Further Update on the South Carolina Bar Exam
For those of you who followed the South Carolina bar exam controversy, previously discussed here and here, we bring you an update.
The South Carolina Supreme Court recently issued a supplemental statement on the matter. According to the Court, the elimination of the Trusts and Estates section from the scoring process had nothing to do with complaints from the kids of prominent public figures.
An excerpt from the court’s statement, after the jump.
The court’s statement is rather long-winded. Here’s the money quote:
On October 31, 2007, the examiner of the WTE [Wills, Trusts and Estates] section reported to the Clerk’s Office that he had made a scoring error in his report of the examinees’ scores. This was not a “re-grade,” but merely an error in transcription that was discovered as the examiner prepared to transmit the examination books to the Court. The error was that an examinee who had previously been reported as having passed the WTE section, had in fact failed the section.The Clerk of Court then reviewed the examinee’s other essay section scores and discovered that the examinee’s WTE failure, coupled with the examinee’s failure on one other essay section resulted in the examinee not receiving an overall passing score. The examiner’s initial report of a passing score was a scrivener’s mistake. The scoring error and its consequence was reported to the full Court at its conference on November 1, 2007, at which time the Court was faced with determining what action, if any, to take with regard to the error.
After deliberation, the decision was made to eliminate the entire WTE section from consideration. In making this decision the Court determined that it would be inappropriate to reverse the affected examinee’s previous notification of successful completion of the examination. See Rule 402(i)(5) (“The results reported by the Board of Law Examiners is final…”). This decision then raised the question of fair and equitable treatment for those examinees, who, like the examinee affected by the reporting error, had failed the WTE section and only one other section, thus resulting in an overall failing score. It was against this backdrop that the Court made the decision to eliminate the WTE section from consideration so as to provide equal treatment to those in exactly the same position as the affected examinee. The Clerk advised the Court that this action would result in an additional twenty examinees receiving overall passing scores on the examination.
No consideration was given to the identity of any examinee who would stand to benefit from this action. Moreover, the action was not influenced by any appeal, campaign, or public or private outcry. It was simply deemed the best choice among several problematic alternatives.
This still strikes us as a bit… odd. But we’ll take the court at its word.
Additional Statement Regarding the July 2007 Bar Examination [South Carolina Judicial Department]
Earlier: Update: What’s Up With the South Carolina Bar Exam?
What’s Up With the South Carolina Bar Exam?
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Funny that the damning Facebook exchange took credit for the "campaign."
It's also odd that a scrivner's error for one examinee would lead to tossing the entire question. Here's the leap in logic: "This decision then raised the question of fair and equitable treatment for those examinees, who, like the examinee affected by the reporting error, had failed the WTE section and only one other section, thus resulting in an overall failing score." Huh? One student suffered from the mistake that his WTE scored was transcribed incorrectly; therefore, everyone with failing WTE scores should pass?
No, something is still fishy.
How silly. Why focus on that section? Why not let everyone pass who, if any one section were thrown out, would pass? Why just WTE? That makes it substantially less fair and equitable. Assuming this story is true, they should have just let it be a windfall to that one person.
4:23 and 4:25, totally agreed.
When was this released? Wednesday before thanksgiving? Something is rotten in the state of SC!
This is why the choice of law clause designates NY and not SC, even when a dispute is in SC.
You just don't need justice depending on whether one party has more friends among the judges.
One more reason to be thankful that the NY bar is harder than almost any other bar.
fishy!
"Due to a teller's error, one of our bank customers was mistakenly awarded a $1,000 credit. Rather than ask for the money back, or let the mistake lie, the bank has decided to award all of our customers $1,000."
I don't see a leap in logic. To do nothing would result in one student receiving a windfall, which the court said was inequitable. This is arguably true. 4:25's proposal would remedy the inequity, but is over-inclusive. There is no need to pass an additional 300 students when passing an additional 20 would resolve the inequity.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the fix was in and someone called in a favor. But, the opinion is still sound.
That was possibly the least equitable solution they could have come up with. How does passing 20 more people resolve the inequity? Now there are simply a larger number of people receiving a windfall. All of the people who failed (possibly by a lesser margin) due to other sections of the exam are still screwed.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the accommodation the California Bar made for the Jewish students.
You completely miss the point. Passing the additional 20 either does not correct the inequity broadly enough or is overbroad.
If you really want to go as narrow as possible here, the court should use the WTE score of the person who was mistakenly awarded a passing grade on WTE as the new minimum passing score for that section.
It's more equitable because now everyone is being graded on the same content.
4:57 - I completely agree with you, but your solution is just too unpalatable.
I'm not buying it. When 2 of the 20 affected are children of privilege, and such an extraordinary step is taken, something is rotten in the State of South Carolina.
Complete bullshit,
Seeing as how the light commenting today has separated the employed lawyers from the vacationing law students, I just wanted to express my thanks for being the former and to wish my colleagues a happy thanksgiving.
The Supreme Court of S.C. forgets that the bar exam exists to ensure a minimum level of ability in its lawyers. Letting 1 unqualified lawyer in because (s)he was mislead by a scrivener's error is one thing, but adding 19 additional unqualified lawyers is an unjustifiable compromising of the state's standards -- hurting the clients of these additional undeserving 19.
"The Supreme Court of S.C. forgets that the bar exam exists to ensure a minimum level of ability in its lawyers."
Bwa-ha-ha-ha... Apparently there are still some law students posting today.
See Rule 402(i)(5) ("The results reported by the Board of Law Examiners is final…”).
Results is final. Who is drafting the rules in South Carolina?
