For what it's worth, my software worked perfectly during the exam, and the upload went like clockwork. No problems here.

Idiots. Why use a relatively untested software? Examsoft et al. have been in use for a while and the bugs have been worked out.

My software worked fine, but of course I killed three pitbulls on the way to the exam for good luck.

5:22 - that settles it, clearly must be user error

What about the fact that you couldn't go back to edit your answer? Or that you freaked out once you realized your answer was missing? And that when 1 of the 4 tech people came over, they couldn't assure you of anything?

Think that frazzled anyone's nerves or cost them points on future essays?

What a mess...I'm glad it worked for YOU, 5:22, but this is clearly a f**k up on the bar's part.

Does the New York Bar support White Girls With Asian Guys?

I was a programmer before I went to law school. It wasn't fucking user error for me. It was douchebag-bar-examiners-choosing-Securexam error for me.

No, those aren't my answers at all! My answers were these much better ones, which only look like I worked on them for five days with full LEXIS access after receiving notice that you had potentially garbled my exam, but really were done in the single minute between the last time the exam saved pre-screw-up and the screw-up.

Dear Lat:

Why have you forsaken me? Others have opted to shamelessly invoke my copyrighted phrase (Figgiti-FIRST!). So take this comment as a DMCA notice-and-takedown warning or something.

Why you continue to delete my first posts while leaving others untouched truly baffles me. What must the Captain do to assume his rightful place again as FIRST! poster?

Mine are deleted too. It boggles my mind.

i thought we demoted you to Leuitenant..

While I do feel badly for all the affected examinees, boy am I sick of your bitching and moaning. Get a grip.

Things like this happen all the time in the real world of practicing law. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a lawyer get up in front of a group of clients or a courtroom and have their beautiful Power Point presentation fail to load. Some lawyers deal with the situation and move on, while others fall to pieces.

It sounds like a lot of you whiners would fall in the latter group. In fact, I'm starting to think this "software failure" was actually a brilliant Darwinian move on the Examiners' part.

Securexam is quite possibly the worst exam software on the market. It's unconscionable for the NY bar to license them--but I guess they're generally the lowest bidders in this game because of their third world product.

A board that deletes "first!" posts takes itself too seriously. It's not like it takes more than a millisecond to read the five letters and move to the next post. I hate boards without a sense of humor.

6:07: the rest of us hate posters whose sense of humor includes "first." Hooray for active board monitoring, and here's to hoping that it people won't even bother with such posts in the future.

Armchair Litigator, the difference is, real lawyers get a chance relatively quickly to deal with the situation. Bar examinees are held hostage by bar rules, and won't have a chance to "deal with it" until next February. That's a fucking long time to wait to be allowed to fix something that wasn't your fault in the first place.

Law students gripe about a lot of stupid things, but this one's legit.

People were literally crying after the bar exam. It is stressful enough without this BS...and the first essay question was on secured transactions. I hear that the Barbri essay predicitons were 100% wrong this year....ooopps

First!

5:41

You're not much of a litigator if you can't understand why someone who invests a lot of his time/money/energy in something would get upset when, after being assured that the software will work, finds that it doesn't and his efforts are rendered useless. (There's your basic litigation fact pattern, 50% of the time).

And this is nothing like a PPT not working in a boardroom or in court. In those situations, you CAN recover. Here, the software errors became apparent near the END of the exam. No way to recover. The result is: (1) people freaking out because they DON'T KNOW if what they wrote was saved, and (2) people angry because when they saw what happened, some of them tried to re-type an answer in the limited time left, but probably wrote a worse answer on their second attempt. So, really, the "bitching and moaning" is justified. (And no, I did not just take the exam).

Best of luck dreaming up further analogies.

What were these 2 sentences supposed to say??

"We ask for your patience as we answers. Indeed, we have been advised by Software Secure that at this time it does not appear sort through and process all of the essay answers."

BarBri was pretty much 100% incorrect the year I took the CA Bar, too. I've come to the conclusion that the Bar people learn what BarBri's predictions are . . . and then make sure to not follow them.

Eagle, Real Lawyer,

Did you read the letter? The software company has assured the bar examiners that all answers can be recovered.

Now examinees are complaining that they were freaked out by the problems during the exam and unable to focus, so their recovered answers will suck. My analogy is dead on.

Armchair,
At the time of the exam, they weren't told that. They had to hope their exams were saved somewhere, but they couldn't see them. Some people went back and tried to re-answer, and who knows what will happen to those people. Will the software get their first, organized answer, or the one they tried to put together with 5 minutes left.

