Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Adopts the Uniform Bar Exam, and why that'...

Back when I posted this item:

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Adopts the Uniform Bar Exam, and why that'...:     Wyoming Supreme Court in  Cheyenne. Students of legal minutia know that the phrase "to pass the bar", or "to be ca...

I noted a widely held concern that the adoption of the UBE would be detrimental to the practice of law in Wyoming in a number of ways.  So far, at least one of the concerns, the increased exportation of the legal practice in this state to big out of state cities, accompanied by a decrease in practitioners who actually know Wyoming's law, has been coming true.  Now, I work with a lot of really good out of state counsel, and this isn't a universal slam.  Certainly quite a few of those lawyers are really good lawyers, but there a lot of lawyers residing in Wyoming who are equally good.  The concern, however, was well placed and long term, this is not a good trend for Wyoming at all, as all the fine really good local counsel risk being forgotten simply because they aren't in a large city, in spite of their trial records.

Now I've read that New York is adopting the UBE with the expressed purpose of allowing transferability of its licenses.

This may seem irrelevant to Wyoming, but far from it.  I don't know how many New York lawyers there may be, but it wouldn't surprise me if the number exceeds the number of residents that reside in any one of Wyoming's larger cities.

On a plus side, however, this will impact the same out of state bars that are presently poaching in Wyoming. So, now we can expect to see Colorado and Montana firms that have been practicing across state lines complain about the same thing we're experiencing, and they certainly will experience it.  And it won't be good for the practices in their states.

I'm not going to cry about that, but we can shed a tear for one group, the legal consumer.  An irony of the practice is that practitioners in small states are often highly experienced in the courtroom, with far more trial practice than some trial lawyers in big states.  Quite often, a local litigant is better off with a lawyer from their home state, which is becoming less common, and stands to become even less and less the case as we move on.

Nothing every prevented a Colorado lawyer from taking the Wyoming exam, or a New York lawyer taking the Colorado exam.  If they took it, and passed, we knew they were qualified.  With the UBE, we don't know that.