Two Days Before The Deadline, Bar Exam Declares Desktop Computers Forbidden

And it doesn't look like New York is alone -- it seems to be a last-minute ExamSoft change.

UPDATE: Well that didn’t take long, New York has reversed course on desktops. Still, this is an ongoing jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction nightmare.

Some of the upcoming October bar exams require applicants to download their mock exams this week — a process that more or less locks in how they expect to take the exam. Many law grads have the laptops that allowed them to clatter away during lectures, but there are still many who have desktop computers that offer better performance that they prefer to use when they can. Until recently, these folks believed that they’d be able to take their bar exam on this computer.

Alas, like so much of the 2020 bar experience, the powers-that-be waited until the last possible second to declare, “PSYCHE!”

Or perhaps more accurately to whisper, “psyche.”

Examsoft just quietly announced through an update of their minimum system requirements that desktop computers are not allowed for the bar exam two days before our deadline to download the mock exams.

This with no actual announcement, and with their previous site containing multiple references to pc’s and desktops on both their requirements page and the jurisdiction specific pages. Also, I have personally called examsoft TWICE in the past week and asked them about the software on my desktop and they said it was totally fine.

What? This seems to reference the New York bar exam which released new FAQs without fanfare on September 15 that did appear to ban not only desktops for laptop docking stations. Sorry if you bought a 10-inch laptop to save your back in law school!

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It’s unclear where this rule is coming from. California also states “Desktop computers are not allowed for security reasons” and according to its revisions appeared to add this new restriction on August 31. ExamSoft’s requirements recently read “If using a PC or laptop….” and now reads “If using a laptop” with a curiously vestigial “If” for a test that now can only be done on a laptop. Yet, as of this writing, Florida’s bar instructions — which also use ExamSoft — still read: “In order to take the October 2020 examination, applicants will be required to have a laptop or desktop computer….” Given everything else, I think Florida applicants should expect a surprise edit to that document really soon.

Beyond shanking people out of their preferred computers 48 hours before they have to commit, this change exacerbates the already noted concern that many applicants have about having access to a quiet place to take an exam. For many people, their office or personal desk is set up as their only quiet space and that PC sits right there on that desk. Now — apparently because ExamSoft found yet another bug a couple of weeks before the test — the bar exam is telling these applicants they have to disassemble everything to clear out a new work space.

This is a plea to any remaining state supreme court or state legislator out there who can stop this madness: Do you trust that there’s any sanctity to this process when the software running the online bar exam figured out that it can’t even work on a whole class of computers less than three weeks before the exam? Seriously, how do you shrug your shoulders and assume everything is going to be fine when major changes to technical requirements are still popping up in the final days before the exam?

Diploma privilege is the most sound answer for the short-term. But if you simply must have an exam it needs to be “here’s three essay questions, it’s open book, we don’t care what computer you use, just hit us back with answers before close of business” like Indiana did.

You know, like how actual lawyers are expected to do their jobs.

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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.