And honestly, shame on anyone making fun of people in this situation. Did you not take the bar as well, and was it not one of the most terrifying couple of days of your lives? Imagine if halfway through writing your bar, some crazy guy came around and grabbed half your answer books. Sure, maybe the police get sent after the guy, but in the meantime, you have no idea if anyone is recovering your answers, or if you should just start re-writing them, or whether you should just cry. I sympathize with them.

6:56

I have no idea what those sentences or nearly half of the sentences in that rambling email say. If that garbled English is correct to the bar examiners though, perhaps all the test takers will be fine if their essays were mangled!

6:56, sounds like Engrish.

Armchair, what 7:21 said. The bar exam is one of THE most stressful things I've ever done in my life -- and I'm in California, where it's actually THREE days instead of a "couple" ;)

6:25 The first question was actually on commercial paper.

I wasn't so much freaked out by the problems during the exam as unable to write as complete an answer the second time I did essay #1, due to the fact that time did not stop for me. Wonder why that was.

Thanks Armchair Litigator! Now I'll just hop into my Wayback Machine and tell past me that future me has found out the good news that the borderline mental deficient tech proctor actually was successful in recovering my entire exam, at least, according to the completely mentally deficient software company that was responsible for the problem. Past me is going to be so psyched!

is anybody out there going to request a refund of their $70 through their credit card? I am considering it.
There are also people who downloaded the program because they thought their laptop met the specs, but then the program refused to load anyway. CAn those people get their money back?
It's really intimidating messing with BOLE. Who knows what they'll tell C&F.

Oh, those many years ago, it really rattled my concentration that the guy at my table kept finishing his portion of the exam and leaving with an hour or hour and a half in each 3 hour session. Sure, I found the state portion of the bar kinda easy, but it didn't make me feel better that the guy was leaving when I was only halfway done.

Maybe I could timeport back and tell myself "Don't worry about the guy who keeps leaving halfway through. He fails the Bar."

8:30, do you want my Wayback Machine?

And Armchair, it's "bad" not "badly." You're describing your feeling, not the manner in which you feel it.

Thankfully, things worked out well for the poor sap regarding the stolen 1985 exam answers (but not for the vast majority of the 500+ others).

--Poor Sap

If it messed it up for everyone, that's fine, because then it would just lower the curve

8:52: I'm not so sure. You say "I feel well", not "I feel good", right? Or, at least both are acceptable. I've never understood this because my inclination is to agree with you, though it might be that an adverb's an adverb, whether it describes just the verb "to be" or the manner in which one is "being."

Could be a blessing in disguise. Go to B-School (or Apex Tech) instead. Unless you have a strong commitment to public interest law, get out while you can. There is no brass ring, only anti-anxiety meds when dealing with a**hole partners and clients while your family eats dinner without you.

Well is both an adjective and an adverb. When one does something well, it's the opposite of badly. When one feels well, it's the opposite of sick. Hence wellness vs. sickness.

I hate to say it ... but if all the laptop nerds had handwritten their exams, they wouldn't be shitting bricks right now. I mean, shit can happen with bluebooks too, like a crazed examinee running off with half the exam books, but that's a once in a lifetime thing, whereas computers crash all the time.

My Brother paid his ex child support as he was to do,but his payments were in cash and check which she gave him a receipt with the date and the amounts written down and she signed them.Well 3 yrs later she filed suit for back support,the Judge made my brother pay back the portion which was in Cash,He only counted what was paid by check.So now she gets another 7k out of my brother. WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE !!!!!! Donald

My Brother paid his ex child support as he was to do,but his payments were in cash and check which she gave him a receipt with the date and the amounts written down and she signed them.Well 3 yrs later she filed suit for back support,the Judge made my brother pay back the portion which was in Cash,He only counted what was paid by check.So now she gets another 7k out of my brother. WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE !!!!!! Donald

And what further action will BOLE take? I expect: absolutely nothing!

The freaking laptop program was awful. I sat in a room of about 200 people up in Albany. The proctors said to raise your fist in the air if you have issues. 10 min after the exam started, there were 25 hands in the air, and with only 3 tech people, it took them a long time to get the initial issues resolved.

Then the real fun began:
Apparently one of the major issues was that the program would erase your answer when you moved on to the next one. So about 45 minutes into the exam 25 more hands shot up, and this continued throughout the entire exam. People had their laptops taken away, only to be brought back and then taken away again. There were not nearly enough techs so people would have their computer mess up, and then spend a stressful half hour waiting for someone to get there all while trying to write their exam with one hand while having the other one raised. Of course no one informed people that their answers could be recovered, so they rewrote their answers by hand. There were girls in hysterics because they thought they lost all their work, frantically trying to rewrite everything.

