Will New Jersey Remove Mental Health Questions From Its Bar Exam Application?

This is an important change that would eliminate a barrier to mental health treatment.
The post Will New Jersey Remove Mental Health Questions From Its Bar Exam Application? appeared first on Above the Law.

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

We are a profession in crisis. The pace of our practice is not sustainable. We need to remove barriers in place for people to get help, and 12b, we believe, is a barrier to the bar. We’re advocating strongly that the court remove that question so that it’s not a detriment to people getting help.

— New Jersey State Bar Association President Jeralyn Lawrence, in comments given to the New Jersey Law Journal, on the efforts being made by the NJSBA and the deans of Seton Hall Law and Rutgers Law to get the judiciary to eliminate mental health questions from the New Jersey bar exam’s character and fitness application. Bar applicants are currently asked to disclose any mental health issues and their treatment. New York removed all mental health questions from its bar exam application in 2020. Click here to read the letter sent by Lawrence and both law schools’ deans to Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.