In this blog post Professor Allie Robbins eloquently sets out why, during this crisis, states should implement alternative law licensing methods. She argues states should forego in-person exams this year to avoid the inevitable health risks to bar-takers, their families, and the members of the public who come into contact with them. The entire blog is set out below. It’s a powerful piece that hopefully will find its way to state boards of bar examiners and state supreme court justices as “food for thought”.
“Please do not hold the bar exam this year. Do not hold it in July. Do not hold it in September. Maybe not even next February. Figure out a better way to license attorneys. There are many options.
Recent liability waivers from Mississippi and North Carolina demonstrate that you understand the serious dangers posed by taking a two-day exam in person surrounded by a lot of other people. The fact that you are finding it difficult to find proctors and are asking for help from “young attorneys” says that your own people are telling you it is too risky.
Putting hundreds, or even dozens, of stressed out people in a room together for hours and hours in the midst of a global pandemic is a public health disaster. Temperature checks only tell you if someone has a fever, not whether someone has the virus. Many transmissions if COVID-19 occur from asymptomatic individuals. Masks are helpful, but not 100% effective. Some of you are permitting masks but not requiring them, leaving many potential carriers the option of exposing those around them. Have you tried to do 100 MBE questions with a mask on? The anxiety surrounding the bar exam is immeasurably high in normal times. This, is taking it to an unimaginable new level.
There doesn’t have to be a bar exam. But if you think there does, you can do it online, as Nevada and Indiana will be doing. Those of you in UBE states may feel that you no longer have the capacity to administer your own exam. But you did it not that long ago. You can do it again. There are expert exam writers at your local law schools who can help. You could even work together and have each state draft one essay question. There are many options. Please explore them.
There are concerns about exam security. But if that is the driving force for having an in person exam, then you are prioritizing fears about cheating over the protection of human life. Do you really think so little of the next class of attorneys that they must risk their lives to prove to you that they would not cheat on an exam?
Ask yourself honestly, would you take the bar exam during this pandemic? Would you encourage your child to? Do you really want to be responsible for the next surge in your community?
You may counter that hundreds of applicants have registered so they must want to take it. But what they want is to be a licensed attorney. Their registration is a product of employer pressure, fear, and the perverse incentives of the legal profession. Despite their registration, they are terrified.
We owe it to the newest members of our profession not to sacrifice their health for the sake of the status quo. Nothing is the same right now, and it shouldn’t be. We are in the midst of a worldwide health crisis. Is the bar exam actually worth risking their lives for? Is there really no way to determine who is minimally competent to be an attorney, other than to have them all gathered together in a room for two days?
The purpose of the bar exam is, ostensibly, to protect the public. What about protecting law graduates?
These waivers may protect you from legal liability, but if you go forward with an in-person bar exam, you will still be responsible for spreading COVID-19 throughout the population of new law graduates, their friends, families, and communities. How can this possibly be the right decision?”
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