It’s time for the Alaska Bar Association to acknowledge reality

Donald Mitchell

COMMENTARY

Chief Justice Peter Maassen and the other justices of the Alaska Supreme Court recently issued an order in which they lowered the passing grade for the Alaska bar exam from 280 to 270. Instantaneously, an unknown number of individuals who, because they had flunked the exam, had been deemed professionally unqualified to practice law in Alaska, suddenly became qualified.

The change was made at the request of the Public Defender Agency and the Office of Public Advocacy, which have been having difficulty finding attorneys to hire, particularly to assign to offices in Bethel and Nome and elsewhere in the Bush. And after the change was announced, the head of the criminal division at the Alaska Department of Law was jubilant that three individuals she had hired but who had flunked the bar exam now had unflunked and were qualified to be prosecutors.

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