Last week, Indiana pulled the plug on its planned online bar exam this week, rescheduling to next week in an effort to work out bugs that still plagued the system on Friday. The move got a lot of people wondering about Michigan’s plans, given that the neighboring state planned to hold its own online exam this week. Never fear, Michigan told the world! Unlike Indiana, Michigan employed ExamSoft as its vendor and wouldn’t have the problems plaguing the Hoosiers.
Fast forward…
Of course. A response on Twitter stated, “Can confirm. Examsoft isn’t taking calls either. We were supposed to start the second module 20 minutes ago and there has been no message from the test administrators.”
Michigan, for its part, thinks it’s got a handle on it:
Again, online exams are better than in-person exams, and there’s every reason to believe that this process will be vastly improved by October when more states are eyeing their online exams. But the problem is that the only way to get to October with a working system is to keep forcing applicants to act as unwitting Beta testers during the most important examination of their lives. That’s not a model for effective licensing… it’s just madness.
Sooner or later we’re just going to have to come to grips with the fact that this is an antiquated model of credentialing attorneys and build something new. If the goal is guaranteeing that all licensed attorneys are practicing at a high enough level to protect the public, a one-time exam on subjects that the lawyer never intends to practice simply makes no sense. Blow it all up and start over.
And until then just grant diploma privilege and put a stop to all this.
Earlier: Online Bar Exam Software Still Not Working On Friday, Test On Tuesday
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.