What Do You Do When the Unexpected Happens? Perspectives From the Licensing of Lawyers

• In Event: Practical Issues in Testing and Assessment

Abstract

Over 80,000 aspiring lawyers sit for the bar examination each year. Each jurisdiction can require its own combination of standardized and locally grown assessments to be part of the bar requirements. In most jurisdictions, the bar examination includes a multiple choice component, the Multistate Bar Examination, and a written component such as the Multistate Performance Test and/or the Multistate Essay Examination. There is a growing movement to provide a uniform bar examination (UBE) that has standard multiple choice and written components across jurisdictions. The NCBE administers a complex high stakes testing program that involves large numbers of examinees, variable assessment instruments across jurisdictions whose administration and scoring must be coordinated, and a widely distributed system of test administration.

Given the large number of annual examinees, the variety of assessment formats used in the various bar examinations, and control of administration of the bar examination and scoring of the written component by the various jurisdictions, unexpected things sometimes happen before, during, and after test administration that may impact examinees. This presentation will discuss some real examples of issues that have arisen and will describe the solutions that were implemented to try to minimize the impact of the issues on examinees while also being cognizant of the role our examinations play in the protection of the public as consumers of legal services in the United States.

Author

• Douglas R. Ripkey, National Conference of Bar Examiners