NY Bar Exam Postponed. How will this affect incoming associates? Forum

[QContinuum]

I’m sorry, but as someone who has had to take bar exams due to changing jobs, I don’t like the idea of law students pushing diploma privilege. You’re a 3L getting P/F grades. I have no sympathy for you.

The classic "I've had to struggle, so you should too." Nice. Quality human being.

Right! This is why society gets stuck doing dumb shit that no longer makes sense. Why people think people have to live what they've lived through in order to be "worthy" is beyond me.

The above misrepresents 2013's position as "the bar's useless, but I had to take it, so you should too!" That's not 2013's position at all - they never said the bar was useless. Rather, 2013 was simply saying - in response to a lot of the overblown "woe is me!" comments earlier ITT - that they don't think 2020 grads have it that bad - at least not badly enough to warrant a permanent waiver from taking the bar to make up for it. Yes, they're in a shitty situation with the bar uncertainty, but they're also benefiting from P/F grading, and arguably, some classes in the past (such as several classes around the time of the '08 crash) had it worse.

In fact, right now I think current 1Ls and 2Ls - the classes of 2021/22 - have it worse. 1Ls are dealing with the specter of a delayed OCI, the likelihood of reduced hiring due to a recession, and fall 2L grades (and, relatedly, fall 2L course selection) taking on unprecedented importance. 2Ls are fretting about whether summer programs will go ahead, and whether they'll get no-offered if the economy crashes. In contrast, 3Ls are actually in a relatively good position. They have their 1L/2L summers behind them. They have their offers in hand. They're not scheduled to start working until September 2020 or later, when it's likely the pandemic will be mostly over. Of current law students, 3Ls are actually getting affected the least (at least as of right now).

[Logicalfallacy]

I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding as to how diploma privilege works in Wisconsin and New Hampshire (the only two states to have such a privilege). To clear it up, to be admitted to the WI or NH bars, you have to attend an accredited law school in the respective states. This makes it pretty easy because NH has one law school and WI has two. Quality control therefore isn’t much of an issue.

New York is a COMPLETELY different story. There are 15 law schools in the state. This includes Tuoro, which has a 63% passage rare in NY. So even if we limit diploma privilege to NY law schools like WI and NH have been doing, it presents a unique set of circumstances. Namely, NY has more TTTT schools than those other states.

Finally, some of you seem to have forgotten this. But bar passage is not a right, it’s a privilege. Don’t be surprised when the state expects you to pass a simple test to gain this privilege. I’m not saying this situation doesn’t suck, it does. It sucks a lot. But bar passage isn’t required to start a lot of legal jobs, and most folks pass the bar on the first try. This is a hurdle, but it’s a surmountable one for sure.

Again, this doesn’t answer why, given tests like the GRE & GMAT, and many law school finals are being administered online due to the situation, states couldn’t implement a policy that involves some combination of diploma privilege + an online test.

[Dcc617]

I think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding as to how diploma privilege works in Wisconsin and New Hampshire (the only two states to have such a privilege). To clear it up, to be admitted to the WI or NH bars, you have to attend an accredited law school in the respective states. This makes it pretty easy because NH has one law school and WI has two. Quality control therefore isn’t much of an issue.

New York is a COMPLETELY different story. There are 15 law schools in the state. This includes Tuoro, which has a 63% passage rare in NY. So even if we limit diploma privilege to NY law schools like WI and NH have been doing, it presents a unique set of circumstances. Namely, NY has more TTTT schools than those other states.

Finally, some of you seem to have forgotten this. But bar passage is not a right, it’s a privilege. Don’t be surprised when the state expects you to pass a simple test to gain this privilege. I’m not saying this situation doesn’t suck, it does. It sucks a lot. But bar passage isn’t required to start a lot of legal jobs, and most folks pass the bar on the first try. This is a hurdle, but it’s a surmountable one for sure.

You suck. The bar exam is stupid and it’s dumb you have any pride in it.

