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It proposes evidence-based practices, including clearly defining minimum competence, reducing memorization-heavy testing, enabling open-book access, and assessing threshold concepts rather than detailed blackletter rules. It also discusses how exam design affects costs and outcomes for candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds, drawing on multiple studies and focus-group research.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/building-a-twenty-first-century-bar-exam-how-can-we-test-for-minimum-competence/320611/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/building-a-twenty-first-century-bar-exam-how-can-we-test-for-minimum-competence/320611.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Lucas Martin","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-10","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",13,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"Why is defining minimum competence essential for a licensing bar exam?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"A licensing exam needs a clear definition of minimum competence so the test can measure exactly that baseline standard. The text notes that older bar exams often failed to define it adequately, and suggests using expert practice analysis and related research to guide the definition.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How should a bar exam reduce the influence of memorization?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"The text recommends trimming the number of tested rules and providing access to legal resources during the exam, making it at least partially open book. This design supports assessing skills like research and issue identification.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"What are “threshold concepts,” and why should the exam focus on them?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"Threshold concepts are signals and ideas lawyers recognize that help them identify issues and locate the rules needed to solve client problems. The text argues the exam should test familiarity with these concepts rather than requiring recall of extensive detailed rules.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},320611,1790528709,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":34,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},8796095360427,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","Building a Twenty-First Century Bar Exam: How Can We Test for Minimum Competence?  \nDeborah Jones Merritt  \nDistinguished University Professor  \nJohn Deaver Drinko/Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law Emerita  \nThe Ohio State University  \nIntroduction  \nLaw practice is complex. Lawyers must juggle complicated rules of law, evolving facts, competing goals, and diverse personalities in their work. Professional judgment requires integrating all of these separate components. Licensing competent lawyers is equally complex. How can a 12-hour written exam separate minimally competent candidates from those who are incompetent? That is a daunting challenge. This handout offers ten best practices for creating an evidence-based exam to assess minimum competence. Appendix A lists some of the sources supporting these practices.  \n1. Define Minimum Competence. A valid licensing exam requires a clear definition of minimum competence to practice the profession. Older bar exams often failed to define minimum competence adequately, but recent research has begun to fill this gap. California is ahead of most states on this measure: it has an expert practice analysis (the CAPA Study) to guide its work. I recommend supplementing the findings in that study with the recommendations from a study I coauthored, Building a Better Bar. The latter study reports results from 50 focus groups (including eight held in California) that provide additional perspectives to the survey-based research in the CAPA Study.  \nThese studies, like other research on lawyering competence, stress that skills are as important as knowledge in defining the minimum competence to practice law. AS the CAPA Study concluded, any bar exam should attempt to assess:  \n• Drafting and Writing  \n• Research and Investigation  \n• Issue Identification and Fact Gathering  \n• Counseling and Advising  \n• Litigation-Related Skills  \n• Communicating and Building Relationships with Clients  \nAssessing some of these competencies will require new formats and approaches. An evidence-based bar exam may look quite different than the current exam.  \nIn addition to building on the above research, any definition of minimum competence should follow this key principle: currently licensed lawyers should be able to readily demonstrate that level of competence. If licensed lawyers cannot pass the bar exam without extensive study, then the exam is not testing minimum competence.  \n2. Reduce Testing Based on Memorization. The current bar exam requires candidates to recall thousands of legal rules from memory. Yet research dating back to 1973 (Schwartz, The Relative Importance of Skills Used by Attorneys) makes clear that attorneys—especially newly licensed ones—do not rely extensively on memorized rules. Instead, they know a series of “threshold concepts”(described in the next section) that allow them to identify legal issues and find the points of law they need. As lawyers develop experience in a practice area, they do assimilate many legal rules into memory. But this is not how new lawyers practice—and even experienced lawyers frequently check rules, desk books, and other sources for points of law.  \nMany practicing lawyers do not realize how many blackletter rules are tested on the current bar exam. Appendix B shows how these rules have multiplied in a single knowledge area over the last four decades. The law has grown exponentially since 1980, constantly increasing the number of rules that candidates must recall from memory.  \nThe focus on memorization drives both the expense of the current exam and its disproportionate impact on racial/ethnic minorities, first-generation candidates, and other candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds. A recent study by the AccessLex Institute (Analyzing First-Time Bar Exam Passage) confirms that the current bar exam has become a test of resources. Candidates who enjoy higher household incomes and purchase expensive bar-preparation courses are significantly more likely to pass the ","cbCaip8R5IvRVNoG","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaip8R5IvRVNoG","pdf",239620,"English","# Introduction\n## Defining minimum competence\n## Reducing memorization-based testing\n## Testing knowledge through threshold concepts","[{\"question\":\"Why is defining minimum competence essential for a licensing bar exam?\",\"answer\":\"A licensing exam needs a clear definition of minimum competence so the test can measure exactly that baseline standard. The text notes that older bar exams often failed to define it adequately, and suggests using expert practice analysis and related research to guide the definition.\"},{\"question\":\"How should a bar exam reduce the influence of memorization?\",\"answer\":\"The text recommends trimming the number of tested rules and providing access to legal resources during the exam, making it at least partially open book. This design supports assessing skills like research and issue identification.\"},{\"question\":\"What are “threshold concepts,” and why should the exam focus on them?\",\"answer\":\"Threshold concepts are signals and ideas lawyers recognize that help them identify issues and locate the rules needed to solve client problems. The text argues the exam should test familiarity with these concepts rather than requiring recall of extensive detailed rules.\"}]","Building a Twenty-First Century Bar Exam - How Can We Test for Minimum Competence? | PDF",1789950603,18]