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Ave Bar Examiners, morituri te salutant!
It’s disputed whether or not gladiators ever saluted anyone with the famous “we who are about to die” language, but it’s a fitting quote for contextualizing the July bar exam administration. Multiple states went forward with exams this week and the results have been mostly surreal and terrible.
This post will serve as your July bar exam coverage hub. We’ll be populating this post with links and social media reports throughout the day.
Now let’s breakdown the news so far…
Not All Hacks Are Bar Examiners
Michigan’s online bar exam crashed yesterday morning and by the end of the day they’d given up on the whole schedule and just gave out the passwords to all the modules at once. It was a chilling omen for the jurisdictions still committed to an October online exam.
But Michigan’s… defense?… is that the software didn’t crash on its own. According to ExamSoft, the vendor running the test, they were the victims of an elaborate cyberattack!
Assuming this is true — and with Indiana’s online exam, run by rival vendor ILG, still not working Occam’s Razor suggests this is really just an inherent problem with the platform — wouldn’t this be worse? If online bar exams are this easily hacked, doesn’t it spell doom for all of the upcoming exams? And even if all of the applicants’ personal data remained secure this time, what confidence is there that this will remain true next time? Remember, Michigan was the only online bar exam this week, meaning ExamSoft could devote immediate attention to resolving the problem. In October, we’re planning on multiple online exams with orders of magnitude more applicants running simultaneously.
Anyway, more about yesterday’s crash here: Today’s Online Bar Exam… Has Crashed
In True Exams The Smallest Distance Is Too Great And The Greatest Distance Can Be Bridged
For those taking the exam in person, many were stunned to learn that the bare minimum of social distancing… isn’t all that distant. In fact, it can appear downright crowded.
Read more about the cramped seating in Montana here: Bar Exam ‘Socially Distant’ Seating Doesn’t Look Much Different Than Its ‘No Cheating’ Seating and North Carolina here: This Is What A Socially Distanced Bar Exam Looks Like… Do You Feel Safe? And check out the report on North Carolina’s happy fun time maskless lunch here: Bar Exam Lunch Appears To Be A Maskless Mess
Who Was That Unmasked Man?
Bar examiners were SUPER SERIOUS about wearing masks during the exam… for about 5 minutes.
Virginia had the same problem:
And North Carolina:
Remember to hit us up at tips@abovethelaw.com with any tips you have about the bar exam administration. We depend on you!
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.