Call me old school, but it seems that the more bar exam taking has advanced with technology, the number of possible bar exam nightmare scenarios increased exponentially.
It all started with exams written on an old fashioned device known to Boomers as "the typewriter" (a kind of real-time printer, hooked to a keyboard with no memory, that preceded word processing). It seems that the devices required a power source, but had no battery storage, rendering exam-takers who boldly elected to step into the 20th Century by typing their exam answers at the mercy of the occasional random but diabolically timed power outage.
With the advent of mobile computing came on-line bar exam taking, with many humorous-to-the-uninvolved stories of web outages and resulting inability to upload answers to a mainframe computer within the required time-frame.
Having a preference for Bluebooks and Rollingwriters (and no, Rollingwriters don't have a feather on the end), I have had little sympathy for these Milinials and their new-fangled on interweb enabled exam taking, until now. Apparently, the ingenuity of the sadists at ExamSoft has literally reached Orwellian proportions.
On-line bar exams are now administered with the taker's audio and video-enabled, with the entire process recorded in perpetuity for the occasional amusement of Cal Bar officials whenever they get bored, apparently. The new exam protocols also employ facial recognition software to ensure that eyes don't wander to Jeff Toobin's penis BARBRI outlines. Or anywhere outside the camera frame.
During a Dec. 4 meeting of the California Committee of Bar Examiners, Tammy Campbell, a program manager with the bar, reported that 8,920 applicants took the exam online. Of that group, she said, 3,190—nearly 36%—of the test-takers had their videos flagged for review.
[...]
If a determination of a testing violation is made, bar actions could include warnings; a score of zero for the flagged sessions or the entire exam; and negative marks on character and fitness evaluations, a bar spokesperson said in an email to the Journal.
According to attorneys representing test-takers and documents reviewed by the ABA Journal, issues cited in recent violation notices include examinees’ eyes being intermittently out of view of their webcams; audio not working, and examinees not being present behind their computers during the exam.
Meanwhile, bar court practitioners in California and in Tennessee (whose bar exam was similarly impacted with wandering eyes) have seen a surge of new clients.
Basically a win-win for the profession: More legal work, and many amusing stories!
Read the whole sordid story HERE.
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