Kentucky bar exam ‘fiasco’ left aspiring lawyers thinking they passed. They didn’t
The joy of passing the bar exam was short-lived for 15 aspiring Kentucky lawyers, who found out just days later that they’d actually failed.
The Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions admitted Friday that a scoring error had caused problems with the October bar exam results. It affected 18 people’s scores, according to the bar admissions office. Three people passed when they were initially told they failed, and 15 people failed despite initially being told they passed.
“I want to apologize to every applicant affected by the incorrect Kentucky bar exam results that were issued by my office earlier this week,” said Valetta Brown, executive director of the bar admissions office. ”I know that no apology can undo the anguish and disappointment that these bar examinees and their families have endured.
“We sincerely regret this mistake, which was the result of a data entry error.”
An applicant’s identifying information was entered into a spreadsheet twice, which caused scores to be misaligned and assigned to the wrong applicant, the bar admissions office said.
The mistake hadn’t been noticed before the exam results were posted Monday, Brown said. The Board of Bar Examiners and the Kentucky Supreme Court waived the application fees for the 15 people who were told they received a passing grade in error so they can retake the exam in February.
There were applicants who were allowed to practice law before receiving bar certification, thanks to a state Supreme Court order issued in July. Most incorrectly told they passed can continue to practice under that order, the bar admissions office said in a statement. The order was initially set to expire at the end of this year.
The July order was initially targeted at law school graduates who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Applicants who were scheduled to take the exam in July or September had their exam pushed back to October as a result of the pandemic.
To qualify to practice under that order, the applicants had to be taking the exam for the first time and have a written recommendation from the dean of the law school from which they graduated, among other prerequisites.
Nevertheless, getting the call about incorrect scores was still crushing for some.
“I have had setbacks in my life, but this is a different kind of emotion,” Timothy E. Poole, one of the affected test takers, said on Facebook. “I’m not sure what/where to go with this next. I’m going to need a few days.
Shannon Ragland shared several messages of frustration on social media and called the issue a “fiasco.” Ragland runs the Kentucky Trial Court Review, a website that publishes and maintains a database of civil jury verdicts in Kentucky.
“This sucks,” Ragland said in a post on his Kentucky Trial Court Facebook page. “Wrenching. Awful. The worst ever. The entire Kentucky bar is behind you. They are outraged.”
Ragland also encouraged the affected people by telling them their legal career would work out.
“Your legal career will NOT be defined by this. Not one bit.”
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 2:13 PM.
CORRECTION: The Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions is funded by fees and its budget is approved by the state Supreme Court. That information was incorrect in earlier versions of the story that cited State Rep. Jason Nemes, who said his subcommittee would hold a hearing on the scoring error because the panel had jurisdiction. He later acknowledged the error.