EUGENE, OR, February 28, 2024 - Troy J. Wood, has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected based on current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all considered during the selection process.
Mr. Wood is regulatory counsel for the Oregon State Bar. He oversees most regulatory functions of the Bar, including attorney admissions, administrative suspensions, reinstatements, continuing legal education credits and attorney trust accounting. Mr. Wood's productive regulatory career began upon accepting an assistant general counsel and client assistance office attorney position in 2013. In 2017, he was promoted to admission manager, which appointed him as the administrator for the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners (the Board) and catapulted him into the agent of change for which he is widely known today.
In 2017, the American Bar Association recommended that state bars remove mental health questions from their bar admission applications. A few months later, the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners (the Board) formed a task force to consider removing mental health questions from its admission application. As the administrator for the Board and liaison to the task force, Mr. Wood helped the task force in drafting recommended rule changes that focused on applicant conduct rather than medical diagnosis. After changing the rules, Mr. Wood continued to support the efforts of the task force with suggested new application questions that focused exclusively on the applicants' historical conduct. Because of the task force recommendations, Oregon became one of the earliest states to remove all mental health questions from their attorney admission application.
On March 8, 2020, Oregon's Governor issued executive orders that shut down most of the state's businesses and government agencies because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many states had already announced that they were canceling their July bar exam or intended to delay it for later in the year. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) was considering canceling the July exam, which would mean no materials would be available to Oregon for a bar exam. Knowing that Oregon could not license examinees through other means, Mr. Wood developed a plan to test up to 500 examinees spread across 120 miles. The NCBE asked Mr. Wood to present his plan to other bar administrators across the country. Following this presentation, 16 other jurisdictions developed similar plans, and collaborated with Mr. Wood to develop best practices for bar exams during the pandemic. On July 28 and 29, 2020, 17 jurisdictions across the country tested almost 8,000 examinees using a plan identical or similar to Mr. Wood's original presentation in late March, 2020. Not one case of COVID-19 was transmitted at any exam site in any of the participating states.
Returning to the needs of Oregon's legal consumers, Mr. Wood recognized that many law firms and Oregon businesses could not fill important positions that were in high demand by legal consumers. Oregon's criminal justice system needed more prosecutors and public defenders. Mr. Wood developed a regulatory concept that offered a solution for both employers and employees. He recommended the concept to the Board, who then collaborated with him to develop a new rule allowing in-state employers to hire out-of-state attorneys to immediately fill positions that historically would only be available to Oregon lawyers. This concept was approved by the Board and the Oregon Supreme Court in late 2020 and the temporary license rule has played a significant role in filling many vacant positions that were troubling Oregon's businesses and justice system.
From January to November 2021, at the request of the Supreme Court, the Board appointed the Alternatives to the Exam Task Force (ATE) to research and develop alternative pathways for admission beyond the traditional bar exam. Mr. Wood was appointed as ATE's administrator, and worked with the chair of the task force, Joanna Perini-Abbott, to develop agendas and processes that would support the ATE's work. With such support, the task force completed its research of virtually every alternative method currently or previously used by any common law country and fully developed its policy considerations in under five months. In June, 2021, the task force issued a 25-page report that recommended two alternative admission concepts, that previously had not been considered by any other jurisdiction: one being an apprenticeship model that included an examination of an applicant's work product developed while working under a mentor; and the other, a law school curriculum model that involved the examination of work produced by applicants in an experiential learning position or class. Both models were recommended because they allowed the Board the ability to assess the actual legal work of an applicant in a real-life situation, which provided the Examiner Members of the Board a more in-depth assessment of an applicant's abilities and competence. The idea of having examiner members assessing work product developed in real-life cases is the key concept to both programs. This ensures the public that the body responsible for holding the standard for admission continues to do so, regardless of the assessment tool used (bar exam or portfolio exam). The Oregon Supreme Court approved the concepts in January 2022 and asked the Board to appoint a new committee to develop the rules, policies and procedures needed to implement these concepts. Mr. Wood was named the committee's administrator and liaison.
