Washington state has become the second jurisdiction to adopt an emergency diploma privilege amid the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing law graduates to skip the bar exam.

The Supreme Court of Washington on June 12 issued an order that allows graduates from American Bar Association-accredited law schools who are registered for the bar exam in either July or September to be licensed in the state without passing the test. That decision came less than a month after the high court initially rejected a proposal for a diploma privilege. Utah adopted a similar provision in April, but with more restrictions and requirements than Washington. The Washington high court's terse order offered little explanation for the change in course, but wrote that it, "recognizes the extraordinary barriers facing applicants currently registered to take the bar examination in either July or September 2020."

"The reaction has been pretty uniformly positive," said Seattle University Law Dean Annette Clark, who last week asked the court to reconsider adopting a diploma privilege in light of the ongoing pandemic and the current racial unrest that has swept the nation. "It provides our graduates with an additional option. It has been incredibly burdensome and really impossible to study for the bar exam under these difficult circumstances for so many people, and they're elated."

University of Washington law dean Mario Barnes said Monday that he also welcomes the court's decision, given the one-two punch of the coronavirus and the national reckoning over racism.  "I communicated to the court that I could not imagine our graduates being expected to place these matters to one side in order to effectively study for a bar exam," Barnes said. "I was especially concerned that our most vulnerable graduates, to include those who are immunocompromised, persons in financial distress, and students from historically underrepresented backgrounds would be disproportionately negatively impacted if no diploma privilege were granted."

Washington's latest move illustrates the wide range of approaches jurisdictions are taking to the July bar exam, as officials struggle to figure out how to safely license thousands of new lawyers. Some jurisdictions, including Florida and Virginia, plan to hold an in-person bar exam on the original July 29 and 29 dates, with some added safety provisions such as temperature checks and social distancing. Many other jurisdictions, including New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia, plan to give in-person exams in September. A handful of other jurisdictions, including Michigan, Indiana, Nevada, are giving modified online bar exams in July. Washington, D.C., recently announced that its bar exam will be in October and online, when the National Conference of Bar Examiners has said it will provide an abbreviated, online test for jurisdictions that cannot safely hold in-person exams.

Under the Washington order, J.D. graduates of ABA law schools may skip the exam as long as they are currently registered for the July administration or the subsequent September test. (Washington is among the seven jurisdictions with plans to offer the exam twice.) Repeat takers are eligible for the diploma privilege—a different policy than Utah's, which applies only to first-time exam takers. And unlike Utah, Washington is not requiring new lawyers who avail themselves of the diploma privilege to complete a certain number of hours of practice under the supervision of a licensed attorney before being admitted to the bar. Utah is requiring 360 hours of supervised practice by the end of 2020.

Washington's emergency diploma privilege will function more like Wisconsin's longstanding diploma privilege program, which allows graduates of the state's two law schools to skip the bar exam. But the diploma privilege in Washington applies to graduates of all ABA law schools, not just the three in the state. Utah is limiting its diploma privilege to recent graduates of ABA-accredited law schools with a first-time bar pass rate of 86% or higher in 2019. Washington has not adopted any similar restriction. Last year, 628 people sat for the Washington's July bar exam. Utah, by contrast, is a much smaller bar exam jurisdiction—just 228 people sat for its 2019 July exam.

Clark said she expects some law graduates to opt for the state's in-person July and September administrations of the Uniform Bar Exam so they can take advantage of the reciprocity offered by the other 34 uniform jurisdictions. But for those who plan to practice in Washington, the diploma privilege is a good option.

The initial push for diploma privilege came from the student bar associations at Washington's three law schools—Seattle, the University of Washington School of Law, and Gonzaga University School of Law. The students submitted a proposal to the Washington State Bar Association and the high court advocating for an emergency diploma privilege, and administrators from the law schools supported it as well. The state bar association ultimately recommended against a diploma privilege and the court on May 15 decided to move forward with in-person exams in both July and September, though it decided to reduce the exam's cut score from 270 to 266. (The National Conference of Bar Examiners has also warned against diploma privilege programs, saying they put the public at risk of unqualified lawyers.)

But the Seattle Law faculty unanimously voted last week to ask the court to reconsider in light of current events, Clark said. She sent a letter to the court June 10 requesting a reconsideration, and two days later the court complied. In addition to the bar exam, the state is also extending a diploma privilege to people taking its Limited License Legal Technician—a unique program in which students may practice in certain areas of family law after completing 45 credits of legal instruction.

"I think what really tipped it was the killing of George Floyd and the unrest that happened after that," Clark said. "You take everything the graduates had already been experiencing, then you throw that into the mix. We—the faculty and administration—were hearing from our graduates of the physical and emotion toll that all of this was taking."

Barnes said he plans to continue to push the court to expand access to the emergency diploma privilege, noting that LL.M. graduates, those who withdrew from the in-person July and September exams due to COVID-19 health concerns, and those who opted to register for the February 2021 bar exam are currently ineligible.