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On the heels of the Minnesota Supremes pushing ahead with the state’s in-person July bar exam in a curt opinion ignoring overwhelming public health advice, Louisiana and New Jersey have finally seen enough and pulled the plug on the planned examinations.
New Jersey had already canceled the July exam, but now takes the extra step of calling off the September in-person exam, recognizing that conditions aren’t going to be much better by the Fall than they are right now. Instead, the state will run an October online exam.
Louisiana has struggled with what to do about the bar exam for weeks now. They shortened the test and offered an online version, but in the end there is no way to run a bar exam in the midst of rising infections.
Unfortunately, Louisiana didn’t bother to sort out the backup plan before telling everyone that the exam would be canceled. Will it be moved to September? October? Fully online? Diploma privilege? The court offered no inkling as to what comes next, understandably frustrating graduates who have been cramming for this test for weeks and now have to just let this all seep out of their brains for a few months before starting over.
This result is patently unfair and likely to cause undue hardship as people try to take a delayed exam while juggling their new jobs. Diploma privilege remains the only sane response to the challenges of 2020. A letter asking for a diploma privilege response brought some receipts to the party:
“We point out that neither licensure by diploma privilege nor supervised practice are foreign concepts in the Louisiana legal profession,” the letter reads. “From 1842 to 1937, Louisiana used licensure by diploma privilege as an alternative to growing dissatisfaction with the state bar examination then in existence, a dissatisfaction which has recently reemerged with vigor.”
But as frustrating as this all is for Louisiana graduates, it’s worth focusing on the positive: there are still a lot of states out there who simply do not care if graduates get sick, and your state isn’t one of them.
Louisiana bar exam canceled amid statewide coronavirus increases, law grads left reeling [NOLA.com]
Fall In-Person NJ Bar Exam Canceled, Goes Online Only Due to COVID-19 [Law.com]
Earlier: State Supreme Court Hears Public Health Concerns, Ignores Public Health Concerns
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.