Boston Bar Association Comments on Admitting Foreign Trained Lawyers

BOSTON –  Saying that "in an era of globalization, Massachusetts must do all it can to compete effectively," Boston Bar Association President Tony Doniger has urged
the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners (BBE) to provide clear, written guidance for permitting foreign trained lawyers to sit for the Massachusetts Bar examination.  Doniger expressed his views in a letter to the BBE sent late yesterday.

"Like the bio-tech and high-tech industries, the local legal sector has recognized that it has a competitive strength in the ability of the Boston area to attract the best and the brightest from all over the world," said Doniger. "Unfortunately, unlike some other states, in Massachusetts most foreign-trained attorneys cannot sit for the bar exam without completing substantial additional course work at an ABA-accredited law school.  Perhaps most surprisingly, even foreign-trained attorneys who have obtained an L.L.M. degree from the best law schools in the United States are usually still subject to this substantial additional course work requirement."

Amid concerns that Boston is losing talent to other jurisdictions because the difficulty of sitting for the bar exam is driving most foreign trained legal talent to other jurisdictions, the BBA in 2006 convened The Study Group on Foreign Attorney Admission to study the issue, chaired by James C. Stokes of Bingham McCutchen. The Study Group's recommendations are contained in a memorandum endorsed by the BBA governing Council, and reflect proposed guidance derived from two recent Supreme Judicial Court cases, Wei Jia v. Board of Bar Examiners (1998) and Osakwe v. Board of Bar Examiners (2006).