The Minnesota Board of Law Examiners welcomes comments regarding whether the BLE should propose amendments to the Rules for Admission to the Bar allowing foreign-educated graduates a method to apply for admission in Minnesota. Deadline for comment and requests to present are due to BLE December 31, 2019. Visit bit.ly/2XL8pe8 for more details
The MSBA’s Rules of Professional Conduct Committee will be discussing this issue at their December meeting. In particular, the Board is interested in comments regarding:
- whether lawyers admitted and practicing in another U.S. jurisdiction should be permitted to sit for the bar in Minnesota (as is required by 10 U.S. jurisdictions);
- whether to require licensure in the foreign country in which the lawyer obtained their law degree (as is required by 16 U.S. jurisdictions);
- whether an educational equivalency determination should be made, and if so, how to accomplish that with the Board’s limited resources (as is required by 18 U.S. jurisdictions); and
- what impact, if any, an LL.M. should have on the determination since there is no body that accredits LL.M. degrees (five U.S. jurisdictions consider completion of an LL.M. program sufficient to permit applicants to sit for the examination without meeting additional requirements).