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EDIT 5 (3/1/2014)

1. The CA bar has recognized this issue and is investigating: --LinkRemoved--

2. If you have had an issue, and you wish to file a written statement, they are asking you to write a letter detailing your problem and send it ASAP to here:

Office of Admissions
The State Bar of California
845 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90017-2515
213-765-1500

I would encourage you to be as specific as possible regarding the issue that impacted you.

3. If you want to join our email chain of those impacted, email me at: hoggle7910@gmail.com



EDIT 4:

If you are just stumbling upon this, and had an issue with Softest during the exam, please take the following steps:

1. Call the Office of Admissions of the State Bar of California: San Francisco (415-538-2300) or LA (213-765-1500). Have them take an oral report of the incident, note your application number, test center, and any other circumstances you deem important. You need to do this really soon. I was told by the office that applicants only have a short (something like seven day) window to file a complaint after the bar.

2. Contact Examsoft and report your problem.
Tel: 866.429.8889
Email: support@examsoft.com

The have a method of conducting conducting digitial forensics on your computer, and may be able to provide evidence that the issue occured, and pin point a reason for this. They did find evidence of the issue when reviewing their digital log. This will help with proof issues should the State Bar ask for it.

3. Contact your test prep company. I contacted my test prep company and they wanted to get as much information as possible on the issue. Depending upon your company, may get a free retake, especially if armed with evidence that you were harmed.

4. Get on the email list of those impacted by the problem. A bunch of us impacted are on a unified email group so that we can keep eachother abrest of developments on the issue (and because frankly, its more likely the State Bar will recognize many people with proof of the issue than a few). Contact me at hoggle7910@gmail.com If you'd like to be on the list.
EDIT 2:

Looks like more peeps had the issue:
--LinkRemoved--
****

Hey everyone:

I, along with at least 10 other people at least in Ontario had a problem with their Softest. It was a uniform problem that prevented some of us from completing the examination about half way through, the others just had major issues. Luckily, some of us converged at the complaint table at the same time and everyone was smart enough to start taking names down. The Ontario procters have taken the steps to start a unified complaint with whoever had issues. This may be the only way to get recourse from CA Bar.

If you had an issue preventing you from finishing the exam, PM me, or feel free to post here. We are trying to get everyone into one type of group to report the complaint.
*******************

what would the recourse be? Just curious

patogordo wrote:what would the recourse be? Just curious

I don't really know, that is up to the bar. Hopefully the bar is helpful.

patogordo wrote:what would the recourse be? Just curious

Nothing. When you take an exam on soft test you agree to assume the risk of any defects. Read the fine print before you click agree.

I'll add my case here. Sometime in the middle of the PT, I could not insert spaces (or rather, they would not show up) unless I typed in at least 2 additional extra characters, like "a", or did some other actions like underlining. There was also a large lag (more than usual) while typing. The combined effect was that I wasted time and effort trying to type and format correctly. Hopefully the printed version doesn't contain a bunch of words with leading "a"s.

Thanks for putting this together.

newyorker88 wrote:

patogordo wrote:what would the recourse be? Just curious

Nothing. When you take an exam on soft test you agree to assume the risk of any defects. Read the fine print before you click agree.

Don't you agree only to your own computer failures rather than a problem with SofTest itself? If 10+ people had the same problem at the same time, it's likely something going on with the software.

newyorker88 wrote:

patogordo wrote:what would the recourse be? Just curious

Nothing. When you take an exam on soft test you agree to assume the risk of any defects. Read the fine print before you click agree.

Dude, I know, but it really is just a problem of magnitude. If 200 unified people had a problem versus three, Im sure the Bar's response is gonna be different.

a male human wrote:I'll add my case here. Sometime in the middle of the PT, I could not insert spaces (or rather, they would not show up) unless I typed in at least 2 additional extra characters, like "a", or did some other actions like underlining. There was also a large lag (more than usual) while typing. The combined effect was that I wasted time and effort trying to type and format correctly. Hopefully the printed version doesn't contain a bunch of words with leading "a"s.