I spent the entire exam praying for my laptop not to lock up (I lucked out). BOLE really messed things up this time, I don't know what they'll do for the people who's computers messed up, but they better do something.

11:13/11:14, maybe you should contact a lawyer for a real consultation instead of posting a partially coherent domestic-relations query to a legal tabloid. Just a thought.

Okay, what is it with the girl with the black turtleneck and pink coat. I know it was cold at some locations, but did anyone really wear a turtleneck sweater to the July bar?

they really did mess this up, and someone should pay for it...where is the accountability?

Something else worth considering that people have hinted at, but no one has come right out and said. The amount of technical proctors in the room was wholly inadequate, especially considering how much money was paid by the laptop users. I was in the Javitz center with approximately 1700 other people. At $70/person, that's about $120k revenue just in the javitz center. For $120k revenue, the fact that they had only 4 or 5 tech. proctors to serve 1700 people is ridiculous.
The big controversy is not going to come about because someone's answer was lost (it looks like that won't happen). The big controversy will be what to do with those who tried to re-write their answer in 10 minutes. They will have a 10 minute, horribly written, wholly inadequate answer that was there at the end, in addition to the answer that was what they originally mean to write but thought was erased. Which one is graded? This is in addition to the fact that these people lost time on their last essay because they were trying to retype a previous answer.

Handwriting FTW. Technology FTL.

It's true. While I completely empathize with the individuals who lost their exams, mishaps with written exams just do not occur with the same frequency as computer mishaps. Obviously, otherwise we would be hearing a lot more noise about the massive ink shortages that occurred midway through the exam or the great bubbling crisis where answer choices to the MBE suddenly began vanishing.

In fact, when you have a room with even a couple hundred computers, the question is not whether a computer problem will occur but, when, and to whom. Computer takers all knew this risk and again, while I feel bad it happened and it would be nice if computers would problem free, you made your beds...now lie in them quietly!

8:51...

So true. I feel the same way about people who drive cars. I mean, we all hear the statistics about car accidents, and the number of people who die when they get hit by drunk drivers. By most accounts, driving is a relatively high-risk activity. Yet people still continue to drive. Considering the statistics, the questions is not if you will get into an accident, but when, and how. But then you hear these people moan about their car getting totaled, or getting all weepy because their loved one was killed by a drunk driver. They made their beds -- why won't they just lie in them quietly? Sheesh.

Fuck you Handwriting Expert - I went through 3 years of law school and wrote every single exam on my laptop - on average I'd say that only 1 out of 100 people ever had a problem, and most of those were just in getting examsoft started properly. So if you want to cite my experience, perhaps you should know that was my experience. You fucking asshole.

I transferred law schools and so had the (perhaps) unique experience of using both Examsoft (at the first school) and Software SecureExam (at the second) to write exams. Both were totally fraught with problems and a lot of time that could have been spent studying was wasted in jumping through the "compliance" hoops to make sure that everything on the laptop was set up properly and tested and re-tested. My sympathies to those in NY who had problems with the exam.

let's get everybody to deman a refund from their credit card company, that will get their attention!!

A quick retort.

First, to Let the Eagle Soar, there are things that an individual can do to make driving safer, such as driving defensively and taking precautions. You cannot do this with computer problems - unless you'd like to explain to all the people on this board what they could have done differently.

Also, driving is arguably a necessity, especially if you live in more suburban areas. Taking the bar by computer is not. You may find it more convenient, but then you take the risks that come with that convenience.

As far as anon., you prove my point. Taking your stats, 1 out of 100 people had a problem. We were dealing with a much larger pool here. Thus, your post proves my point...it was a matter of who would have a problem, not if there would be a problem. So thanks for supporting my position.

9:18: worst analogy EVER. I hope you're not a lawyer. Or if you are, I hope you're my opposing counsel.

Wow Handwriting expert, yours is the most un-thoughtout post I've seen in quite some time. No one is complaining because some people had computer problems, the issue is that a significant percentage had computer problems. There is a big difference between 1 in 100 having a problem, and 1 in 4 (my best guess based on actually having been there).

There are precautions that one can take against having computer problems, such as running anti-viruses, running anti-spam software, and carefully following the instructions given by software secure. It is that these precautions didn't matter that is so infuriating.

