Occupational licensing or occupational licensure, is the requirement, mandated and protected by law, for a license to pursue an occupation for money. When designed and implemented carefully, licensing creates health and safety protections to consumers and workers. However, they also create costs, the requirements may not meet with the skills needed for the job, they raise the price of goods and services, and they can restrict employment opportunities. They may also be used to discriminate against groups and restrict competition.
Discrimination
Discrimination in the bar exam has had a long history dating back to the Progressive Era. Established lawyers felt that up and comers were demeaning the profession by admitting ethnic minorities who lacked rank and class. Thus they started using the bar exam as a method of excluding individuals and maintain high costs. It has been hypothesized by a Slate Magazine article that the bar exam questions such as mental health questions are a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has agreed that these questions violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Alabama Bar exam was sued for being discriminatory when only 28 blacks out of over 3000 lawyers in the state were black. The NAACP and the ACLU have sued in various jurisdictions claiming that the Bar exam discriminates against blacks from practicing law. A number of Law school graduates have explicitly called the bar exam racist. Various studies have shown that there is differing rates in the passage of the bar exam by blacks as there is by whites. In 2013, the Texas Bar was given a complaint on the discriminatory nature of the bar exam. Critics of the bar exam are pleased to see cases like Iowa doing away with the bar exam in its state.