Bar Exam Blues

The first three states to delay the July bar exam, California, Massachusetts and New York, and students in all of those states are pushing for something called an emergency diploma privilege. No decision's been made yet, but this emergency diploma privilege would essentially allow graduates of American Bar Association accredited law schools to start practicing law without taking the bar exam due to this COVID-19 and their inability to take the bar exam. New York is right now planning to push the bar exam out until fall as close to Labor Day as possible for example, but it's a big deal because the law students are planning their careers around that bar exam date and their admission. Obviously they can't practice law or do work as a lawyer until they're admitted to the bar, and in order to do that, they have to pass a bar exam. On the one hand, some of the bar exam organizers have pointed out that in many states, 15 to 20 percent of first time takers failed the exam, so admitting everybody to the bar without any kind of examination process is letting people in that probably aren't ready to be led in. On the other hand, students and other organizations are arguing that the students are in a time of unprecedented stress and shouldn't have to go through the bar exam process, and by delaying the bar exam it's pushing off their ability to have a career on time. Basically they're having to wait. It could change the face of the legal market if there is a whole year of, not of people who aren't lawyers because of COVID-19. If that whole year of lawyers is delayed by six, seven or eight weeks, it will change the face of hiring in the legal field for a while. So stay tuned.