July NY Bar Answers Lost for 47; Officials Estimate Scores

Bar Exam

July NY Bar Answers Lost for 47; Officials Estimate Scores

Posted Nov 15, 2007, 10:45 am CDT
By Martha Neil

When answers to the New York bar exam written on laptop computers this past summer turned up missing, officials said they expected to be able to get the answers from backup data.

But in fact a fraction of those answers apparently could not be retrieved from test-takers' hard drives, so the scores of those affected were determined based on how they did on the rest of the bar exam, according to a press release today from the New York State Board of Law Examiners. (There was good news for many examinees, though—first-time test-takers from the state's 15 law schools had a pass rate of 88.2 percent, described as "the highest passing rate in memory for graduates of New York law schools.")

Originally, some 400 answers from the July 2007 bar exam were missing, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post. In the end, far fewer test-takers were affected: "one or more of the essay answers for 47 candidates could not be recovered," the press release states, so officials estimated their scores.

This is how it was done, the release says: "Fifteen of these candidates passed the examination based on their performance on the balance of the examination, with no credit being given for any missing essay. Seventeen candidates failed the examination even when attributed a perfect score on any missing essays. The remaining 15 candidates were given estimated scores based upon their performance on the balance of the examination, and their probability of passing was computed."

After working with researchers at the National Conference of Bar Examiners to develop an appropriate methodology, the board applied it. The result: Nine of the remaining candidates passed, and six failed. Those who failed for this reason were notified about how the board reached this conclusion.

A complete list of those who passed the July bar exam in New York will be posted tomorrow on the board's Web site.

(Hat tip: New York Personal Injury Law Blog.)

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Posted by Willem Scheiss - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes ago

I went to law school in NY. A bunch of dumkopfs run your bar exam. No wonder the bar exam is irregular and people messed up. And your barred lawyers are not that smart, either. I prefer DC Bar. People are sharper.
Posted by Dave - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 22 hours, 7 minutes ago

Anyone who relies on a software progam for such an important test is nuts to begin with. Good old paper and pencil can’t be beat until the software us bulletproof.

But then again the whole bar exam process is so unreal it is beyond words. Anyone who has taken it knows that unlike any other professional license exam, the bar exam doesn’t relate well to the actual profession.

Can you imagine a medical exam that would test outdated concepts and rules that are no longer in use like the bar exam uses the common law and doctrines that don’t apply in any state?

Bar exam folks have to start realizing that the bar exam isn’t a real test of what a lawyer has learned in law school, nor a reflection on how they’re going to be as lawyers. Although it could be much better, today it is just some formality you go through to get the license, and then hope to forget the experience.
Posted by Jake - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 37 minutes ago

I have to agree with Dave.

I (thank G-d) just got my bar exam results and am happy to put the bar exam behind me (hopefully forever).

I know we are all worried about “discrimination,” but I think oral bars are the way to go (at least as a supplement) in addition to an intern-type requirement.

I look at many of my peers, many of whom had no work experience during law school, and I am a bit worried.

At least I know how little I know. Many of these folks got no job offers and are now considering (or in fact) starting their own solo practices.

Studying for the bar will not prepare them for this profession. There has to be a better way.
Posted by Dan - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 29 minutes ago

I don’t understand the statement about “outdated common law”. I don’t remember any part of the bar that didn’t apply to actual practice. Do youwork at the Hague?
Posted by D.B. Cooper - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 27 minutes ago

I don’t think the bar exam is *supposed* to test what you know. The law is constantly changing, and mastery of any particular rule is irrelevant.

I disagree with Dave, and think that the bar *does* serve a useful gate-keeper function. If you can’t analyze issues and articulate yourself well enough to pass, you’re not going to acquit yourself well in the profession.

I do agree that afterward, the exam is best forgotten. /Shudder/
Posted by nancy - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 20 minutes ago

I was one of the people who had the multi-state portion of her bar exam stolen in 1985. None of us were passed based on the portion that was available - we all had to re-sit. Any of the 47 who were permitted to pass without re-sitting should be very thankful. I wish I had been so lucky!
Posted by Ronnie - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 17 minutes ago

I took the bar twice before I passed. I was tested on English covenants of law for a state that doesn’t recognize them (I won’t mention what state). The problem I find is that many law school exams are open-book, and many people type their exams on computer (at least my school did). The bar is the opposite. I failed when I hand-wrote, because I hadn’t hand-written anything since college. Passed when I typed. Also, it is pretty rare that lawyers are required to know the law off the top of their head in real life. We look answers up. Outside of evidence, I look up the answer to nearly every question prior to responding, unless I’m in court. If I’m not prepared for those questions there, I deserve to lose. I haven’t figured out what function the bar serves yet, so someone please let me know!!
Posted by Er - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 7 minutes ago

I took the exam in Pennsylvania on a laptop and I guess we used a different program because there was none of this losing exams or answers nonsense. I heard of the ridiculous procedure of asking if anyone had any computer issues before the exam and making students WAIT to take the exam for about 2 hours is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. If your computer didnt work in PA you were to close your laptop, raise your hand, and WRITE your exam—and you know what, we started and ended on time, no exams were lost and no one complained.
Stop babying this people.