[QContinuum]

Don’t be surprised when the state expects you to pass a simple test to gain this privilege.

You suck. The bar exam is stupid and it’s dumb you have any pride in it.

I think you guys actually agree.

[Dcc617]

I think they should just get rid of the bar exam. It doesn't test for anything except how good you are at taking a test and is a huge waste of time and energy.

[JusticeSquee]

I think they should just get rid of the bar exam. It doesn't test for anything except how good you are at taking a test and is a huge waste of time and energy.

I’m all for eliminating the bar exam once the ABA pulls accreditation on half of the existing law schools.

[cavalier1138]

I think they should just get rid of the bar exam. It doesn't test for anything except how good you are at taking a test and is a huge waste of time and energy.

I’m all for eliminating the bar exam once the ABA pulls accreditation on half of the existing law schools.

Pretty much this. I'd be in favor of keeping it even in that situation if it were overhauled to basically be one giant MPT (the only section that actually comes close to reflecting legal practice).

But "the bar is stupid, get rid of it" only works if the ABA tightens its standards for which schools are allowed to grant JDs. As it currently stands, I'm in favor of keeping the stupid test if it means putting at least some barrier to entry between the average John Marshall student and practicing law.

[Dcc617]

I think it's pretty evil to allow someone to sink 3 years and a quarter million in debt to get a degree, and then act like what's really important is that you can pass some two day test that's widely recognized as a poor measure of anything.

[cavalier1138]

I think it's pretty evil to allow someone to sink 3 years and a quarter million in debt to get a degree, and then act like what's really important is that you can pass some two day test that's widely recognized as a poor measure of anything.

Agreed. But the solution is putting the barrier to entry before the person sinks $250k into law school. Just removing the bar exam only exacerbates the existing problems.

[JusticeSquee]

I think it's pretty evil to allow someone to sink 3 years and a quarter million in debt to get a degree, and then act like what's really important is that you can pass some two day test that's widely recognized as a poor measure of anything.

A lot of regulated professions have licensure exams. Everyone knows when applying to law school that they need to take the bar exam. Bar passage rates for law schools are also made public and are now well known thanks to the folks at Law School Transparency (and others). I think that the LSAC needs to do a lot of work to cull the herd of applicants, but no one is forcing people to go to law school and take on debt. The bar is a well known requirement to practice law. No one has been hoodwinked and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

[nixy]

I think it's pretty evil to allow someone to sink 3 years and a quarter million in debt to get a degree, and then act like what's really important is that you can pass some two day test that's widely recognized as a poor measure of anything.

But whatever you think of the bar, do you think coronavirus is really going to convince state bar associations to change course now?

(I agree that making entrance into law school harder is a better way to address minimum competence.)

[Logicalfallacy]

MA bar officially postponed. Announcement said that in the event they can't have it in the fall because of continued bans on mass gatherings, they will come up with a contingency plan then. Seems kind of silly they wouldn't just enact said contingency now instead of keeping grads in limbo month after month.

[QContinuum]

A lot of regulated professions have licensure exams. Everyone knows when applying to law school that they need to take the bar exam. Bar passage rates for law schools are also made public and are now well known thanks to the folks at Law School Transparency (and others). I think that the LSAC needs to do a lot of work to cull the herd of applicants, but no one is forcing people to go to law school and take on debt. The bar is a well known requirement to practice law. No one has been hoodwinked and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison to other regulated professions, though. The "closest" profession most folks think of is medicine, and the USMLE's pass rate (putting aside the fact that USMLE Step 1 scores have historically been critical in terms of whether one can snag a "competitive" residency) is >94%. See https://www.usmle.org/performance-data/ ... 018_step-3 That's night and day from the situation with legal education where you have bar passage rates as low as 40.7% in CA.

It's true the data is out there. But, as we've often seen here on TLS, there's often resistance and refusal on the part of the "follow your dreams!" crowd to fully come to grips with the numbers. Everyone thinks they will be the exception - that they will be in that 40.7% of CA bar passers, unlike the majority of their peers. There's an argument for caveat emptor, but IMO the more moral and just thing to do is to protect folks who don't measure up from throwing their money down the drain.

