Some states have finally figured out that an in-person bar exam — at least one that includes everyone hoping to get licensed — is a bad idea. Utah, Washington, and Oregon have jumped on the emergency diploma privilege train. Others have postponed exams, staggered attendance, or opted for online exams. All the while, the well-compensated folks at NCBE — who have diploma privilege licenses by the way — are expending all their resources trying to intimidate states out of doing anything but running a superspreader event and feeding their monopolistic coffers.
Minnesota law school grads petitioned the state supreme court to consider diploma privilege… and it agreed. Arizona is trying to do the same and looking for folks to submit impact statements. Missouri is too.
Mississippi started by asking applicants to waive their rights if they, you know, died taking the exam. While pointing and laughing was the appropriate response, most jurisdictions instead drew up waivers of their own. We’re getting reports that bar exams are summarily denying ADA requests using their own people to declare — over the opinions of experts — that folks are perfectly fine to take the exam.
Texas claims to be having a bar exam this month but rumors are swirling that NRG Stadium and the Palmer Events Center have already been canceled. In that case, an exam is functionally impossible. Texas hasn’t confirmed this yet, which we assume has NOTHING to do with the deadline for deposits not having passed.
Is there any plan for the California “Baby Bar”?
Let’s just call the bar exam what it is: a death drive. There’s scant evidence that the exam is necessary to protect the public and overwhelming evidence that it’s injurious to the profession and the public and yet we still have it because… TRADITION! And now the obsession with this professional hazing ritual is going to get people sick and possibly killed.
There are other ways to license attorneys, you just have to step outside your own experience and realize that just because you took a grueling exam to prove you really earned the degree you earned two months earlier doesn’t mean everyone has to. “Diploma privilege plus” works. States can create reciprocity without the NCBE’s say so. Public health is more important than your rite of passage.
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.