Seventy-three years ago, California legislators made it a misdemeanor for out-of-state lawyers to practice here without passing the state’s bar exam. They acted out of a desire to protect the public from incompetent legal representation.
But today, many lawyers believe that the 1927 law is hopelessly outdated and ought to be abolished. With cross-border transactions quickly globalizing commerce, it’s time to drop artificial state boundaries, many say, in favor of a uniform lawyer-licensing procedure more in keeping with the times.
