Law Schools, Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)

When The Organized Crime Bureau Gets Involved With Stolen Exams, You Know It's Bad

Excellent advice for students that have to retake the MPRE after their exams were stolen.

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thiefAs our readers know, there was a theft at Lewis & Clark Law School, and among the stolen goods were MPRE answer sheets. The poor students are now facing a make-up exam (though they do get a refund for the cost of taking the test), but there continues to be a lot of anger directed at the school over their less than stellar handling of the incident.

But we’ve learned this isn’t the first time that this has happened. A reader sent in an exam horror story from 1985 when MPREs were stolen. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Organized Crime Bureau got involved, but there was nothing to be done but retake the exam:

Similar thing happened in NYC in 1985. One session of MPRE answer books disappeared – but only from those who took the bar exam on Pier 90 in Manhattan. All 542 of us.

The news broke on radio, followed by a letter from the Organized Crime Bureau from the DA for NY County. The exams were gone. “We’re sure you understand.”

I didn’t understand. I thought it was the end of my world.

I was packing my stuff to move to begin a federal clerkship. My judge called me before I could call him. “I had a feeling that was you,” he said.  He was a very insightful jurist. He advised me to relax; it would prove to be a blip on the screen of my life.

He was right.

NYS Bar Examiners offered a number of remedies and the other state bars agreed to accept tests from all the options.

I elected to take a “special” MPRE  in mid-September at the Roosevelt Hotel.  It was a rowdy group of test takers; we cathartically booed the examiners at every opportunity.

The MPRE study people gave us a gratis three-day refresher. I scored off the charts and passed the NY and NJ bar exams.  (In those days, federal clerks got an immediate pay raise for becoming a member of a bar, so that was good too.)

In the end, my advice to this year’s victim is: relax. It totally sucks. But it will be a mere blip on the screen of your life.

(Although I have never learned why the letter bearing my bad news came from the Organized Crime Bureau of the Manhattan DA.)

With the benefit of hindsight, even terrible situations don’t seem that bad. Hopefully this will provide some needed perspective for the victims of the Lewis & Clark theft.

Earlier: The Case Of The Stolen Exams Leaves Students In A Lurch
Students Finally Told Their Exam Was Stolen — They Are Pissed
Lewis & Clark Law School Finally Acknowledges Theft Of Exams

Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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