New York Bar Exam Results Available

onNovember 15, 2007 at 10:00 AM

Lat is here (and apparently partying like a rock star), so you’ll have to put with me for the rest of the day.
The first order of the day is to announce that the New York Bar Exam results are up on the BOLE website.
We had anxious tipsters this morning who were quite worried (and can you blame them, really?) that there was another screw-up with the exam. The link was already there to go to the results page, but clicking on it produced a large, red-lettered “ERROR” message. It appears from later tips that we received, though, that the results were available promptly at 9:00 a.m. just as it was previously announced they would be.
Ok, so they managed to get the results up, but what’s up with Laptopgate? Anybody got any updates?
Earlier: Update: What’s Going on with the New York Bar Exam Results?
Update: In our haste to get the post up, we missed an update on Laptopgate in the BOLE press release. The relevant paragraph is after the jump. The quick and dirty version: about a third of the 47 exam takers who had essay answers that were not retrieved passed even assuming a 0 score on those essays; about another third failed even assuming a perfect score on the essays; and for the final third, they guessed based on performance on the rest of the exam.

NEW YORK BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS PRESS RELEASE
NOVEMBER 15, 2007
Over 5,000 candidates chose to take the essay portion of the July 2007 New York State bar examination on a laptop computer. Some of these candidates experienced technical problems with the software provided by a vendor but almost all of the candidates’ essay answers were eventually retrieved for grading. However, one or more of the essay answers for 47 candidates could not be recovered. Fifteen of these candidates passed the examination based on their performance on the balance of the examination, with no credit being given for any missing essay. Seventeen candidates failed the examination even when attributed a perfect score on any missing essays. The remaining 15 candidates were given estimated scores based upon their performance on the balance of the examination, and their probability of passing was computed. The Board worked with researchers at the National Conference of Bar Examiners to develop and apply this methodology, which resulted in nine of the remaining 15 candidates passing and six failing the examination. Candidates with missing essays who were unsuccessful on the examination have been notified by the Board as to how their results were determined.