South Dakota approves public service pathway to bar
The South Dakota Supreme Court has approved a new pathway to licensure that allows law students to perform 500 hours of supervised public service as an alternative to taking the bar exam.. (Image from Shutterstock)
The South Dakota Supreme Court has approved a new pathway to licensure that allows law students to perform 500 hours of supervised public service as an alternative to taking the bar exam.
Starting this fall, the program permits up to 10 students each year from the University of South Dakota School of Law, the state’s only law school, to conduct that public service as their fifth semester of law school. Students will be expected to develop portfolios of work that the examiners would review for minimum competence and receive academic credit. Candidates must also produce weekly reflections on their experiences.
“This will be a difficult route to licensure. No one will find this easy,” says Deborah Jones Merritt, a 2025 ABA Journal Legal Rebel and a professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, who consults several states on bar reform.
Already, there are 10 applicants with preferences on both sides of the state and for prosecution and defense offices, Neil Fulton, the dean of the University of South Dakota School of Law, told the Journal.
“Imagine the greater practice readiness of a graduate who has spent a full semester on the job,” he adds. “It will facilitate choosing public sector work by making that path a little faster and a bit less expensive by reducing the bar prep time and cost.”
Students from the program will still have to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination and the character and fitness component, but they will be sworn in right after graduation.
“The pathway illustrates how education, licensing and practice should align: Candidates progress from experiential education through comprehensive assessment of their competence to law practice,” Merritt adds.
The plan differs from Oregon’s popular Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination, which allows law school graduates to complete 675 hours of work under the supervision of an experienced attorney and create a portfolio of legal work in lieu of the bar exam. The Oregon apprenticeship program also requires candidates to have graduated, is not limited to in-state students or public service work, and pays the graduates for their work.
Like many supervised practice programs and proposed pathways, the goal in South Dakota aims to ease the access-to-justice issue, common in rural areas across the country. According to data from the ABA, the national average is four lawyers per 1,000 residents, while in South Dakota, it’s 2.22 lawyers per 1,000 residents.
In July 2024, 80 candidates in South Dakota took the bar exam, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
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