Washington Bar Exam Thwarted By Bad Wi-Fi

Around 6:30 AM on July 28, roughly 645 weary law school graduates started to arrive at a convention center in Yakima, Washington, where they were scheduled to take the bar exam, the annual humiliation ritual faced by over 65,000 aspiring attorneys each year. As the 8:30 AM start time approached, however, on-site tech support warned exam administrators that testing may not be possible, for the goofiest possible reason: The wireless network did not have the bandwidth to support hundreds of people trying to log on to the Wi-Fi and access the exam platform at once.

So the law grads waited for hours, with growing anxiety and frustration, while proctors and venue staff tried—and failed—to get the internet to work. At around 11:30 AM, proctors announced that they would try starting the test in waves: Examinees who had managed to get online (and stay online) could begin, and the remaining two-thirds of test-takers would try again in 15 minutes. Examinees rejected this idea with booing and protests. 

The state bar association’s general counsel then conferred with the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the company that develops the multi-day exam that much of the country requires would-be lawyers to pass. Afterwards, she announced a new plan: All examinees would get lunch, and then begin the test at 12:45 PM.

Lunch did not solve the problem: Most people still couldn’t get online, and even for those who could, the NCBE’s app would fail to load or crash when they attempted to use it. Eventually, the test administrators gave up, dismissed everyone for the day, and told examinees the test would take place on Wednesday and Thursday instead.

Later on Tuesday, the Washington State Bar Association thought better of that plan, too, and canceled the whole exam, citing insufficient confidence that the “technology issue” would be resolved in order to “safely resume” the exam on Wednesday. The state also told test-takers that they had the option to sit for a make-up exam in September in Tacoma, Washington; transfer to a February 2027 exam; or receive a refund of their state bar application and exam fee. Examinees would need to contact the NCBE, though, regarding the “technology fee” they paid, for technology that they could not use.

The NCBE put out a statement on Wednesday indicating that its new testing platform, which launched in Washington and nine other states on Tuesday, “performed as designed” but for a few “site-specific technology issues” in three jurisdictions. According to the NCBE, “the inaugural administration” of its new exam marked a “historic milestone in legal licensure.” This makes sense insofar as the maiden voyage of the Titanic was also a historic milestone in maritime transportation.