Today we heard from a law grad in Quebec who recently took the online bar exam administered there. A thread on the alarming experience of taking Quebec’s remote exam. 1/8

First, Quebec’s bar exam is a little different than ours. It’s typically a 9 hour exam, taken over the course of 2 days, and covers 6 subjects. Like ours, the exam is multiple choice, short answer, and a drafting exercise. Unlike ours, it’s administered at the end of April. 2/

Because of the pandemic, the Quebec Barreau changed this to a 1 day online exam which was administered at the end of May. The Barreau condensed it to 5 hours and only 2 subjects, and eliminated the multiple choice portion. 3/

Seems reasonable. How’d it go? Badly. Like, really badly. So badly that the Barreau had to hire KPMG to do an independent audit of the exam to figure out what happened. 4/

Examinees reported numerous tech issues including: software crashes, auto save failures, hardware malfunctions, and missing exam answers. Yes, missing exam answers. KPMG concluded a whopping 294 answers were missing. To compensate, the Barreau gave everyone 4 extra points. 5/

If the Bar Exam is essential to test attorney competency, why are examiners ok with administering it using untested software and insecure WiFi networks? If this much is at stake, what happens when the examiners lose our answers or the software makes our computers crash? 6/

In addition to the equity issues with a remote administration of the bar exam, we anticipate numerous OBVIOUS technical issues, including security and privacy concerns. A remotely-administered online bar exam is not the solution. 7/

This is why we support diploma privilege for all. To our Canadian colleagues, please reach out to us about your online bar experience. Similarly, if you took the #LSAT or another standardized test online, we’d love to hear from you. 8/8