In principle, you should be able to pass the foreign legal education evaluation and be eligible for sitting for the UBE at New York, if you are a LLB/JD graduate from either University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, or City University of Hong Kong.

You don’t need to be a qualified in Hong Kong. You also don’t need a PCLL. Simply a LLB/JD should suffice.

In order to pass the foreign legal education evaluation, you have to arrange for your university/law faculty to send all necessary documentation directly to BOLE. In most cases, the necessary documentation includes only: (1) your official transcript from your university’s coordinated academic office; AND (2) ‘Proof of Fulfillment Letter’ from your law faculty.

I believe ordering an official transcript is not a complicated task. However, the tricky part is how to get your law faculty to issue the ‘Proof of Fulfillment Letter’.

First, you have to identify who is the responsible staff at your law faculty. Generally, the ‘Executive Officer’ at the law faculty receives countless enquiries about the Proof of Fulfillment Letter, so that personnel should know how to arrange it.

HKU, CUHK, and CityU all publish the contact method of the administrative staff at their law faculties. You may refer to the following links to find out who is the responsible personnel:

https://www.law.hku.hk/faculty/dean-and-faculty-office/

https://www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/administrative/

https://www.cityu.edu.hk/slw/about-school/our-people/administrative-staff

Second, please give the staff a call, politely introduce yourself, and inform of the purpose of your call. At the end of the conversation, remind the staff that that you would send a follow-up email about your request.

Third, send a follow-up email to remind the staff of the upcoming deadline. Below is a sample message:

“Dear [X],

I am a former student of the law faculty, and I am writing to follow up on our recent phone conversation regarding the required documentation to be sent directly from your faculty to the New York State Board of Law Examiners (BOLE).

To ensure a smooth process, I would like to provide you with my BOLE ID [X] and my Foreign Evaluation ID [X].

I kindly request your assistance in issuing the Proof of Fulfillment at your earliest convenience, considering the approaching deadline for submitting the documentation to BOLE, which is [date]. Given the uncertainty surrounding delivery times to the United States, I would greatly appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]”

As mentioned above, having a LLB/JD is good enough to pass the foreign education evaluation. However, if you do have a PCLL and/or a Hong Kong lawyer license, you also have to arrange for sending the relevant documentation from the institution to BOLE. 

Regarding PCLL, again you have to ask the law faculty to issue a Proof of Fulfillment to BOLE. As for your lawyer license, please contact the Law Society or Bar Association (as the case may be) to issue a Certificate of Standing to BOLE.