"This past December, the New York Court of Appeals, under the leadership of then-Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, issued an order amending the rules for admission to the New York bar to require applicants to have completed a skills competency component, and to eliminate the restriction on the number of hours law graduates may earn toward graduation in experiential learning courses, including clinics and externships.

The skills competency provision requires law schools to certify that their new graduates have demonstrated basic competence in outcomes that the schools themselves have identified as essential to ensuring that the graduates are "practice-ready and prepared to meet the myriad—and emerging—demands of the legal profession in the 21st century.""

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