This week the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order approving, on an experimental basis, an order allowing second semester law students to take the bar.  The Court’s order came down too late to impact the Feb. 2013 exam, but will be in effect for Feb. 2014 and 2015.  After 2015, the Court will revisit the rule and decide whether to make it permanent.  Applicants under the experimental rule must meet several criteria to sit for the exam, most notably needing no more than 8 credits left to graduate and finalizing their law school studies within 120 days of taking the exam.

At ASU we’ve had some very general discussions about how we would implement class for those final 8 credits, so it’s not yet clear what our 3L curriculum will look like.  Once we have something down, I’ll pass that info along.  That said, my completely uninformed prediction is that by 2016 almost every law student will do their best to sit for the Feb. bar.  They’ll be done with it and if they want to take a second bar exam (say California) they can sit for July just like everyone else.