In a surprising turn of events, the legal profession’s yearly exercise – the bar exam – witnessed a major mishap in California during its July administration. Instead of receiving questions from the intended July 2023 exams, two candidates were accidentally handed the February 2023 questions at the Sacramento testing center. The affected portion of the exam notably contained Essay Questions 4 and 5, and the Performance Test, as admitted by the State Bar of California.
The mistake occurred due to a so-called “human collation error”. In more specific terms, the printing company which was responsible for producing the exam materials, unintentionally packaged two sets of February exam questions with the July sets. These incorrectly combined materials were then delivered to the Sacramento testing center.
In regard to those applicants who were mistakenly given the incorrect paper, the Bar has stated that its professionals consulted with psychometric experts to establish a fair and reliable means of evaluating the affected applicants’ answers. The Bar has not elucidated on the specific methodology, but emphasized that the overall integrity of the examination procedure remains untainted, whilst ensuring a fair treatment of the examinations given by the impacted individuals.
Apart from the immediate corrective measures taken by the printing company to prevent such incidents from recurring, they are implementing additional layers of quality control into their production and packing routines. This includes particular attention towards thwarting similar errors and includes complete disposal of previous exam materials.
While these steps are commendable, some argue that granting a diploma privilege could be a future-proof technique to ensure such a situation never recurs. Diploma privilege is the method of admitting law graduates into the bar without requiring them to take a bar exam, a practice that has already started to gain favor in some states in the face of pandemic disruptions.