The New York State Board of Law Examiners today announced plans to simplify the Character and Fitness investigation process. “The current process, requiring the bar applicant to submit a significant amount of paperwork, is cumbersome and time-consuming, as well as subjective and prone to error and bias,” the BOLE said in a statement. “It also fails to address the competitive pressures that play such an important part in many ethically problematic situations.”
The new Character and Fitness process will feature a series of practical, objective tests to assess the bar applicant’s ability to make ethical decisions in circumstances of limited information. In the elimination round of the test, pairs of bar applicants will stand on a bridge over a trolley track, while a group of retirement-age law professors attempt to repair the track before the arrival of the oncoming trolley. In the judgment and decision-making round, the bar applicant will be stationed near a train switch. On one fork of the tracks will be a group of recent law school graduates (funded on a temporary basis by their law schools), while a fellow bar applicant with a higher law school GPA will be tied to the other track.
“Our analysis of the data shows that, over time, this process will help to resolve the current market imbalance between the number of law grads and available law jobs,” the statement continued. “The outlook for law school admissions is bright, especially for applicants with quick reflexes and good upper body strength.”
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