Law school graduates line up to take the New York bar exam at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in July 2013.

Graduates from out-of-state law schools won't get shut out of the New York bar exam after all.

The New York State Board of Bar Examiners announced this week that registration for the postponed July exam—now scheduled for Sept. 9 and 10—has closed, and all candidates who completed an application will be given a seat. That's a major relief for the thousands of graduates from schools outside New York who were left wondering about their exam prospects when the board announced in late April that it likely would not be able to accommodate everyone and would give priority to graduates of in-state schools.

John McAlary, the board's executive director, on Wednesday declined to discuss the plan for the upcoming bar exam and said the number of registered test takers is not yet public. Administrators from a number of non-New York law schools said this week that it appears their students will be able to take the exam there.

But a new wrinkle appeared Wednesday when New York State announced that people coming in from eight other states seeing COVID-19 surges must quarantine for 14 days. (New Jersey and Connecticut adopted similar mandatory quarantines.) The quarantine states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. It remains to be seen whether those mandatory quarantines will be in place in September when the bar is scheduled, but worried test takers took to the online forum Reddit to express their concerns.

"So if this is the case come September, those of us taking NY/NJ/CT would just … sit in a hotel alone for two weeks ahead of the exam? Ridiculous," wrote one poster.

In a typical year, about 10,000 people sit for the July New York bar exam, making it the largest bar exam jurisdiction in the country. Last year, graduates of New York law schools comprised 35% of July bar examinees, while graduates of out-of-state law schools comprised 30%. The remainder of examinees were foreign-trained lawyers. It's likely that fewer out-of-state graduates applied for this year's New York test—some likely applied to take the bar in other jurisdictions that use the Uniform Bar Exam with plans to transfer their scores to New York for admission. The New York board and some law schools made that recommendation to graduates amid doubt that it would be able to seat everyone. (The Uniform Bar Exam allows test takers to transfer their scores to other uniform jurisdictions, of which there are 35.) It's also unclear whether fewer foreign-trained attorneys applied to take the September exam, given many LL.M graduates have returned to their home countries amid the pandemic. LL.M graduates are generally limited to taking the bar in either New York or California.

"What we thought was going to be a huge problem seems to have worked out okay," said Mark Weber, career services dean at Harvard Law School. "Most likely because so many grads opted to take the bar exam in another jurisdiction when everything was in flux in New York."

Nearly half of Harvard Law's 2019 graduates, 268, sat for the bar exam in New York, according to data from the ABA.

The April 30 announcement from the New York State Board of Law Examiners that the number of seats for the test would be "sharply limited" left deans of out-of-state law schools scrambling. The plan allowed graduates of New York's 15 American Bar Association-accredited law schools to register from May 5 to May 15. The board would open up applications to graduates of out-of-state law schools only after the local graduates were allocated seats. The board said it was expanding testing sites from the traditional six in order to allow for more social distancing, with New York law schools providing some of that additional space.

Law deans from 20 schools outside New York that typically have many graduates take the bar there quickly fired off a letter to Chief Judge Janet DiFiore of the New York Court of Appeals, imploring the court to look for ways to ensure everyone who wants to take the September exam may do so.

"As you can imagine, the news of your approach has fallen hard on the many students who had planned to sit for the bar in New York this summer or fall, a number of whom have already physically returned or relocated to New York during this pandemic," the deans wrote.

University of Michigan Law School Dean Mark West, one of the signatories of the DiFiore letter, said the ability of out-of-state law students to sit for the September bar exam is "fantastic news" for Michigan graduates. But the lack of uniformity in how jurisdictions are handing the bar exam remains a hurdle, he noted. Many jurisdictions are pushing forward with in-person exams in July, a few are giving online tests in July, while many others have postponed in-person exams until one of two September dates. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., and Maryland are administering abbreviated online exams in October, while Utah and Washington are extending an emergency diploma privilege.

"Michigan students still face challenges in other states because of the patchwork quilt of bar exams," West said.