Fordham Law LL.M. student Amber Melville-Brown wrote a piece for The Brief (UK) about the high standards of the New York bar examination.
I am deficient.
I am a partner at an international law firm based in the City of London running a respected reputation and media team. But I am deficient.
I have been in practice for more than 20 years; I went to a redbrick university; I have taught law at what is now the University of Law and the London School of Economics. My list of publications is respectably long. I have even won some awards.
This is not trumpet-blowing. It is scene-setting. For when it comes to deficiency, all that matters not a jot. And deficient I am as far as the New York State Board of Law Examiners is concerned.
Last week I received an email notification from the examiners politely notifying me that after careful review of my documents, the board has determined that your program of law study in the United Kingdom does not satisfy the requirements of section 520.6(b)(1) .
…
My educational failing was a choice all those years ago to study modern languages, not law, at university. Studying a different discipline is a path well trodden by people who settle on a career in the law. But while a non-law degree may have given us a step up in Blighty, exhibiting experience and experimentation, it doesn’t butter any parsnips in the Big Apple.
Or elsewhere in the US. Anyone thinking about popping across the Atlantic to requalify needs to know that it is a tricky business.