[mtf612]

MA bar officially postponed. Announcement said that in the event they can't have it in the fall because of continued bans on mass gatherings, they will come up with a contingency plan then. Seems kind of silly they wouldn't just enact said contingency now instead of keeping grads in limbo month after month.

NY July Taker here.

Each state that delays the exam needs to announce a contingency plan immediately. With the high likelihood of a resurgence of the virus in the Fall, it would be absolutely devastating to study for eight weeks only to have the exam canceled again two weeks from the test date.

What New York has done, postponing without providing any details, is appalling. The state has placed a large group of students in career purgatory without any promise that they can escape. Sure, we can look forward to the Fall exam, take some comfort in the extra few weeks of relaxation we have in May, and just cross our fingers that the fall works out. But what happens when the virus pops back up in August? Though it would be unconscionable, it is entirely possible that 2020 graduates would see the fall exam canceled and then be forced to wait until February 2021 to sit for the exam.

What the contingency plan might be is up to each bar I suppose. Perhaps diploma privilege paired with an online MBE or a year of attorney supervision. Maybe a guarantee that if the exam cannot be administered in person in the fall, that it will be administered online on that same date. There is no perfect solution, but postponing the bar without a plan for an additional cancellation is insufficient.

[Logicalfallacy]

MA bar officially postponed. Announcement said that in the event they can't have it in the fall because of continued bans on mass gatherings, they will come up with a contingency plan then. Seems kind of silly they wouldn't just enact said contingency now instead of keeping grads in limbo month after month.

NY July Taker here.

Each state that delays the exam needs to announce a contingency plan immediately. With the high likelihood of a resurgence of the virus in the Fall, it would be absolutely devastating to study for eight weeks only to have the exam canceled again two weeks from the test date.

What New York has done, postponing without providing any details, is appalling. The state has placed a large group of students in career purgatory without any promise that they can escape. Sure, we can look forward to the Fall exam, take some comfort in the extra few weeks of relaxation we have in May, and just cross our fingers that the fall works out. But what happens when the virus pops back up in August? Though it would be unconscionable, it is entirely possible that 2020 graduates would see the fall exam canceled and then be forced to wait until February 2021 to sit for the exam.

What the contingency plan might be is up to each bar I suppose. Perhaps diploma privilege paired with an online MBE or a year of attorney supervision. Maybe a guarantee that if the exam cannot be administered in person in the fall, that it will be administered online on that same date. There is no perfect solution, but postponing the bar without a plan for an additional cancellation is insufficient.

I think the best plan would be to do some kind of combined diploma privilege plus online administered MBE. I keep saying this, but the GMAT and GRE are going online with online proctors. It makes no sense why the bar exam can’t be administered remotely, and if states think this is the last pandemic we’ll experience, they’re misguided.

There is some speculation that these vague postponement announcements are to buy time as states figure out what they’re really going to do. That being said, I think it’s irresponsible to announce this early without some details to give or contingency plan in place.

[JusticeSquee]

MA bar officially postponed. Announcement said that in the event they can't have it in the fall because of continued bans on mass gatherings, they will come up with a contingency plan then. Seems kind of silly they wouldn't just enact said contingency now instead of keeping grads in limbo month after month.

NY July Taker here.

Each state that delays the exam needs to announce a contingency plan immediately. With the high likelihood of a resurgence of the virus in the Fall, it would be absolutely devastating to study for eight weeks only to have the exam canceled again two weeks from the test date.

What New York has done, postponing without providing any details, is appalling. The state has placed a large group of students in career purgatory without any promise that they can escape. Sure, we can look forward to the Fall exam, take some comfort in the extra few weeks of relaxation we have in May, and just cross our fingers that the fall works out. But what happens when the virus pops back up in August? Though it would be unconscionable, it is entirely possible that 2020 graduates would see the fall exam canceled and then be forced to wait until February 2021 to sit for the exam.

