Bar Exam Spokesperson Tells Newspaper That Folks Worried About Health Are Just Lazy

Wow.

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Less than an hour ago, we published a story about the North Carolina bar exam’s lack of even a modicum of professional respect for applicants as it locks into a July exam death drive. That’s apparently when the Colorado bar examiners asked someone to hold their beer.

This morning, the Denver Post wrote about the nascent movement to come up with some alternative to forcing over 1,000 applicants indoors for two full days of testing. For what it’s worth, the Colorado bar examiners have some powerful safety protocols planned like temperature checks (useless for pre-symptomatic patients), wearing masks (but only while moving around the exam), and an admonishment to try and stay out of gyms leading up to the exam (um, OK?). With a plan like that, it’s easy to see why so many of the applicants are up in arms.

Remember, this is the bar exam that couldn’t even report its results correctly earlier this year.

And while not every critic of the July administration is advocating for diploma privilege — the solution that some other Western states have adopted — attorney regulation counsel for the state’s high court felt the need to opine on the option specifically for the paper:

“The bar exam might not be a perfect instrument of competency, but it does help ensure basic competencies of the licensed attorneys who will be serving the public in all kinds of capacities once licensed,” Yates said. “The individuals who are asking for diploma privilege are not the members of the public who would need these privileges. The individuals who are asking are the individuals who don’t want to take the bar exam.”

Well, sort of. They’re individuals who don’t want to take the bar exam… because there’s no credible plan for giving them the test safely in July and probably not one this year.

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But diploma privilege wasn’t singled out for the media by accident. It’s hard to poison the well of public discourse by complaining about an online exam or rescheduling for the October or even 2021. Those are proposals that most people would accept as entirely reasonable. Stirring up vague fears that students who already paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and three years proving their subject matter competency might be a threat to the public though… that’s the sort of message that can discredit anyone questioning the examiners!

There is, of course, little to suggest that the bar exam provides any additional assurance of basic competency. The ethics of future attorneys aren’t even covered in the same test and that professionalism exam and the character and fitness process (which has flaws but is generally a positive) are far more directly tied to public safety. But the canard that without the bar exam to weed out clearly incompetent attorneys like the then-dean of Stanford Law School is a valuable refrain for those who just want to take every opportunity to denigrate people worrying about the health of themselves and those around them.

In truth, law professors have provided a serious roadmap for a better path to licensing. Law school deans pushed the issue. State legislators are on board. But for the bar examiners, it’s all about pushing the narrative that this is less a policy proposal than a tantrum from lazy children. There is zero effort to listen, engage, produce countervailing data — just ad hominem attack after ad hominem attack.

Bierwirth said she has immunocompromised family members with chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases who rely on her care.

“Should I go in there, take this exam and risk the life and health of my loved ones in doing so?” Bierwirth said, noting if she waited to take the exam in February, she wouldn’t have the means to support herself. “I will be forced to do it. It’s so hard.”

The Colorado bar examiners think that’s the bio of a lazy person. And they’re willing to say that out loud to anyone who will listen.

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Worried about COVID-19, Colorado law school graduates seek alternative to in-person bar exam [Denver Post]

Earlier: Bar Exam Tells Woman To Stop Worrying About Petty Concerns Like ‘Health’ And Study More

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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