CLEAR Leadership
Chair: Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald, New Hampshire
Vice Chair: Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, New Mexico
NCSC Staff Contacts
Mike Buenger
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Danielle Hirsch
Managing Director
Rob Wall
Senior Court Management Consultant
CCJ and COSCA thank AccessLex Institute and Thomson Reuters Institute for their support of this important initiative.
Download an informational sheet about CLEAR.
CLEAR wants to hear from you.
We ask for your feedback and comment as the CLEAR Committee undertakes its work to examine issues related to practice readiness, bar admissions and promoting paths to public interest. Please use this form to submit or upload comment.
The recommendations that result from this process will undoubtedly be better for having your participation, feedback, and perspective.
Purpose and Scope
State supreme courts serve as the legal profession’s primary regulator having responsibility for overseeing admission to and the practice of law directly within their respective jurisdictions. As such and given the charge from Resolution 1, state supreme courts have a strong interest to assess the current state of legal education; define standards for minimum competence to practice law and the skills necessary to be practice-ready upon graduation from law school; determine what reforms should be made to legal education and bar admissions; and identify steps that ensure legal education and bar admissions continue to protect the public through the ethical practice of law and also to prepare and incentivize public interest lawyering.
The CLEAR Committee will engage with critical stakeholders from legal education, bar admissions, courts, and the practicing bar (with special emphasis on public interest lawyers) through the course of this work, especially as it relates to staffing working groups. The CLEAR Committee will also engage with the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education, law school deans, and many national legal organizations dedicated to public interest lawyering.
Over the course of this work, the CLEAR Committee will develop recommendations for national, state, and local consideration. A final report of findings and recommendations will be shared with the full Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators.
The CLEAR Committee will review the current state of legal education from admissions to law school to admission to the bar. The Committee will work collaboratively, in consultation with critical stakeholders from legal education, bar admissions, courts, and the practicing bar from across the country. The Committee will also look to other professions for inspiration and example.
Working Groups
1. Practice Readiness
- Define the core components of practice-readiness at law school graduation,
- Examine the existing trends in legal education and the law school experience related to practice-readiness, and
- Make recommendations for innovations that promote practice readiness at graduation.
2. Bar Admissions
- Define standards for minimum competence to practice law,
- Evaluate the bar admissions process as it relates to assessing doctrinal, ethical, and practice-ready competence, and
- Make recommendations for state supreme courts (and their designees) on current and promising testing and alternative bar admissions processes.
3. Promoting Public Interest
- Examine the burdens on public interest and government organizations in hiring and retaining attorneys and the challenges law school graduates face entering and staying in roles that meet the legal needs of underserved people,
- Examine the existing trends in legal education and the law school experience (including cost of legal education) that promote or limit opportunities to enter public interest roles, and
- Make recommendations for innovations that promote opportunities for law school graduates to pursue careers in public service or to represent those currently underserved by the profession.
Chair: Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald, New Hampshire
Vice Chair: Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, New Mexico
Elisa Butler, State Court Administrator (Wyoming)
David K. Byers, State Court Administrator (Arizona)
Chief Justice Matthew B. Durrant (Utah)
Chief Justice Meagan A. Flynn (Oregon)
Robert W. Horner, State Court Administrator (Ohio)
Chief Justice Steven R. Jensen (South Dakota)
Chief Justice Tom Parker (Alabama)
Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush (Indiana)
Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill (Maine)
Keith Blackwell - Senior Counsel, Alston & Bird
David Byers - Director, Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts
Joel Chanvisanuruk - Director, Programs for Academic and Bar Success, AccessLex
Danielle Conway - Dean, Penn State Dickinson Law
Matthew Durrant - Chief Justice, Utah Supreme Court
Brian Gallini - Dean, Willamette University
Cassandra Hill - Dean, Northern Illinois College of Law
Joan Howarth - Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Dean Emerita, Michigan State University College of Law
Rob Hunter - Senior Research Analyst, AccessLex
Deborah Jones Merritt - Professor of Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Danette McKinley - Director of Diversity, Fairness, and Inclusion Research, National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE)
Anthony Niedwiecki - Professor, Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Thomas Parker - Chief Justice, Alabama Supreme Court
Rodina Cave Parnall - Director of the Pre-Law Summer Institute, American Indian Law Center
Victor Quintanilla - Professor of Law and Val Nolan Faculty Fellow, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University
Jeff Shipley - Director, Maryland State Board of Law Examiners
Mary Triggiano - Director of the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, Adjunct Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School
Leah Wilson - Executive Director, State Bar of California
Deborah Archer - President, ACLU National, Associate Dean for Experiential Education and Clinical Programs at NYU
Elena Baca - Partner, Employment Law Department, Paul Hastings
Courtney Brooks - Director, Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program, University of New Hampshire
Geoff Burkhart - Executive Director, Texas Fair Defense Project Board
Joel Chanvisanuruk - Director, Programs for Academic and Bar Success, AccessLex
Phillip Closius - Dean, Wilmington University School of Law
Zachariah DeMeola - Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Law School Admissions Council (LSAC)
Randall “Randy” Ebner - Distinguished Research Fellow, Tulane University
Neil Fulton - Dean, University of South Dakota
Mina Jones Jefferson - Graydon Law Firm
Bridget McCormack - Chair, ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar
Martin Pritikin - Dean, Concord Law School, Purdue University Global
Loretta H. Rush - Chief Justice, Indiana Supreme Court
Nick Smithberg - Executive Director, Iowa Legal Aid
Bennet Bauer - Chief Public Defender, New Mexico Law Office of the Public Defender
Dennericka Brooks - Director, Legal Aid Chicago Housing Practice Group
Elisa Butler - State Court Administrator, Wyoming Administrative Office of Courts
James E. Doyle - Retired District Court Judge, Dawson County, Nebraska
Ronald Flagg - President, Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
Steve Grumm - Director of Community Engagement, Legal Aid of Western Michigan
Bonnie Hoffman - Senior Director of Public Defense Reform & Training, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
Fletcher Hiigel - Librarian, AccessLex
Joann Lee - Special Counsel on Language Justice, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Alexander Mackler - Chief Deputy Attorney General, Delaware Department of Justice
Andrew Perlman - Dean, Suffolk University
Raymond Pierce - CEO of Southern Education Foundation
Thomas Ross - Board Member, National Center for State Courts (NCSC)
Valerie Stanfill - Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Maine
Verna Williams - CEO, Equal Justice Works (EJW)
CLEAR Leadership
Chair: Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald, New Hampshire
Vice Chair: Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, New Mexico
NCSC Staff Contacts
Mike Buenger
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Danielle Hirsch
Managing Director
Rob Wall
Senior Court Management Consultant
CCJ and COSCA thank AccessLex Institute and Thomson Reuters Institute for their support of this important initiative.
Download an informational sheet about CLEAR.
CLEAR wants to hear from you.
We ask for your feedback and comment as the CLEAR Committee undertakes its work to examine issues related to practice readiness, bar admissions and promoting paths to public interest. Please use this form to submit or upload comment.
The recommendations that result from this process will undoubtedly be better for having your participation, feedback, and perspective.