M. Eleanor Schmalzl ‘20
Editor Emeritus
In the last month, the United States has seen drastic change in all areas of life. Beyond businesses shutting down and classes being moved online across the country, the bar exam is one area of specific concern for graduating law students. As of April 6, five states have officially opted to postpone the bar exam that was originally scheduled to be administered in July of 2020: New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii, and New Jersey.[1] The National Conference of Bar Examiners also recently announced how it plans to address bar examination issues for the thirty-five jurisdictions (thirty-three states along with the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands) who administer the Uniform Bar Exam every year. The NCBE stated, “To provide needed flexibility for jurisdictions and candidates, in addition to preparing materials for a July bar exam, NCBE will make bar exam materials available for two fall administrations in 2020: September 9-10 and September 30-October 1. Each jurisdiction will determine whether to offer the exam in July, in early September, or in late September.”
These announcements and changes leave many graduating law students uncertain of when they will be able to sit for the bar exam and anxious about whether a fall administration will even be possible. With delayed administration of the bar exam, those preparing to sit may face several obstacles and challenges in studying for the bar beyond the already challenging, labor-intensive study schedule that is considered par for the course. Challenges may include moving in the midst of studying, starting new jobs, running out of money to live on while they wait to be barred, studying while living in close quarters with others with whom students are self-quarantined, and, most significantly, the fear of sitting for the exam if the student has a compromised immune system. Because of the significant hardship many could be, or are facing, students across the country have been pushing for states to implement an emergency diploma privilege that would allow graduates of American Bar Association-accredited law schools to be admitted without taking the bar.[2]
Law students are not the only individuals pushing for issuance of diploma privileges; law school administrators are fighting on behalf of students as well. The deans of all fifteen of New York’s ABA-accredited law schools signed a letter “urg[ing] the court to adopt a system whereby 2020 law graduates would be able to practice for up to 18 months under the supervision of a licensed attorney” and sent the letter to Chief Judge Janet DiFiore of the New York State Court of Appeals (New York state’s highest court) on April 1.[3] In a school-wide Zoom call with UVA Law’s very own Dean Goluboff, one student asked whether Virginia’s law school deans have discussed the possibility of a similar letter in Virginia. Goluboff replied that a meeting with all the Virginia deans was set for later in the afternoon that day. No further information has been disclosed at this time.
The legal profession also stands to suffer hardship with the administration of a postponed bar examination. While many students face delays in starting legal positions that are contingent on passage of the bar exam, those planning to hire them may also suffer as work piles up with fewer people staffed to handle it. And with many court systems not hearing cases beyond those that are urgent or time-sensitive, mounds of work await those planning to enter offices involved in the courtroom. Many students planning to work in these roles also cannot practice in a courtroom without bar licensure or a practice certificate, most of which usually expire shortly after the results of the July exam were set for release. This means those students will be legally unable to perform certain aspects of the jobs they have accepted for the fall, leaving fewer attorneys and more work than usual to be done.
Even if an emergency diploma privilege option is given, further questions exist for students planning to sit for a bar exam in one state with plans to waive into another jurisdiction shortly thereafter. Wisconsin is the only state at this time that regularly offers a diploma privilege option whereby students who attend a Wisconsin law school and meet certain requirements will receive admission to the state’s bar without having to take an admission exam. However, this privilege does not allow Wisconsin attorneys to transfer this admission to other states where they may like to practice, meaning students who went to school in Wisconsin but want to practice in Virginia (for example) would need to sit for Virginia’s exam to be able to do so. Thus, as students and administrators advocate for a change in policy, the many complications and questions that exist beneath the surface add to the challenging decision facing bar licensure groups across the country.
These challenges, along with others, will continue to grow and manifest as the impacts of a delayed bar exam become transparent. The difficulty at the forefront for those planning to sit in July 2020, however, is the uncertainty of what will happen next. Many graduates begin studying for the July bar in May after their graduation, but whether that is advisable or not cannot be known until more information is released by various jurisdictions. As students advocate for alternative means of getting barred and worry about the challenges they face in sitting for a traditional bar exam, they have to set plans now for their future when what their future actually holds is very uncertain.
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mes5hf@virginia.edu