607 Candidates Pass Summer 2003 Washington State Bar Examination

Seattle Washington, October 13, 2003 — The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announced today that 607 candidates passed the Bar Examination administered July 29-31, 2003, at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue. Of the 887 candidates who took the exam, 68.4 percent passed. Statistical information and a list of those who passed the exam are available online.

Administered in two parts over a three-day period, the Bar Examination includes a substantive law exam and an exam on the Rules of Professional Conduct. Candidates must successfully pass both parts in order to qualify for admission to the WSBA. If a candidate passes one part of the examination and fails the other, that candidate may sit for the next examination without having to retake the portion previously passed.

In 1999, the Washington State Supreme Court approved Admission to Practice Rule (APR) 18, which provides a procedure for the reciprocal admission of lawyers without requiring that those lawyers pass the Washington State Bar Examination. Under APR 18, lawyers from other states, U.S. territories or the District of Columbia are admitted to the WSBA on the same terms and conditions that a Washington lawyer could be admitted in the other state. This rule also enables Washington lawyers to seek admission in those states that provide for some form of reciprocal admission. (For more information, see the WSBA Web site at www.wsba.org/lawyers/licensing/faq-reciprocity.htm.)

About the Washington State Bar Association

The Washington State Bar Association is a private, nonprofit organization authorized by the Washington Supreme Court to license the state’s 27,600 lawyers. The WSBA both regulates lawyers under the authority of the Court and serves its members as a professional association—all without public funding. As a regulatory agency, it administers the bar exam, provides record-keeping and licensing functions, and administers the lawyer discipline program. As a professional association, the WSBA provides continuing legal education for attorneys, in addition to numerous other educational and member-service activities.

The governance of the WSBA is vested in its 14-person Board of Governors. There are three governors from the seventh congressional district; one from each of the other eight districts; and three at-large members, one of whom represents the Young Lawyers Division. The president is David W. Savage of Pullman. The board meets every six weeks at various locations around the state, and its meetings are open to the public. Much of the work of the WSBA is carried out through its 23 standing committees, 24 sections, and a Young Lawyers Division.

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