Search Results for: diploma privilege

Where are the law and the lawyer? Where is this profession going? I’m a rising 3L. I have one more year left of law school. And yet I am witnessing something that is both completely unexpected and a story that has been told over and over for ages. And I find myself completely conflicted about [...]

On July 28 and July 29, 2020, 770 Juris Doctors will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, to take a two-day bar examination during the COVID-19 pandemic. A group of Juris Doctors registered for the North Carolina Bar in July have come together to push for alternatives to an in-person exam to no avail. As the [...]

On Wednesday, July 9, 2020, the Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners (PABOLE) notified me and the other 1,200 applicants preparing for the Pennsylvania Bar Exam that for the second time in just seventy days, they would be altering the test that will dictate whether we are allowed to practice law. These changes are novel and [...]

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ordered the cancellation of the state’s in-person bar exam, citing growing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming exam was set to take place on July 28-29. The cancellation, announced Thursday, also applies to the State’s September bar. All applicants will automatically be registered for the online bar exam.  This [...]

A spectre is haunting the American legal profession – the spectre of diploma privilege. Facing the psychological and physical trauma of COVID-19, and buoyed by growing calls for diversity and equity in the wake of centuries of racial and social injustice blithely and sometimes viciously perpetuated by lawyers in positions of power, a new generation [...]

Multiple jurisdictions have made the decision to switch to remote bar exams in October, in lieu of in-person exams in July and September. This is a laudable interim decision because it eliminates for so many the primary concern with this year’s bar exam cycle: exposure to COVID-19. For countless examinees, the stress of their own [...]

The diploma privilege movement is beginning to pick up steam around the country as the risks become clear and the harm to graduates comes home to roost. The movement has eloquent and intelligent defenses popping up all across the country. I won’t pretend that I can offer a better defense than some of the tightly [...]

I know. You are thinking what on earth is this guy talking about and why is he not buried in preparation for the bar. Well, the former will be explained shortly, and in regard to the latter…it is my lunch break. When I first moved to Lexington for undergrad, I had yet to receive my [...]

Applicants to the Illinois Bar filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Illinois on Monday seeking admission by diploma privilege instead of taking a bar exam. The state of Illinois has put forth several measures to mitigate the harmful effects of COVID-19. In addition, the Illinois State Bar association has begun administering continuing legal [...]

When we embarked on our law school journeys three years ago, we did so with the knowledge that we would have the same opportunity that so many others have had to be licensed shortly after graduation. COVID-19, unfortunately, changed everything. It deprived so many of us of stability, of normalcy, and of opportunity. In the [...]