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Bar Examiners: 'This Will Be Fine!' Also Examiners: 'We Need To Hire The Mass Shooting PR Firm.'

California hires Abernathy MacGregor.

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The technical problems with the upcoming online bar exams continue to mount. Over the the last several days, we’ve had whole classes of computers banned, a discriminatory breakdown in facial recognition, and the bar exam just… refusing to answer the phones. In the latter case, it’s not that they don’t want to be answering the phones, it’s that the volume of calls from applicants suffering through technical difficulties now two weeks before this exam have shut them down — which is actually worse.

Faced with these challenges, the bar examiners in California did what any institution would do. They spent a lot of money hiring a crisis management firm.

The LA Daily Journal reports that California hired PR firm Abernathy MacGregor for roughly $48,000. As the use of resources go, that’s probably not going to result in a glitch-free bar exam, but it will address the immediate bar examiner problem of trying to apply tasteful lipstick to this pig.

For the unfamiliar, Abernathy isn’t just a PR firm, it prides itself on representing clients in the throes of complete public relations disasters. Here are some of the cases they trumpet on their website:

* Major Oil Spill

Situation: Three clients were deeply involved with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one with the spill itself, all three with the crisis control and community remediation efforts.

*Utility Explosion

Situation: An energy utility’s major multi-fatality explosion resulted in months of daily hammering in news media; multiple regulatory investigations; and filing of civil and criminal charges.

* #MeToo

The Situation: In the wake of a news article that unveiled numerous allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault by company executives, AMG was hired by the independent investigators charged with looking into the allegations to help manage communications about the highly public process.

* Mass Shooting

The Situation: A movie theater was the site of a tragic mass shooting during a screening of a popular film. Multiple individuals were killed, and several others injured.

So as the California bar examiners explain in one breath that the bar exam will be fine — or, at least they would explain that in one breath if they could answer applicant phone calls at this time — they’re turning right around and spending big money to deal with a disaster that they expect might rival utility explosions in terms of media outcry. Not encouraging.

For the California Supreme Court, this might be a good day to revisit whether or not you’re confident about going forward with this exam when the bar examiners themselves feel they need Olivia Pope on speed dial.

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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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