Professor Deborah Jones Merritt has been appointed to a newly established working group of the Conference of Chief Justices’ Committee on Legal Education and Admissions Reform (CLEAR). Merritt will join the Bar Admissions Working Group, which will prepare a draft report and recommendations by the end of this calendar year. CLEAR will present its full report on the state of legal education in 2025. 

Merritt’s research and dedication to legal education make her well-suited for this working group. Over the last few years, she has helped create an alternative licensing path that would allow law graduates to qualify for bar admission by compiling a portfolio of their work, including assessments of client encounters and negotiations. This allows graduates to begin their careers right away, rather than wait for their bar exam results. In November 2023, the Oregon Supreme Court approved the alternative pathway for graduates in the state and will begin implementing it in May 2024. The Board of Trustees of the California State Bar also recently recommended that its state Supreme Court approve a pilot program modeled on the Oregon system.   

Merritt is a Distinguished University Professor and the John Deaver Drinko-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law Emerita. From 2017 to 2019, she served on the American Bar Association’s Commission on the Future of Legal Education. She was recently awarded the inaugural Judith Welch Wegner Award from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession. Read more Merritt’s full bio here.