Amid concerns about software problems, technical support and online privacy, Florida officials this week postponed the 2020 state bar exam for a third time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Florida Board of Bar Examiners on Monday announced the online exam that had been scheduled for Wednesday would not go forward. The board, with the approval of the state Supreme Court, said the exam would be rescheduled for some time in October and feature the same content as the test planned for this month.
“Despite the board’s best efforts to offer a licensure opportunity in August, it was determined that administering a secure and reliable remote bar examination in August was not technically feasible,” the board said in a prepared statement.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando), who sent a letter to the board and the state Supreme Court last week expressing constituent concerns about the scheduled exam, said she was disappointed by the cancellation. The letter was co-authored by Eskamani’s colleague, Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando).
“Canceling the exam was not what we requested whatsoever and has definitely created devastation for many of our law students,” Eskamani told the Florida Record.
The two state lawmakers suggested that officials could have opted for an open book exam, as other states have done, instead of relying on a vendor’s problematic software.
“... We urge this honorable court to grant a one-time emergency licensure of all registered August 2020 examinees, with additional provisions which would need to be satisfied in order to be sworn in,” Eskamani and Guillermo Smith proposed. “The additional provisions would include 40 hours of continuing legal education credits to be completed during a three-month supervision by a practicing attorney.”
Such an option would allow law school grads to get on with their lives, practice their craft and gain health insurance, the lawmakers said. Short of that, they suggested that the board could adopt an email-based, open-book test on the order of what was adopted in Indiana.
Students are feeling frustrated due to the exam’s delay, according to Eskamani, and the software kinks. “The ILG software is just riddled with problems,” she said.
The Board of Bar Examiners also said this week that it would launch an interim supervised practice program similar to the current Certified Legal Intern program no later than mid-September. The program will allow for law school grads to practice temporarily under the supervision of a Florida Bar Association member.
Eskamani vowed to continue to follow the roll-out of the next scheduled exam in October.
“We continuously received emails and phone calls about this, so we’re not stopping,” she said.