Three conservative think tanks — one in Tennessee, the others from around the country — are backing an Argentine lawyer’s attempt to take the Tennessee Bar Exam.
The Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, Arizona-based Goldwater Institute and the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee have filed a request with the Tennessee Supreme Court to submit an amici curiae brief on behalf of Maximiliano Gabriel Gluzman, who was scheduled to take the February 2016 Tennessee Bar until the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners decided he could not. Gluzman had earned an LL.M. degree from Vanderbilt University with a 3.919 grade point average after practicing in his native Argentina.
In their draft brief, the three conservative groups cite the so-called Right to Earn a Living Act passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year. The law requires that all professional regulations “shall be limited to those demonstrably necessary and carefully tailored to fulfill legitimate public health, safety, or welfare objectives.”
“Unless Mr. Gluzman’s foreign education is not substantially equivalent [to domestic legal education], he should be allowed to sit for the bar exam,” the groups argue. “With any doubt left, an appropriately tailored outcome would allow him to put his qualifications to the test by allowing him to take the test.”
Represented by Nashville attorney Daniel Horwitz, Gluzman’s appeal is now before the Tennessee Supreme Court. According to Horwitz, the board of law examiners will file a response early next month, and the court can later decide to set the case for oral arguments or decide it based on the competing briefs.
After marrying an American citizen and moving to Tennessee, Gluzman was preparing to take the February 2016 bar when new rules took effect governing the eligibility of applicants with foreign law degrees. The new language requires test takers hold both a degree equilavalent to a bachelor’s degree and one equivalent to a J.D. or higher, though legal education in many countries outside the United States is often combined into a single degree. The University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University have both filed briefs supporting Gluzman.
"Tennessee is one of the top destinations for foreign direct investment in the United States, and countless Tennessee businesses export their products and services internationally," he told the Post earlier this year. "I am confident that my background in business law in a Civil Law-based country will prove to be both very rare and needed in the state's legal market.
"I would rather avoid the frustration of seeing my financial, personal and academic efforts rewarded with a senseless change of policy that basically forces me to move to another state."