NCBE Job Analysis: A Study of the Newly Licensed Lawyer

The National Conference of Bar Examiners is conducting a content validity study in conjunction with its testing program. As part of the process, NCBE commissioned Applied Measurement Professionals, Inc. (AMP), to perform a job analysis designed to determine what new lawyers do, and what knowledge, skills, and abilities newly licensed lawyers believe that they need to carry out their work.

The recently completed job analysis is reported in the AMP document entitled A Study of the Newly Licensed Lawyer. NCBE has prepared a simplified and reordered version of the AMP report entitled Summary of the Job Analysis Survey Results. The job analysis, which targeted lawyers in practice for no more than three years, provides evidence of the validity of the four NCBE tests that are currently administered as part of the process of licensing lawyers. It also opens the way for discussion of what other evaluation of knowledge, skills, and abilities the bar examination might incorporate as part of the licensing process. Ultimately, as part of its ongoing content validity study, NCBE will consider whether modifications should be made to its current tests, and whether additional assessments are feasible and might be developed to produce the bar examinations of tomorrow. The report will be important to NCBE in that regard.

The report also offers information that may be useful to legal educators as they address issues concerning the law school curriculum. To the extent that law schools are committed to preparing their graduates to enter the profession, varied as the practice of law has become, the report may provide food for thought about how the curriculum can be shaped to meet needs that are suggested by the results as reported, or may serve to affirm that law schools are already meeting those needs.