Bloomberg Law
Jan. 4, 2021, 11:50 AM UTC

Over 1,000 New Lawyers Get Licenses Without Taking Bar Exam

Sam Skolnik
Sam Skolnik
Reporter

Davis Wright Tremaine, a century-old law firm among the 100 largest in the country, is welcoming a new class of incoming lawyers that includes five attorneys who have no plans to take a bar exam.

Those new associates earned their licenses through “diploma privilege,” an alternative to the biannual tests offered in a handful of states as a one-time-only response to the coronavirus pandemic. Each already had job offers from the firm when they skipped the tests and went through the standard vetting process for candidates, Bahareh Samanian, the firm’s director of lawyer recruiting, told Bloomberg Law.

Their lack of a ...

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