cl H.B. 444 75(R)BILL ANALYSIS JUDICIAL AFFAIRS H.B. 444 By: Longoria 4-30-97 Committee Report (Unamended) BACKGROUND There are a significant number of people who successfully attend professional schools and earn a professional degree. They then are required to take and pass licensing requirements. Quite often a graduate is unable to pass the required examination. This leaves a person with a very serious problem, many years of investment (time and money) and no license. Some of those who do not take the licensing exams are unable to pass for good reasons, e.g. military service, medical reasons. Some are simply unable to pass the examination due to the stress and some simply are incapable of passing the exam. It is also well known that many examinations are not so much constructed to determine who may be licensed as they are constructed to determine who may not be licensed. It is the author's intent and hope that the legislature will, under narrow circumstances as required in this bill, allow the licensing of a person to practice law if the person graduates from an accredited Texas law school and then works continuously in the law profession, specifically in a law office. PURPOSE To provide a means for obtaining a license to practice law wherein a person who has earned a law degree from an accredited Texas law school works continuously in a law office for ten (10) years after that same person has earned a law degree. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY New Government Code Sec. 82.026(a) in Section 1 of the bill authorizes the Supreme Court to adopt exemptions, by general order, from the bar examination for a law license under certain circumstances. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1 adds a new Section 82.026 to the Government Code, "Examination exemption for certain persons." Subsec. (a) authorize the supreme court to adopt a general order to exempt certain persons from the law license examination under certain instances which are listed. Subsec. (b) requires persons exempt from examination to present evidence of moral character, as candidates for the bar exam are required to do. SECTION 2. Emergency clause. Effective date.