Thanks for putting this together.

newyorker88 wrote:

patogordo wrote:what would the recourse be? Just curious

Nothing. When you take an exam on soft test you agree to assume the risk of any defects. Read the fine print before you click agree.

Don't you agree only to your own computer failures rather than a problem with SofTest itself? If 10+ people had the same problem at the same time, it's likely something going on with the software.

It is something going on with the software. Everyone in my group had the similar problem. Everyone just needs to report it together.

Wow....I thought it was just my computer. I experienced the same problem

FYI I have a Windows laptop.

Thanks everyone who has responded already. Just PM me throughout the night if you want to be added to the formal report with the California Bar, or just want more information on where everything is heading in terms of any resolution.

A lot of people's softest shit out on them in WA today. My buddy had the spacebar glitch appear on him with 5 min left of the MEE.

lawdawg09 wrote:A lot of people's softest shit out on them in WA today. My buddy had the spacebar glitch appear on him with 5 min left of the MEE.

Yeah, hopefully everyone who had an issue can find this information.

I just tried a mock exam, and the glitch didn't happen this time.

a male human wrote:I just tried a mock exam, and the glitch didn't happen this time.

Me too.

Happened to me in PASADENA. After an hour into the PT, I wasn't able to insert any spaces between characters. It was very frustrating. I must have wasted about 20-30 minutes trying to figure out how to insert characters with proper spacing or make characters appear without odd spacing or illegible spelling. I thought it was my computer but now I'm convinced that it was a softest glitch. How do we report to the State Bar of California? We rely on this software to function correctly, and it failed us today.

patent_lawyer wrote:Happened to me in PASADENA. After an hour into the PT, I wasn't able to insert any spaces between characters. It was very frustrating. I must have wasted about 20-30 minutes trying to figure out how to insert characters with proper spacing or make characters appear without odd spacing or illegible spelling. I thought it was my computer but now I'm convinced that it was a softest glitch. How do we report to the State Bar of California? We rely on this software to function correctly, and it failed us today.

I don't think it was your computer. I have now heard from at least 20 people that have had the problem. I would complain to the CA bar directly via phone, speak to your local Cal Bar Employees to see if they've started some kind of process complaint for Pasadena like they have at my center.

I'll be talking to a Pasadena bar rep tomorrow. I also thought it was my computer til a guy heard me talking about my awful luck on the phone and said it happened to him too. The girl next me said she wondered why I was trying to switch keyboards halfway through the PT. I thought it might've been my external keyboard so tried using my built in keyboard but had no luck with either. I hated the delay in letters showing up almost as much as the lack of spaces.

rpilking wrote:I'll be talking to a Pasadena bar rep tomorrow. I also thought it was my computer til a guy heard me talking about my awful luck on the phone and said it happened to him too. The girl next me said she wondered why I was trying to switch keyboards halfway through the PT. I thought it might've been my external keyboard so tried using my built in keyboard but had no luck with either. I hated the delay in letters showing up almost as much as the lack of spaces.

Yeah, if I had to guess, I would bet that it impacted a large number of test takers, maybe 20-50 a center. I base this on how easy it was to identify those that had issues. Problem is that most probably don't even know what to do.

Bumping for the win. Hope you guys get recourse.

Hey Everyone: A final note.

1) If you haven't reported the issue, find the State Bar Employees in your testing center (they'll be wearing silver badges) and ask to file a report. If they don't know what you are talking about, someone on their team should know.

2) PM me if you'd like to be part of the larger complaint that has been filed with the CA bar.

3) If you meet anybody else who had the issue, have them report it, and get their information or have them PM me if they'd like to be part of the larger complaint.

Good luck on the MBE!

Hoggel,
I was experiencing the same issues with the
Softest program. Can you send me an email and add me to the list of people grieving the software glitch. Thanks. Al

Hoggel, my email is aalagheband@yahoo.com

hey you made above the law

Al_band, you should PM him to make sure your name is added, not ask him to email you.

I also talked to two other people, and both had similar problems.

One person had a problem during her essay portion. Another had a problem during the PT portion. I will let them know about this topic.

patogordo wrote:hey you made above the law

Yeah, that was nice of them to link to the thread so more people can get help. I wonder how many people wrote in.