In my room there were probably 20/100 people having problems, so my experience tends to support the 1/100 guy's point (I think) - if you thought there'd only be about a 1/100 chance of problems, it's reasonable to think it could be dealt with quickly. Of course, if you were used to having a 20/100 problem ratio in law school then the bar exam experience would have been something you could anticipate. So Handwriting Expert, I think you're correct to say that in general people COULD anticipate problems with writing on laptops, but the fact is that the magnitude of the problem really is what we're talking about. Everybody knows problems occur with laptops. No news flash there, and maye, just maybe, you're entitled to say that people should have thought about that. BUT, the enormity of the problems I experienced is sui generis.

I just graduated in 2007, and we used ExamSoft - I recall there being a lot more problems as a 1L, but that things seemed quite a bit better when I was a 2L and 3L.

What makes you think Visa is going to refund the $70? Yeah right...

Anon at 9:46 may be correct - if BOLE thought that 20/100 people would have a disastrous experience with freezing and disappearing answers, they would not have administered the exam on laptop. So Handwriting Expert is partly wrong because the problems were so widespread, they amounted to near disaster that even BOLE doesn't quite know what to do with yet. If it were just something that people were supposed to expect, I assure you that the completely unsentimental powers that be at BOLE would have the same reaction as Handwriting Expert, but they're not. For the record, I had absolutely zero problems of any kind.

Handwriting Expert- you're arguments are useless generalities. I hope you see that now. Thanks for playing.

First off, for those of you who didn't realize the problems until the end of the exam, you have all the sympathy I have to offer. That said, I do have a few problems with some of the posts here.

Most of my exam answers only took 15-20 mintues to write, including time to read the problem. It seems to me that re-writing it after having already read and considering the problem should not yeild a "horribly written, wholly inadequate answer" in ten minutes. As a laptop applicant, you have an advantage over those who handwrite because you can go back and edit your answer and add in information coherently. I'm not going to weap for you because you didn't have time to edit.

Also, it seems that if 25 hands went up after the first question, then the same 25 went up after the second question, there are 25 really stupid people. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. If I saw even one minor glitch, I would have ran away from my laptop and picked up my pen.

That said, I feel for those of you who had problems and agree that NY screwed up. But it sounds like some of the applicants could have been more emotionally and intellectually prepared to deal with problems and abandon their computers.

Handwriting Expert- your arguments are useless generalities wholly out of sync with the actual experience of people who took the exam on laptop. I hope you see that now. Thanks for playing. I believe we have a lovely T-shirt for you that says "I Didn't Write the 2007 July Bar Exam on Laptop But I'm a Douchebag and That Doesn't Stop Me From Posting Idiotic Comments about it on ATL"

So do you think Software Secure's reputation is permanently tarnished and they'll never regain any credible reputation?

In response to July 31, 2007 10:00 AM.

The hands that went up the second time, were only partially the same people. New people had issues (because the program seemed to lock up at random times), and the old people couldn't be blamed. They would have their laptop taken away, and returned, and told that the problem wouldn't happen again (happened to the guy in front of me). Wouldn't you believe a tech that told you a problem was fixed?

Handwriting Expert...

You sort of get the point, but not really. The point: there's risk in everything. It's absurd to fault someone where they took a reasonable risk, especially on the advice of the bar examiners and the software company that the likelihood of error/disaster was slim. It turns out, the failure rate was pretty high. With your reasoning -- that if there was a less risk alternative (handwriting), then people shouldn't complain -- we would have no litigation, because everyone should just get over it. That would probably be a good thing in an ideal world, but it's not realistic, and it's not necessarily fair either.

9:36 am -- it wasn't so much an "analogy" as it was a parody. Thanks for your valuable contribution.

Anon. 10:00 - I don't think people are upset because they didn't have time go back and edit, but rather that they got freaked out by the fact that their original answers seemed to have been lost. This would, understandably, have a negative impact on any answer they were to rewrite. But I completely agree with the whole "fool me once" thing - if my computer were to malfunction once, I'm sure as hell not going to keep on using it!

I just hope they figure out what went wrong in time for the 2008 bar exam!

And by the way - I am pretty sure that the whole drunk-driving post was sarcastic, not serious...

I was handwriting the bar exam in the Armory last week. With about 25 minutes to go in the morning session of the state part (essays) the fire alarm went on. People kept working through the screeching sounds, flashing lights and some disturbing possibilities of a real fire.

There are always distractions. One can only put his/her head down and plow through.

