Pennsylvania State Capitol. Photo credit: Zack Frank/Shutterstock.com

There are more than 200 hundred questions on the Pennsylvania Bar Exam, but for the past few years there was one question even the Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners wasn't sure how to answer.

The question wasn't one that bar applicants are graded on. Instead, it was the question asking about the would-be lawyer's immigration status, and what stumped the board was whether applicants with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, sometimes called "Dreamers" after a legislative initiative designed to support them, should be admitted to the bar.

Last week, the board received its answer when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted a change to Rule 202 of the Bar Admission Rules updating the rule to explicitly say for the first time that those with DACA status are eligible for admission.

According to C. Robert Keenan III, chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners, the group sought the rule change to provide clarity on the issue.

"The board felt that it just should make clear to bar applicants that DACA status was not going to be a factor," Keenan said. "We're grateful to the justices that they enacted the rule change."

Parthiv Patel, of Parker McCay.

For Parthiv Patel, now an associate at Parker McCay in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, focusing on corporate law, the change means other Dreamers won't have to go through the 18 months of appeals that he did when he sought to be admitted to the Pennsylvania bar.

"It does take a mental toll. The whole experience of not knowing, and having to wait afterwards. It did take a mental toll," Patel said. "I think the rule change is great. As long as they pass the bar and don't have any other blemishes, they're in the clear for being a practicing attorney and meeting their dreams."

Patel, who was brought from India to live in New Jersey when he was 5, went to Rutgers University and then, inspired to become an attorney after his parents were defrauded out of more than $100,000 in a business venture, he attended the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law.

Patel said that, while others were worrying about the questions that might be on the graded parts of the bar exam, he was additionally worried about the questions that were not graded—the questions about his immigration status, and whether it would bring his career as an attorney to an end before it could start.

"I always kind of had a feeling that my status was going to be an issue," Patel said. "I kept putting it on the back burner until my last semester of law school. At that point I had to apply to the bar."

Patel said he began speaking with attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union, and took the Pennsylvania and New Jersey exams in July 2016. The week before the results were posted online, he was told that, although he passed the exam, he wouldn't be admitted to the Pennsylvania bar due to his immigration status.

The particular sticking point was that U.S. Code 8 Section 1621 says undocumented immigrants are not eligible for state benefits, such as professional licenses. But the law further allows for states to opt out of those restrictions.

Patel, with the help of ACLU attorney Molly Tack-Hooper, appealed, contending that the statute shouldn't apply, and that, even if it did, the state should opt out. A handful of groups from Pennsylvania and beyond, including the city of Philadelphia, Drexel University, the Philadelphia Bar Association and the Yale Ethics Bureau, sent letters supporting Patel's efforts.

Parthiv Patel, left, is sworn in to the Pennsylvania Bar by Philadelphia Judge Lisa Rau, right.

In late November 2017, the board determined that Patel should be admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in New Jersey soon after.

Nearly a year after being accepted to practice, the Board of Law Examiners announced a proposal to change the law, saying that the change would make it "clear that Pennsylvania is opting out" of the federal restrictions regarding granting law licenses to those with DACA status.

Keenan said the board did not receive any comments to the proposal, which he said was surprising, given how politicized the topic of Dreamers has become. The only concern from the justices, he said, was whether the change would open the board up to litigation, which, Keenan said, it would not.

"We did not think that this was a controversial position. Just a clarification of Pennsylvania bar rules," he said.

Tack-Hooper said she was somewhat disappointed the law only addresses those on DACA status, while there are many other groups of immigrants who would otherwise be eligible to become attorneys. But, overall, she lauded the rule change.

"It is a tiny bit of good news for immigrants in a really dark time," she said. "Even if there are only 10 people who get to be lawyers because of this, I think it has really strong symbolic value, and I'm grateful the board took a stand in support of immigrants."

The rule change puts Pennsylvania, along with California and New York, into a group of about 10 states that allow Dreamers to be admitted to the bar.

Tack-Hooper and Patel noted that the change may also provide some guidance to bar examination boards in other states that may now seek to tackle the question.