Mr. Wood later relied on his experience with the ATE to draft a set of rules for an apprenticeship licensure program called the Provisional License Program (PLP) in March 2022. He later collaborated with Professor Emeritus Deborah Merritt from Ohio State University to improve the rules and its regulatory concepts. These rules were presented to and approved by the Board in April 2022, and by the Oregon Supreme Court in May of 2022. PLP participants have become licensed attorneys through the program. The Committee that was appointed to develop the ATE's alternative pathways began their work in earnest in June of 2022. As the rules for the PLP program had just been approved by the Oregon Supreme Court, the PLP rules became the rules from which the Committee developed the rules for the apprenticeship alternative, which is now known as the Supervised Practice Program (SPPE). The SPPE Rules were submitted by the Committee to the Supreme Court in August 2023, and the Court approved the Rules and SPPE program in November 2023. The passage of the SPPE grabbed national headlines for many weeks, as it is a first of its kind apprenticeship program, establishing the first new pathway for admission to the practice of law in over forty years. Mr. Wood continues to work with the Committee in developing experiential learning programs for law students, which will establish a process for qualified law students to become licensed upon graduation.
Mr. Wood is gratified to have made significant contributions to these initiatives and to have drafted the initial rules that are foundational to so many new programs and pathways. The SPPE program launches in May 2024 and is expected to license applicants in late 2024 or early 2025. The approval of the SPPE has sparked a significant public debate across the country over the best method to license lawyers and other professionals. Many states have started their own task force to consider Oregon's program and are now considering adopting similar pathways. While advocating for these alternative methods, Mr. Wood has also advocated for the continued need to offer a bar exam option, as it represents the most efficient licensure model available. He is eager to see the national debate unfold over these issues and considers this evidence of the meaningful career accomplishment Oregon's new programs represent. Mr. Wood is regularly asked to speak to other jurisdictions and professions about the SPPE and PLP, as they consider a similar approach.
In 2022, Mr. Wood was asked to collaborate with the Paralegal Licensure Implementation Committee and fellow Bar staff to form the regulatory structure for Oregon's Licensed Paralegal Program. Mr. Wood also worked on the assessment processes needed to protect the legal consuming public. Mr. Wood developed a portfolio assessment protocol and a paralegal entry exam that tests exclusively the examinees' knowledge of the scope of their licensure, which is the first of its kind in the United States. In December 2023, the Oregon State Bar administered the first entry exam for licensed paralegals, and this first cohort will be licensed in March of 2024. Mr. Wood oversees the paralegal licensing program and works with Oregon's Committee of Paralegal Assessors to ensure applicants meet the required standards.
Mr. Wood's legal career began in 1995 as in-house counsel for Albertson's, in Boise, ID, where he handled real estate transactions and small mergers and acquisitions. Since then, Mr. Wood's career has covered a broad spectrum of specialties in and out of the law. He credits his ability to think outside the regulatory box to his diverse experiences in the private sector before entering public service. Mr. Wood's career has focused on business transactions, civil litigation, and regulatory compliance. Mr. Wood graduated from the University of Pacific with a Bachelor of Arts in pre-law. While at Pacific, he reestablished Pacific's Rugby Team in 1991 and received the Scholar-Athlete Award for academic excellence while lettering in Football. He subsequently pursued a Juris Doctor at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law, where Mr. Wood was named the captain of the law school's rugby team and made Dean's List in 1995.
A proud veteran, Mr. Wood served in the United States Marine Corps from 1988 through 1993 and earned the rank of corporal before being honorably discharged. Committed to service, he has also served as the chair of the Portland Youth Golf Association and was a previous member of the Professional Responsibility Committee for the Multnomah Bar Association. Mr. Wood is recognized as a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Mr. Wood sustains important networks through key memberships in the American Bar Association, the Oregon State Bar, and is the administrator for the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners and the Committee of Paralegal Assessors. He is a Member of the Character and Fitness Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners and a Member of the Conference of Bar Admissions Administrators.
Mr. Wood plans to continue following his passion, which is increasing diversity in the legal professions of Oregon while discovering new ways in which Oregon's Bar can present expanded opportunities to underrepresented groups.
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