FUTURE BARRISTERS MUST HAVE BROADER EDUCATION

In a recent interview for the CRIMSON, Professor Samuel Williston '82 of the Law School gave several views of the work of the recent conference in Washington, called by the American Bar Association to consider the advisability of making a college education a requisite for admission to the bar. Dr. Williston expressed himself as being in complete accord with the efforts of the meeting to make college education a requisite for admission to the bar.

"For some years," he began, "It has seemed evident to most persons interested in law that there are too many inferior lawyers, inferior morally, intellectually, and in their knowledge of the law. The question confronting those interested is what can he done to remedy the situation.

"It is hard to test by any fixed bar examination even the scantiest of legal requirements for the practice of law. A brief, written examination has its value, but its limits as well. By proper use of cramming a student may pass his examination and yet have acquired little real knowledge.

Root Leads investigation Committee

"In view of this situation, a committee of the American Bar Association, of which Mr. Elihu Root is the head, took the matter up for several months and in the summer of 1921 submitted a report to the Section of Legal Education of the American Bar Association. This report made several recommendations with reference to the character of law schools, aimed at discrediting night and correspondence schools, which from their very nature cannot require intensive study from the students. The committee also recommended to the legislatures and their bodies controlling admission to the bar in the several states, that no student should be allowed to take the examination who had not spent, in addition to three years in a satisfactory law school, at least two years in college.

"The report was adopted by the section of legal education and in order to obtain further support for its propositions, the committee called a conference at Washington of a number of eminent practitioners and law examiners to consider additional requirements for admission to the bar. At this conference interesting speeches were made by a number of distinguished men and Mr. Root, in supporting the recommendations, made two forcible addresses. He argued that unless the American theory of legal education were entirely unfounded, the new suggestions would not only improve the legal education of young lawyers, but would also give a higher moral tone to the bar.

"Although some opposition was raised, the meeting sustained by a large majority the recommendations of the committee." It is probable that in the near future more official action will be taken by the Association to make a college education a necessity for the barrister.