BERKELEY – The California Supreme Court on April 27 delayed the annual bar exam that allows a law student to graduate to a practicing attorney, from July to September, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The move came as the deans of law schools and students disagreed on what substitute should be used to replace in-person exams.
The student proposal to grant temporary “law degrees” the dean at the Berkeley Law School said is not a likely scenario.
“I think it inevitable and wise to delay the July bar exam,” dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the Northern California Record. “I hope they succeed in developing an on-line bar exam. But the deans have been told by Judy Gunderson, executive director of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, that it’s unlikely to be ready so soon.
"I had hoped they would have considered provisional licensing, and am sorry this was not mentioned,” Chemerinsky added.
The bar exam is normally held every July.
The new date for the bar is Sept. 9 and 10.
According to California Courts Newsroom, a Supreme Court order directs the State Bar Board of Trustees to work with the National Conference of Bar Examiners to create an online testing procedure for the multiple-choice part of the test, due in September.
In addition, efforts will be made to administer online exams using remote and electronic technology.
The order also calls for a work plan to be submitted to the Supreme Court no later than May 11, outlining planned goals and milestones for online administration of the tests.
According to a report in Bloomberg Law, while both deans and students at California law schools generally agreed with a postponement of the in-person (July) exams, they disagreed on a substitute. Deans from 17 California law schools including Berkeley, Stanford, and UCLA, favored a proposal where grad students would practice law under the mentorship of a licensed attorney.
Under the proposal that relationship would continue until the students would eventually take and pass the bar, as long as they meet other admission requirements. The pro-mentor group which includes Chemerinsky, envisioned the students would train for roughly two years before taking the bar exam.
However, students had other ideas.
A coalition including more than 1,400 attendees, recent graduates, professors, and some practicing attorneys, argued for an "emergency diploma" privilege that would allow graduate law students to practice without passing the bar exam.
“It’s the only alternative that makes sense during a global pandemic,” Donna Saadati-Soto, a third-year Harvard Law School student who co-leads the coalition, told Bloomberg Law.
Saadati-Soto added that delays deciding on an in-person substitute would make little sense because no one knows when the virus crisis will be over. Some law students already have locked in full-time job start dates, she noted.
The diploma privilege is not a new idea and has been used by states before.
“Since the mid-1800s, more than 30 states and the District of Columbia have offered a diploma privilege at one time or another,” the Bloomberg report said.
Wisconsin still allows a diploma privilege for those who graduate from law schools in that state.
Other states like New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Alaska announced they are also delaying the July exam until Sept. 9-10.
In New York, officials rejected the temporary diploma idea after a task force decided the absence of an examination would create unacceptable risks that persons lacking minimum competence to practice law would gain admission in New York.