After completing her undergrad and moving to Oregon, Bayley Rea decided to enroll in law school and take the traditional route to becoming a lawyer. That traditional route, it turned out, was not for her.
Rea’s father was diagnosed with cancer at the same time she was pregnant with her first child and making things worse she found out two weeks after his death that she didn’t pass the bar. That’s also when Rea learned about a new program in Oregon that would provide an alternative path to her bar license that didn’t require the bar exam.
“I’d been working at the local district attorney’s office at that time, and I knew I was not going to be in a headspace to go take the bar again,” Rea explained in the featured story for the latest issue of Washington State Bar News. “It’s a huge financial strain, and now I have a baby to provide for, it just didn’t work for my family [to retake the bar]. It’s months that you have to take off from your life.”
Indeed, as the article’s author, Brenna Pink Pampena, a plaintiff bad-faith and personal injury attorney, at Ruiz & Smart, explains:
“For some aspiring attorneys, especially those with the responsibilities of raising a family or those facing major life disruptions, dedicated full-time bar exam study simply isn’t possible. Many of these people are fully capable of practicing law, but lack the time, bandwidth, or resources to follow the traditional path.”
In the new issue of Bar News, you can learn more about Rea’s story and the WSBA’s newly proposed “portfolio evaluation,” a pathway that would allow prospective lawyers to earn their licenses by completing specific work product and practice hours, rather than by passing the bar exam.
Also in this issue, you can learn about the Washington Supreme Court’s Washington Bar Licensure Task Force’s recommendations to implement the recommendations of its 2024 report, which would create experiential-based methods of licensing that do not require applicants to sit for the bar exam.
Timberland Legal Aid Executive Director Lori Sarancik explains how the organization provides “high-quality, accurate information to enable clients to make informed decisions and self-advocate whenever possible.”
Judge Andrea Jarmon highlights the King County District Court’s Community Engagement Program, which aims to promote civil engagement, build trust, demystify the “black robe,” and meet the community where they are to hear from them, learn from them, and share how their court, the people’s court, is serving them.
Ethics expert Mark Fucile goes over the three facets of supervising and being supervised under RPC 5.1 and 5.2 and discusses the challenges of managing lawyers in an era of hybrid offices and remote work.
And check out all our regular columns and features.
