FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

May 5, 2008      

Contact: Stephanie Perry
Communications Specialist/Website Editor
206-733-5932; stephaniep@wsba.org

359 Candidates Pass Winter 2008 Washington State Bar Exam

(SEATTLE) —The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) announced today that 359 candidates passed the Bar Exam administered in February 2008, at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue. Of the 483 candidates who took the exam, 74.3 percent passed.

Administered in two parts over a three-day period, the Bar Exam includes a substantive law exam and an exam on the Rules of Professional Conduct (ethics). Candidates must successfully pass both parts in order to qualify for admission to the WSBA. If a candidate passes one part of the exam and fails the other, that candidate may sit for the next exam 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 Exam. 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.

Click here to see the pass list.  Click here to see passage percentages.

About the Washington State Bar Association
The WSBA is part of the judicial branch, exercising a governmental function authorized by the Washington State Supreme Court to license the state’s 32,600 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, the WSBA administers the bar admission process, including the bar exam; provides record-keeping and licensing functions; and administers the lawyer-discipline system. 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 2007-2008 president is Stanley A. Bastian, of Wenatchee. The 2007-2008 president-elect is Mark A. Johnson, of Seattle, and the immediate past-president is Ellen Conedera Dial, of Seattle. The Board meets regularly (every six weeks) at various locations around the state, and its meetings are open to the public. Much of the work of the Bar is carried out through its numerous standing committees; 26 sections; and a Young Lawyers Division, with its many committees.