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Florida Bar Exam Will Go Next Week... Maybe? Hopefully? Oh God.

Florida seems awfully confident despite remarkably little to back that up.

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Yesterday, we pointed out that Florida purports to be having a bar exam on Wednesday despite not once being able to mount a successful test of the online platform. That seemed like a problem! We suggested that if they couldn’t get their act together by today — giving them the weekend to implement final touches — they need to delay or cancel the exam.

Florida decided to go the other direction and both not have a working product by Friday and greenlight the test for Wednesday. Yeehaw, let’s do this!

Earlier today, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners announced on its website that it has scheduled a live trial for Monday, August 17, at 11:00 a.m. and expects to make a new release of ILG’s software available for download no later than Saturday, August 15. The board will notify you about the new release as soon as it is available and encourages you to participate in the live trial.

Tipsters inform us that the software still wasn’t available for download as of this morning which isn’t a good sign. Indeed the Florida Bar Exam website still reads, “As soon as the investigation into the possible security concerns is complete, applicants will be directly advised… when the updated software is available for download.” I don’t know about you, but that reads to me that they aren’t even finished looking into what’s broken and committing to a Monday test anyway. Part of the justification for the lack of time pressure in dealing with the security investigation relates to the Florida Exam’s claim that only nine of the over 1,100 registrants lodged security concerns. That sounds suspect based on a perusal of just the tips we’ve received at Above the Law. Perhaps these can all be cured over the weekend… but they’re going to have a hard time patching everything up between noon on Monday and 8 a.m. Wednesday.

One observer on Twitter opined that this announcement was really just a cleverly veiled Character and Fitness question to see who sends nasty emails to the examiners and frankly that’s a more reasonable explanation than anything coming from official channels.

As purely the province of the state judiciary, Florida legislators don’t even have the authority to fix this but that’s not stopping them from stepping up and telling the state supreme court that they have constituents getting jerked around by this.

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There was one bit of good news from the announcement:

Mental Health Counseling Offered by The Florida Bar

To assist with added stresses caused by the pandemic, all registrants for the August 2020 Florida Bar Examination may now use the Florida Lawyers Helpline, a free confidential 24/7 service providing professional mental health counseling.

By calling 1-833-FL1-WELL (1-833-351-9355), exam registrants will speak with counselors who can also make referrals for up to three free sessions a year with a licensed mental-health professional via phone or virtual service.

Not to diminish the importance of mental health services, but maybe the bar examiners could consider “not causing the added stress in the first place”?

Just a thought.

Earlier: Florida STILL Doesn’t Have A Working Bar Exam Platform. Test Is Next Week, By The Way.

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