Since they messed up, everyone should have passed. end of story.
Posted by Gsmith - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes ago

I agree with ER. They claim that an average of scores was done for some students, and they assumed perfect scores for others. That’s crazy. The only fair thing to do is to allow them to resit for the test--perhaps a special administration as soon as possible so that they won’t have to wait until the next exam (losing time, forgetting information etc.). The bar exam is stressful enough. If these people knew that they were having trouble with their exams it could have harmed their entire performance on the test, not just on one portion or one question.
Posted by WEG - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 24 minutes ago

Ronnie’s observations about law school exams prompt me to ask: Should law schools gear their exams to help students succeed on bar exams ? Students seek to avoid the in class, timed examination in favor of papers or take home and self scheduled exams. Would some added experience dealing with the bar exam format help? When teaching property my exams often contained reworked bar exam questions. Some of the students who complained about the questions’ difficulty later came back to tell me the experience paid off.
In high school we spent many an unpleasant Saturday when volunteered to take multiple choice tests. But on the SAT we scored 50-100 points higher than students from comparable schools. I can’t make a scientific case that this happened because we took all those other tests, but it’s a reasonable assumption.
Posted by lawdomains-us.com - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 16 hours, 45 minutes ago

Ouch!! “Seventeen candidates failed the examination even when attributed a perfect score on any missing essays.” Someone’s got some studyin’ ta do!

And I’m guessing those six who were failed based on “estimates” have got some lawyering to do.
Posted by vrf - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes ago

I passed the bar exams in Arizona and California using a laptop. As with PA, as ER notes, in these states an examinee with computer problems hand-writes the remainder of the exam, which wisely renders moot the whole debate about how to handle exams aborted for reasons other than test-taker error. This seems to work well, and seems more fair for the exam takers than making them re-sit the exam. For having used an apparently different system, it seems to me that New York handled the problem as justly as it could have been, but I would be interested to know how those examinees subject to that method feel about it.

WEG’s question is, to me, the more challenging one. I think it’s the exam, not the teaching method, that needs to be changed. My rationale for this is two-fold: First, I think many people (reflected in the comments above) believe that the exam--or at least some of its format, e.g., the multistate multiple choice-- is basically irrelevant to the practice of law. If this is indeed the case, exam reform should be our goal, as teaching to the test only entrenches more deeply the exam as it currently exists. Second, teaching to the test is highly impractical for national law schools. The school I attended is in a Southern state, but its graduates come from and go to many different states, including California, the D.C. area, Illinois, and New York. As long as the exam remains as it is, this will continue to be a dilemma.
Posted by RLJ - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 12 hours, 7 minutes ago

We have been taking final exams with Softest in law school and our state’s bar exam with no glitches. For a supposedly advanced state like NY, I do not understand why most of their examinees still handwrite their exams and for those lucky enough to win the lottery who are allowed to type on a laptop have their exams lost because of bugs in their system. Typing on a laptop computer is relatively faster and kinder to the examiner’s eyes.
Posted by RLJ - 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes ago

Using a computer to take law exams makes much more sense as it is closer to practice. Unless you are an inmate handwriting an appeal, no lawyer in his right mind would file an handwritten brief with any court.
Posted by Ham Sandwich - 9 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 20 hours, 23 minutes ago

I suspect I was one of those 47 people. I did not pass the exam- but here;’s the REALLLY weird thing. I received a 3/10 on an essay which I did not have time to answer. All my other essays (which I knew at the time that I did very, VERY well on) received basically just above that blank answer… Interesting “methodology”
Posted by George H. Spencer - 9 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 19 hours ago

In the early 1950s, my law studies at Cornell University were interrupted by service during the Korean War (anyone remember that war?) and if you then came back and received your degree - a humble LL.B., not a J.D. in those days - NY waived the bar exam. Could I have passed? I’ll never know but virtually all my classmates did and perhaps I would have, too. I’ve been practicing for over 50 years and I never worried about whether I could have passed the bar exam. That is the way to go!
George H. Spencer, Washington, DC
Posted by Jean DeWald - 9 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 18 minutes ago

It is unfortunate that it happened, but it isn’t attractive to whine about it. It looks like the actions taken were logical and that an effort was made not to penalize anyone. Wait til you get into the actual practice of law--your perspective will change.
Posted by NY Lawyer to be - 9 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes ago

I just passed the NY Bar Exam and I took it on computer. The people who had problems did not have them while taking the exam, they had problems uploading the questions onto the site. I had issues with me software, but it was easily fixed. I think the bar exam is a good measure of your fitness as a lawyer because it takes time and dedication to pass the bar and that is exactly what a lawyer must do. I think they should raise the standards for the bar; with over 12,000 people taking the test a 70% passage rate is too high.
Posted by Ham Sandwich - 9 months, 2 weeks, 16 hours, 3 minutes ago

To #17. This isn’t whining… It’s pondering a question as to *how* the methodology for grading non-existant essays. (And # 18 is correct--IT WAS the uploads for the essays). I’m very confused as to how one can receive a 29.99 for a blank essay (unfinished) and then 30’s for essays which were (and I sighed a BIG sigh of relief over this on the day of the test) on subjects which were the ones I KNEW very, very well. So well in fact, that I ran out of time on that last essay and basically had an introductory paragraph. An unfinished paragraph which attained a 3/10, no less!

This is the equivalent of a government agency losing all records of one’s existence--and then stating that at retirement of age 65 they’d come up with a magic formula to determine the amount you’d put into the system. That one year during college when you were unemployed, they rank you slightly above 30K, but then for the rest of the time, when you’d contributed heavily, counting on that retirement income and you were deep in the 6 figures...Well, they rank those years at around 30K also. Does this seem logical?

This method is only logical if the entity in charge doesn’t take responsibility for their own incompetence. The BOLE should offer FREE re-tests to every person involved and if the person has no deleted the files after upload (in reality faulty upload) then the BOLE should track down the essays, as a matter of fairness and grade THE ACTUAL ESSAYS.

Maybe such an idea isn’t in keeping with “the actual practice of law” (#17) but it certainly seems in keeping with the ideals of fairness. Maybe the two are not so connected as I thought…

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