I’m of two minds on this. To the extent that this furthers the dumbing down of our country, and the lowering of its standards, I’m against it. On the other hand, it could offer consumers a lower cost alternative to expensive bar approved lawyers. But buyer beware. All lawyers should be required to divulge to any prospective clients whether they’ve passed the bar or not. It would then be on the prospective client to weigh that, along with other factors, in choosing counsel.
Also, anyone serving in government, whether as a government lawyer, prosecutor or judge should be required to be a member of the bar in good standing. State bars are not perfect, but they do offer a fairly effective way of certifying basic competency.
The bar exam should be appropriately designed to ensure competent legal help can be reliably obtained.
Customers of lawyers are typically ill-equipped to judge lawyer quality themselves.
I have a greater issue with schools having to be ABA approved than with bar exam requirements.
No private organization should be able to set legal rules directly.
I also have objections to the abuse of the building code system. How energy efficient my Florida house is is not the proper business of an Illinois organization.