Law school grads seek test exemption amid pandemic

NEW HAVEN — A group of 2020 Connecticut law school graduates are petitioning the state to grant them “diploma privilege,” arguing they should be allowed to skip the bar exam and become lawyers immediately because of health risk concerns over an in-person exam.

The petition from the Diploma Privilege for Connecticut group notes that Oregon, Utah and Washington have established emergency diploma privilege options for law graduates during the pandemic.

The petition also notes “the logistical challenges of either an online exam or temporary licensure.”

The bar exam is scheduled to be held in-person in Connecticut on Sept. 30 at the Convention Center in Hartford, with 500 would-be lawyers in attendance, according to the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee

In the petition, the graduates argue this would inappropriately raise the risk of coronavirus transmission, both for those in the exam room and more generally, as some come from out of state to sit for the examination.

“We believe this is wrong, and we are pushing for a more sane solution: diploma privilege,” Wyatt Bosworth, a 2020 graduate of University of Connecticut Law School and organizer with the statewide organization, said in an email.

A request for comment was made to the state judicial branch.

Anne Dranginis, retired judge and chairman of the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee, said the committee is meeting virtually Thursday to discuss the idea. It was raised earlier in the spring, she said, and at the time the committee was disinclined to go forward with it.

However, Dranginis said, the committee been “watching closely” during the national rise in COVID-19 cases. She noted that New Hampshire on Wednesday shifted to an online exam.

The committee is receptive to the concerns and fears of the class, she said, and recognizes they’ve gone through an unexpected, difficult experience.

“It has not been lost on us the extreme conditions this graduating class ... is facing,” said Dranginis.

New York state, the graduates said, recently canceled its plan to hold an in-person bar examination, citing coronavirus-related concerns. A decision on whether the test will be held in October will be made by the end of August, according to the New York Post. Some law school deans from New York have urged officials to adopt diploma privilege in their state.

Postponing the test in Connecticut, the law graduates argue, would inappropriately burden them and their colleagues. They have spent weeks or months preparing for the exam; that knowledge cannot be set aside and recalled immediately months later. They need to become licensed to be able to find a job in their field; providing a temporary license, they maintain, would just postpone that problem.

The group also argues against the idea of holding the test online, pointing to inequities in technological access; the difficulty of preventing cheating, especially on short notice; and the struggles students had when they attempted to take Advanced Placement examinations online.

The graduates still would be bound by Connecticut’s rules for professional conduct and the need to keep up with continuing education standards, they note in the petition.

“Diploma privilege is the best available solution to the health and safety problems posed by an in-person September 2020 bar exam and the logistical challenges associated with an online exam or provisional licensure,” the law graduates said.