Brief For Committee of Bar Examiners
This brief concerns two issues. First, Is Section 6060(e) of the California Business and Professions Code unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clauses of the United States and California Constitutions? Second, if this section is unconstitutional, may the Court judicially reform it without completely invalidating it?
From the time it was founded, in the 1950s, until the early 1990s, the school was accredited by the California Committee of Bar Examiners. Under the provisions of Section 6060 of the California Business and Professions Code, this meant that students graduating from Bentworth were entitled to sit for the California Bar Exam after completing three years of legal study. Students graduating from unaccredited law schools are required to complete four-years of legal study before sitting for the bar exam.
Throughout its operation, Bentworth Law School's student body has been comprised of individuals from the local region. The racial composition of the region changed during the 1980s, as many of the landowners sold out to large commercial enterprises. These new enterprises relied upon migrant workers, rather local farmworkers. As a result, families who had lived in the region for several generations moved away. The families of the migrant workers, who were predominantly Hispanic, moved into the local region.
Bentworth began to lose its student base. It sold off land to raise money for an uneasy faculty and scholarships designed to attract new students. By 1990, most of the student body was Hispanic and subsidized by scholarships. The quality of the professors declined, as few competent academics were willing to accept the slow pace and lack of amenities at the school. Once most of the land belonging to the school had been sold off, there was no source of income for the school to maintain the facilities, such as the library.
When the Committee of Ba...