The article doesn't really indicate _how_ the new exam puts DEI over competence. All it says is that they've made the test easier, and... > perhaps the bigges

The article doesn't really indicate _how_ the new exam puts DEI over competence. All it says is that they've made the test easier, and... > perhaps the biggest concern is the NCBE’s use of the NextGen exam to advance its “diversity, fairness and inclusion” agenda. Two of the organization’s stated aims are to “work toward greater equity” by “eliminat[ing] any aspects of our exams that could contribute to performance disparities” and to “promote greater diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.” The NCBE reinforces this message by touting its “organization-wide efforts to ensure that diversity, fairness, and inclusion pervade its test products and services.” > What does all this mean—and how does it have any relation to the law? Based on the diversity workshop at the NCBE conference, it means putting considerable emphasis on examinees’ race, sex, gender identity, nationality and other identity-based characteristics. The idea seems to be that any differences in group outcomes must be eliminated—even if the only way to achieve this goal is to water down the test. On top of all that, an American Civil Liberties Union representative provided conference attendees with a lecture on criminal-justice reform in which he argued that states should minimize or overlook would-be lawyers’ convictions for various criminal offenses in deciding whether to admit them to the bar. ...That's a lot of chaff, not much wheat. Basically, the ACLU hopes that it might become easier for people with prior convictions to join the bar. There's nothing that says, e.g., that any ethnic group is prioritized, or that there are quotas. So it seems like a bunch of hand-wringing. "Oh no, our regulatory moat is being eroded!" That aside, there are two points that might be worth consideration: 1. Any changes won't kick in until 2026, and Chat-GPT is already such an outstanding lawyer that the field might be (and hopefully will be) irreversibly changed by then. 2. There has been a tremendous amount of lawyer overproduction in recent decades, so arguably the test should be made harder -- or, preferably, legal services should be democratized, as is already the case in small claims court, and all men should have standing to represent themselves and others in court. When every man is a lawyer, no man is a lawyer. (Rome, Greece, etc. were very much like this. "Lawyer" wasn't a profession; it was a temporary role or a form of community service.) Arizona has been making baby steps in this direction, if I'm not mistaken.