored in what they seek that they no longer have the effect of discouraging any applicant from seeking mental health treatment.”
"We hit a home run on this issue this year," said LEQL Committee Chair Caryn McNeill. "Phyllis Lile-King is to be commended, first for pulling together a dynamic subcommittee that included representatives of all the groups interested in this issue and then for coordinating their discussion with the Board of Law Examiners. The changes ultimately approved by the Board constitute an enormous service to our profession."