What the contingency plan might be is up to each bar I suppose. Perhaps diploma privilege paired with an online MBE or a year of attorney supervision. Maybe a guarantee that if the exam cannot be administered in person in the fall, that it will be administered online on that same date. There is no perfect solution, but postponing the bar without a plan for an additional cancellation is insufficient.

Again, the situation sucks. But try to bear in mind that the New York Court of Appeals (and everyone else) has a million more pressing matters right now. They are not going to fuck everyone over. There will be a fair solution for everyone involved. Just hang in there. Everyone is dealing with a hard situation. It's important to remember that as all this is going on, people are being put on ventilators, others are dying. Try to keep this all in perspective.

[JusticeSquee]

https://abovethelaw.com/2020/03/bar-exa ... ssion=true

[fearandtremblingg]

I proposed this in another thread and I'm still not seeing why it's not the best path moving forward.

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

I don't see how an online examination would at all have any merit. How could you fairly administer the bar online without people having access to their notes and outlines?

[mtf612]

I proposed this in another thread and I'm still not seeing why it's not the best path moving forward.

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

I don't see how an online examination would at all have any merit. How could you fairly administer the bar online without people having access to their notes and outlines?

The problem there is that students would need to leave their place of employment for 10-12 weeks (or however long) in order to prepare for the later (February?) bar exam. That might mean several weeks loss of income to prepare for that exam, in addition to not having work until the originally anticipated start dates in the fall.

Also - if the point of the bar exam is to prove competence to practice law, then why allow people to practice at all without taking the bar exam? If this option requires attorney supervision, which I believe it would, then we are also preventing those who planned to open up their own shop from doing so (although this is a very small minority of recent graduates).

As for online exams, plenty of law schools administer at home exams. Most are open book. I don't see how requiring students to plug in an external USB web-cam that is facing their screen, keyboard, and workspace couldn't eliminate the overall majority of cheating concerns when paired with software like examsoft.

[LawSchoolGeeky]

I proposed this in another thread and I'm still not seeing why it's not the best path moving forward.

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

I don't see how an online examination would at all have any merit. How could you fairly administer the bar online without people having access to their notes and outlines?

You could have examinees have their computer cameras on/be recorded as they take the exam as a sort of online proctoring. This might not prevent all cheating, but it would substantially deter it.

[cavalier1138]

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

Here's a fun hypo for your PR class:

Jimmy is an attorney by virtue of "temporary diploma privilege" in his home state of Texas. Texas conferred this status on all class of 2020 grads, with an expiration date set in May 2021. [To make things simple, assume Jimmy will pass C&F review.]

In August 2020, Jimmy takes on a client charged with a dealer-weight drug offense. He represents that client through several motion hearings on a variety of issues before taking the February 2021 bar exam. He loses each of the hearings. In March 2021, on Jimmy's advice, the client takes a plea deal and agrees to a five-year sentence. In May 2021, exam results from February are released, and Jimmy has failed the bar exam.

Identify all the claims Jimmy's former client can bring, both for post-conviction relief and for his civil malpractice case.

[nixy]

I proposed this in another thread and I'm still not seeing why it's not the best path moving forward.

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

I don't see how an online examination would at all have any merit. How could you fairly administer the bar online without people having access to their notes and outlines?

The problem there is that students would need to leave their place of employment for 10-12 weeks (or however long) in order to prepare for the later (February?) bar exam. That might mean several weeks loss of income to prepare for that exam, in addition to not having work until the originally anticipated start dates in the fall.

Also - if the point of the bar exam is to prove competence to practice law, then why allow people to practice at all without taking the bar exam? If this option requires attorney supervision, which I believe it would, then we are also preventing those who planned to open up their own shop from doing so (although this is a very small minority of recent graduates).

As for online exams, plenty of law schools administer at home exams. Most are open book. I don't see how requiring students to plug in an external USB web-cam that is facing their screen, keyboard, and workspace couldn't eliminate the overall majority of cheating concerns when paired with software like examsoft.

