Washington state’s three accredited law schools petitioned the state Supreme Court to grant emergency diploma privilege allowing aspiring attorneys affected by the canceled July bar examination to practice law in the state.
Deans of the University of Washington Law School, Seattle University School of Law, and Gonzaga University School of Law all sent letters to the high court after hundreds of bar applicants struggled with technology at the testing site in Yakima, Wash., on Tuesday.
The Washington Supreme Court, which has ultimate authority over legal licensure, can grant emergency diploma privilege allowing graduates of accredited law schools to practice law in the state without needing to take the bar exam. During the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the high court granted emergency diploma privilege for bar applicants scheduled to take the July and September 2020 tests.
The Washington Supreme Court has not yet publicly responded to the letters.
The botched Tuesday exam was one of only two testing times administered by the Washington State Bar Association each year. The WSBA told applicants Tuesday that it is working with the test maker, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, to hold a make-up test in September. The next scheduled testing date is in February 2027.
The WSBA, which operates under the delegated authority of the state Supreme Court, said in a statement Tuesday that it is “working closely with the Washington Supreme Court to consider any additional next steps.”
The bar is overseen by a Board of Governors, which includes representatives from each Congressional district, three at-large members and three leadership positions.
‘Unprecedented and Catastrophic’
Yakima Convention & Event Center, the site of the Tuesday test, said in a statement that the center’s “catastrophic equipment failure” began just as applicants were set to start the test that couldn’t be resolved that day.
“We entered the event with full confidence in the systems we had put in place. However, as demonstrated here, technology is not always reliable — even when redundancies are in place,” the statement said.
Each of the law school petitions said graduates experienced extraordinary stress after spending hours working through technology problems before ultimately being dismissed.
“These exam administration failures today were not minor, in fact they were unprecedented and catastrophic, and therein cause grave concerns to fairness and equity,” University of Washington Law School Dean Tamara Lawson said in the school’s petition sent Tuesday night.
All three petitions said a make-up test wouldn’t be a sufficient remedy for applicants who have spent money on travel and lodging for the July test and have job opportunities dependent on bar passage.
Gonzaga’s interim law school dean Linda Jellum also requested the Supreme Court review the events surrounding the bungled exam by convening a public hearing.
“The graduates of this state, the legal profession, future applicants, and the public deserve a clear understanding of what occurred, why the examination process failed, and what steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence,” Jellum wrote.