I feel for people who had laptop problems. Bar Exam is the most useless, stupidifying experience imaginable. It does not reflect on your abilities for being a lawyer.
I think the only true skill that was tested is the ability to focus and deal with problems as they come your way.

10:40 -- Trust a tech guy? Are you kidding? If I see lots of hands going up around the room, I am on notice that there are significant problems. This it one of the biggest exams of your life. If I had one glitch, I'd have retreated to safe ground. Of course, I'm talking with 20/20 hindsight, so I probably sound like a bastard.

Once again, bar takers should suck it up, practice handwriting, and take the exam in fail-safe bluebooks. Everyone knows there's a risk of computer glitches. Some years may have more problems than others. It is an unknown risk which was higher this year. If you want to be safe, take pen(cil) to paper. If you want to scramble for the lottery to win a laptop seat, then you are accepting the technology risk there. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. You know from horror stories of past years that there's little recourse for computer problems. With the bar exam you'd be well-advised to play it safe rather than go for convenience of a laptop. This isn't pure hindsight either. Looking at last year's problems before deciding to go for the laptop option is foresight.

One thing to consider in whether this was a disaster of massive proportions is where people are getting these numbers. In the room I was in, that held around 200 people, there were not 50 different hands in the air. My guess was that there were 15-20 total in that room. And if I was to guess further, I bet that half of those people didn't really have a problem at all. I know a lot of people were freaking out over non-issues. For example, although there were two different sessions of the exam, the file for each session was combined into one file (like a zip file). Some people were raising their hand because their computer/usb only had one file on it at the end of the day. They didn't lose anything. And then you have the people who just can't follow instructions and were trying to upload it wirelessly when they were supposed to be saving it to the usb.

As for those who say parts of their essays were missing, well, they have my sympathy, although I don't believe they're screwed. The program saves on its own something like, every minute. I know that at one point I was undoing some formatting on the MPT and I was able to go back and undo over 10 different things. It's quite possible they save the history with the file.

I used to curse my school for not provideing laptop exams, now I am glad I handwrite every law school essay, including the bar. What happens if a virus cripples all the computers at your office, would be nice to know how to use a typewriter. Old school meets the new.

With that said, I hope all works out for the laptop takers, and I am sorry you had to deal with the extra headache.

all this squabble is fine, but didn't the examiners say that there should be no problems in retrieving all the exams?

I can understand the guys bitching about this stuff. I hand wrote the exam and was not even able to finish the MPT! I cannot imagine someone worrying about the software at the same time! By the way, anybody else who didn't quite finish the exam? Or am i the only ****#r?

Disclaimer on BOLE website: The New York State Board of Law Examiners does not warrant or guarantee the software program, and the Board assumes no liability in the event there is a hardware or software malfunction or in the event of a power failure. In order to participate in the Laptop Program, you will required to sign an acknowledgement agreeing to and understanding that in the event of a malfunction with your computer, the software, or other technical difficulties including, but not limited to, the loss of electrical power at the examination center, you will have to begin and/or continue with the examination by handwriting your essay answers. (A copy of the acknowledgement that you will be required to sign on the day of the exam before you commence work on your laptop is set forth below.)

Disclaimer on BOLE website: The New York State Board of Law Examiners does not warrant or guarantee the software program, and the Board assumes no liability in the event there is a hardware or software malfunction or in the event of a power failure. In order to participate in the Laptop Program, you will required to sign an acknowledgement agreeing to and understanding that in the event of a malfunction with your computer, the software, or other technical difficulties including, but not limited to, the loss of electrical power at the examination center, you will have to begin and/or continue with the examination by handwriting your essay answers. (A copy of the acknowledgement that you will be required to sign on the day of the exam before you commence work on your laptop is set forth below.)

hi - with about 1000 people in the laptop room at virginia, i personally saw 1 or 2 hands go up total during the writing time - 2 or 3 of their tech guys would run right over and take care of it - everything was very orderly and under control - we used extegrity exam4 software

I have been working in the field of Tests and measurments for years. The research on impediments to optimal test performance is well known. The fact that those who experienced "computer glitches" were traumatized not only by the experience but also collateral effects such as administrator interruptions (diminishing time allowance), and the very thought that one had lost just one essay would certainly ring the death toll to success in any bar exam. I would venture a guess that if one compares the afternoon scores with the morning scores, one might see a lowering in performance. There are other software packages which are tried and true. It seems to me that a class action law suit might be in order against the software company. The same thing occurred with the MCAT's in Jan. and three options were offered to all involved.