• Maine joins Oregon, Georgia and North Dakota in eyeing changes to how lawyers are admitted to practice
• A bill in Maine would introduce an apprenticeship program for would-be lawyers

Maine is pondering a move to allow some aspiring lawyers to take the bar exam without going to law school, joining four other states with so-called apprenticeship programs.

State lawmakers on Tuesday will hold a public hearing on a bill that would allow those who have studied for two years under an experienced attorney to take the lawyer licensing test.

A small but growing number of states are eyeing changes to how they license new lawyers, with some jurisdictions focused on bolstering the number of lawyers serving rural communities and others aiming to make the process more efficient.

Their efforts come amid a major overhaul of the bar exam—which nearly all states require law graduates to take and pass. The National Conference of Bar Examiners, which is developing the so-called NextGen Bar Exam due to be out in 2026, said the new test will emphasize practical skills.

The Maine bill would add the state to the small list of jurisdictions with lawyer apprentice programs, alongside California, Virginia, Washington and Vermont. Apprentices would have to study for a minimum of 18 hours a week for two years under a supervising attorney to be eligible to take the bar exam.

The idea is to encourage new attorneys to stay in Maine to address its lawyer shortage, said State Representative David Boyer, who introduced the bill. The state courts have a backlog of cases that they won’t begin to clear until 2028, he said.

“We are so desperate for lawyers that we need some alternative solutions,” he said.

Boyer said he first became aware of the apprenticeship model through Kim Kardashian. The reality star-turned-business mogul has spent the past four years studying to become a lawyer under California’s apprenticeship program.

She passed California’s First-Year Law Students’ Examination in 2021 and will have to pass the full bar exam to become licensed.

But few people are participating in existing apprenticeship programs. Of the 7,543 people who took California’s bar exam in July 2022, fewer than 11 studied under an attorney or judge, state bar records show.

Among changes being considered elsewhere, a pending bill in North Dakota urges its judiciary to evaluate alternative pathways to licensure intended to keep graduates of the state’s only law school from moving away. A similar bill in neighboring South Dakota stalled last year. Oregon is in the process of developing several options for law graduates to become licensed without taking the bar exam.

And a task force in Georgia last month recommended the courts permit students in their final semester of law school to sit for the bar exam—reducing the delay between graduation and being licensed to practice.

Wisconsin is currently the only jurisdiction that allows graduates of its in-state law schools to bypass the bar exam.