Qualified But Barred

The Supreme Court of Tennessee has acted on a request from the Network of Enlightened Women to remove its full-time work requirement for attorney admission without examination. This is a victory for attorneys, including mothers who choose to reduce their hours to spend more time with their children.

NeW submitted a petition to the Tennessee Supreme Court asking the court to amend Rule 7, Section 5.01(c). The court published the petition for comment. All of the more than 30 comments that were submitted supported the petition.

Kaitlyn Schiraldi from the Mountain States Legal Foundation explained in her comment, “The practice of law is demanding, regardless of how many hours per week one works, and a part-time attorney is no less competent or hardworking than one who works full-time. In fact, attorneys who work part-time often do so because they have other responsibilities, such as raising children or taking care of a sick or elderly relative.”

Vanessa Brown Calder, Director of Opportunity and Family Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, also submitted a comment in support of the petition. She wrote, “removing the full-time work requirement will allow for greater flexibility for mothers, parents, and any other lawyer working part time in the years to come, while ensuring that the state remains competitive, and that Tennessee’s legal community has access to a wide pool of talent.”

The comment submitted by the Independent Women’s Forum states, “Burdensome occupational licensing regulations such as this one create barriers to employment, especially for women.”

Even the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners, which is responsible for administering the rules on admission, supported the petition. In its comment, the TBLE wrote that “requiring the ‘full time’ practice of law for admission without examination is not necessary to ensure competence among attorneys admitted on motion. In fact, it appears that a full-time practice requirement (which is not typically required to maintain a law license) can have the undesirable effect of making it unnecessarily difficult for working mothers, for example, to obtain admission to the Tennessee bar without examination.”

Karin Lips, President of NeW, explained that the original rule “is an example of an occupational licensing rule that makes it more difficult for people to work without providing a compelling benefit. Not every woman wants to work full-time, especially among mothers of young children. Unnecessary occupational licensing rules make it more challenging for women to set up the work-life balance they desire.”