Dive Brief:
- Utah could permit law school graduates to become lawyers without passing the bar exam. In a plan released Nov. 4, the Utah Supreme Court outlined a potential “alternate path” for graduates of American Bar Association-accredited law schools who have not previously taken the bar exam.
- Under the “alternate path,” graduates can opt to complete 240 hours of practice under the supervision of a qualified attorney, several law courses and other requirements.
- The court opened up the proposal for public comment and will accept comments until Dec. 19.
Dive Insight:
The move follows other states that have offered graduates alternate paths. Washington, Wisconsin and Oregon, among other states, permit graduates to meet a variety of requirements, such as meeting a certain number of apprenticeship hours, completing coursework and developing a law portfolio, in lieu of passing the bar exam.
The trend is in keeping with a larger workforce-wide push toward skills-based hiring. Faced with the “largest labor shortage the country has ever seen,” according to one study, companies are expanding their hiring efforts, dropping degree requirements, offering apprenticeships and providing training and skills development.
In January 2024, 52% of the U.S. job postings on Indeed didn’t include educational requirements, an increase from the 48% recorded five years before, per a February report from Indeed’s Hiring Lab. And only 17.8% of postings required a four-year degree or higher, the report found.
Employers, too, are lowering and even dropping years of experience requirements from their job postings, instead focusing on skills. In fact, less than a third of U.S. job postings now mention requirements for years of experience, a drop from 40% the year before, according to a May report from Indeed’s Hiring Lab.
Yet, despite the loosening of requirements, about 45% of companies that announced policy changes related to degree requirements have made a change in name only, without reporting a meaningful change in hiring practices, according to a February report from The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School.