People absolutely don’t need to take 10-12 weeks off for the bar. Plenty of people work while studying for the exam, and even the official prep courses are about 8 weeks.

People already practice under supervision before being admitted - in the case of NY, often for months.

I’m not super convinced that the webcam would deter cheating much. There’s no way anyone could monitor the exams live, and even random audits after the fact would have a hard time catching anyone, given the number of test takers. The most they’d provide would be a way to confirm after the fact if other evidence tipped the bar association off that something was wrong. It’s a lot easier for a prof who’s taught you the material all semester to figure out if someone cheated than it would be for the bar examiners to do so. But in any case, it would be a huge step back from how bar associations currently treat the risk of cheating. Circumstances may well lead them to make changes, but I think online at home is unlikely.

(Maybe something like holding the exam over the course of three weeks, with smaller groups taking it at staggered times so you can have the appropriate distance between people? And check temps at the entrance. And then only submit exams electronically to lessen the chance of contagion.)

[fearandtremblingg]

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

Here's a fun hypo for your PR class:

Jimmy is an attorney by virtue of "temporary diploma privilege" in his home state of Texas. Texas conferred this status on all class of 2020 grads, with an expiration date set in May 2021. [To make things simple, assume Jimmy will pass C&F review.]

In August 2020, Jimmy takes on a client charged with a dealer-weight drug offense. He represents that client through several motion hearings on a variety of issues before taking the February 2021 bar exam. He loses each of the hearings. In March 2021, on Jimmy's advice, the client takes a plea deal and agrees to a five-year sentence. In May 2021, exam results from February are released, and Jimmy has failed the bar exam.

Identify all the claims Jimmy's former client can bring, both for post-conviction relief and for his civil malpractice case.

That's a really fair point.

[cavalier1138]

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

Here's a fun hypo for your PR class:

Jimmy is an attorney by virtue of "temporary diploma privilege" in his home state of Texas. Texas conferred this status on all class of 2020 grads, with an expiration date set in May 2021. [To make things simple, assume Jimmy will pass C&F review.]

In August 2020, Jimmy takes on a client charged with a dealer-weight drug offense. He represents that client through several motion hearings on a variety of issues before taking the February 2021 bar exam. He loses each of the hearings. In March 2021, on Jimmy's advice, the client takes a plea deal and agrees to a five-year sentence. In May 2021, exam results from February are released, and Jimmy has failed the bar exam.

Identify all the claims Jimmy's former client can bring, both for post-conviction relief and for his civil malpractice case.

That's a really fair point.

And just to be clear, supervised practice is still an option in these states. It's certainly going to be harder, and not every firm/organization/agency will get on board. But I'd much rather have a large glut of law clerks making their way through the certification process than create an ethical minefield by changing the certification standards for a single group of students.

[fearandtremblingg]

I proposed this in another thread and I'm still not seeing why it's not the best path moving forward.

Why can't a temporary diploma privilege type of status be conferred on all 2020 grads that expires upon the release of results of the next administered exam?

I don't see how an online examination would at all have any merit. How could you fairly administer the bar online without people having access to their notes and outlines?

You could have examinees have their computer cameras on/be recorded as they take the exam as a sort of online proctoring. This might not prevent all cheating, but it would substantially deter it.

I thought of that, but I don't care how good the webcam is, or even if every single person is being monitored the entire time, you could definitely find ways around it to have another monitor or computer somewhere in order to look up answers or cheat. As a bit of an outlandish example, someone with long hair could be wearing bluetooth headphones and be pretending to read out the question out loud while the person on the other line is looking up the answers and relaying them back to the examinee. Or someone could set up a second monitor right behind their monitor in a way where it would be impossible to tell that they weren't looking at their testing screen all the while googling exam answers. I think an online exam would defeat the purpose of having an exam in the first place. If in some crazy situation they did, I would expect the pass rates nationwide to be absurdly high.