4:48(1), EXACTLY, I laughed out loud. Perfect.
NY the hardest bar? Pfffffft. Cali is way harder; 3 days, 2 PT (NY has only one) 6 essays (18 subjects, including state and federal distinctions in evidence and civ pro) plus more crossovers than Lebron. And the MBE takers in California are no slouch either - 134/200 to get through the door so your essays are even graded. Ooooh, 50 extra NY law MC questions...I am soooo scared.
Cali Strong.
NY bar is legit. Want a challenge? take NY and NJ....and Pass Both. Then you can claim Iron man status.
East siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!
CA bar is fugazzi
NJ bar is a joke after the NY test. And a bad decision unless you are certain you want to practice in Jersey - onerous mandatory CLE and bar fees that no /NY-only firm will pay.
Avoid Sokol & Associates
Avoid South Carolina
Jersey CLE is only 3 'cycles' for your entire life... and only the first cycle has anything to hand in. The last 2 cycles are just like NY - sit in a big room and look like you give a sh*t.
And I agree the debate should be NY/NJ vs. Cali - 3 days vs. 3 days. NY to NJ commute in the middle of the bar adds a nice extra layer of fun to the whole ordeal as well.
Did the Jewish kids really get all of the same questions a couple days later? (Though I'm *sure* they would never get and use them!)
wow... what a ridiculous statement. they didn't think anyone would pay attention right before thanksgiving.
Rule 402(i)(5) ("The results reported by the Board of Law Examiners is final…”) [sic]
maybe they need to amend that to ... results are final unless the board can be convinced to change their decision.
6:01,
That's it ... because of one screw up, they decide to admit 19 others who fail to meet the test of minimum competence (and I remember when taking the extremely grueling Wash. State bar yrs. ago that we were reminded that it's a test of "minimum" competence, i.e., you don't have to get an "A" on every question).
Though the logic is internally plausible, this is really a suspect result that reeks of 2nd rate standards, etc.
I've never seen a client yet who wanted a lawyer who was just under the minimum competence standard.
I'll also remind you all of the Wash. State bar, also 3 days still IIRC... when I did it, it was all essay (difficult), no multistate ...
On a 1 to 10 scale of difficulty (10 is high) I'd rate it a 9, the NJ Bar was a 5-6, the Mass. Bar a 4 (this in 1980-83).
Who cares about the SC bar? It is not like you are working for a real law firm or on actual real work other than incest, theft of cow, and KKK incidents.
Delaware is 4 days.
The Alaska bar is 7 days long, and you have to take it outside (even in February). You have to walk 10 miles barefoot to get to where they hold it, each of the 7 days. Plus, there are angry moose nearby that sometimes kill exam takers that wander away to use the bathroom or something.
If you go back and re-read the letter from one of the "privileged" who passed because of this, the letter definitely implies that the reason the grader was asked not to come back was because people were scored lower than they should have been. The S. Ct. statement paints a different picture of what happened. All I'm saying is you should get your story straight before deciding to have daddy fix the bar exam results.
There's an excellent timeline of all of this here.
http://notverybright.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/updated-timeline/
Anonymous, you are correct. The WTE examiner was asked to leave because of the high number of low scores on that section. Also, notice in that supplemental statement (also on the website) the Supreme Court stated how many failed each section. WTE was failed by far more than any other section.
So why has the Supreme Court's tune changed as to why these privileged ones were allowed to pass? Was it because of a scriveners error or was it because of a high number of failures in that section? It seems that the Supreme Court of SC has concocted this new reason for allowing those 20 to pass as nothing more than a cover up.
Both the judge and the legislator (who is chair of the SC Judicial Committee - who in SC APPOINTS JUDGES!) called the head of the board of examiners and the Supreme Court - they have both admitted this.
Apparently, the South Carolina Board of Law Examiners is headed by Foghorn Leghorn.
WTE = WTF.
I mean, seriously - this explanation has all the credibility of "the dog peed on my homework."
Imagine telling the South Carolina Supreme Court that because of a scrivener's error, the due date of your client's opening brief on appeal was written down as November 26 instead of November 6; as a result, since your brief was rejected as untimely filed, it would be more equitable to allow you and everyone else who ever turns in a brief late in the future to be allowed an extra 20 days from the date it's due to actually file it.
Wow.
I know - off topic. But, I also took and passed NJ & NY on the same cycle. Since rumors are that NY will not grade essays if the MBE is over 150 - I'd think that NY is easier to pass. In contrast, for NJ, you have to pass the MBE and the Essay sections.
And, my first impression of the essays when I left the exam hall is the NY was much easier then NJ (Commercial paper essay notwithstanding... )
I do think that NY was more intimidating due to the wide range of potential topics. And as bad as commercial paper was, at least it wasn't worker's comp, NY motor vehicle law, etc...
As a proud South Carolinian, I am disturbed by the recent actions of our supreme court. Unfortunately, our state constitution gives almost absolute power to the court on matters regarding the regulation of the legal profession. It is clear that our chief justice will not step down. Thus, we need to consider some serious reform of our current system which would involve constitutional amendments.
As to all the uppity yankees on this post, thank you for pumping millions of dollars in tourism revenue in to our state and padding our tax base with your over-priced vacation homes. However, we would prefer that you not relocate to our great state on a permanent basis because your sullen attitudes and “progressive” ideologies tend to dilute the charming atmosphere which makes the south such a great place to live. Also, please remember that South Carolina is a great place to visit year-round! For more information on exciting vacation opportunities in this state please visit: http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/?src=ppc