[1] Diploma privilege arose as a method for admission to the bar along with the rise of law schools in the United States.
[4] The most recent states to abolish diploma privilege and require law school graduates to sit for a bar examination were Mississippi in 1981, Montana and South Dakota in 1983, and West Virginia in 1988.
This theory holds that without the diploma privilege, the smartest from the state will leave Wisconsin for their education or for their career, specifically to nearby Chicago (the Iowa Bar Association cited similar territorial concerns[7][9]).
[citation needed] In Wiesmueller v. Kosobucki, a class action lawsuit certified in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in June 2008, the petitioners asserted that the state's policy discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause because it affords a diploma privilege in lieu of a bar examination only to lawyers graduating from Wisconsin's law schools.
[11] There has been a renewed interest in diploma privilege as an alternative to the bar examination, which is generally administered in large conference rooms and auditoriums every July and February, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 22, 2020, several legal scholars who study licensure identified "emergency diploma privilege" as an alternative that showed "considerable promise" in a working paper discussing how states may continue to license new lawyers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
[14][15] A number of petitions for emergency diploma privilege by law school deans, professors, and recent graduates in other states have grown.
[23] Since then, Washington, Oregon, Louisiana, and the District of Columbia have all instituted temporary diploma privilege policies, as detailed in the table below.
[24] In the District of Columbia, candidates who choose the diploma privilege option rather than taking the bar examination must be supervised for three years by a qualified attorney admitted to the D.C.
[25] On July 6, New York State Senator Brad Hoylman introduced legislation to provide 2020 graduates with diploma privilege.