Court Adopts Permanent Amendments to District Bar Admission Rules
May 20, 2021
A District of Columbia Court of Appeals order issued on May 13 made permanent a number of emergency amendments to Rule 46 (Admission to the Bar) that were implemented on November 19, 2020. Mainly concerning the administration of District bar examinations, the amendments provide greater flexibility in exam application and testing. The order also introduced changes that arose out of public commentary.
One major point was the elimination of the provision allowing admission for persons who had attained a score of 133 or better on the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) in another jurisdiction. The order preserves a narrow window of opportunity for admission under the previous system, permitting applications by March 31, 2022, for those admitted in another jurisdiction based on a score of at least 133 obtained on an MBE administered by July 2021. Subsequent applicants for admission based on a qualifying score in another jurisdiction must accrue three years of good standing prior to applying for admission.
Additionally, Rule 46 will now expressly permit the remote instruction of applicants who did not graduate from an ABA-approved law school who seek admission based, in part, on having taken 26 hours of qualifying classes from an ABA-approved law school. As amended, the rule will permit remote instruction as long as it meets the definition of “distance education course” set out in the American Bar Association Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools.
The amendments take effect 60 days from the date of the order, which can be found here.
