Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar of the California Supreme Court. Credit: Jason Doiy / ALM

California's law school deans on Thursday pleaded with state Supreme Court justices and state bar leaders to skip the fall bar exam and grant diploma privilege to candidates for the 2020 test.

Deans from University of California, Berkeley, UC Hastings, UC Irvine, UCLA and other law schools gathered on a private Zoom meeting with Justices Goodwin Liu, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Joshua Groban, as well as state bar executives, to discuss prospects for a fall exam. The UC deans said they argued that current proposals for an in-person September exam or an online October test appear unfeasible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The current unprecedented times demand unprecedented and courageous solutions," the four UC deans wrote to alumni after the nearly two-hour meeting. "COVID-19 has created a climate involving multiple crises, including physical health, mental health, and financial health. Multiplying the anxiety and despair of these crises, the nation is confronting and must find solutions to the systemic racism and deep inequalities endemic in our society. At this unparalleled moment in history, even using the traditional bar exam as a point of departure feels like an affront."

The deans said the justices gave no indication of which exam option they may favor. State Bar officials, however, appeared early in the meeting to be leaning in favor of an online exam in October, they said.

While an online test would avoid the physical distancing problems created by regional, in-person administrations of the test, an October exam has several drawbacks.

First, while the National Committee of Bar Examiners will offer a "limited" multistate bar exam Oct. 5 and 6, that test won't be scalable with California's exam, meaning the two portions of the test will not sync for purposes of generating a valid score, UC Hastings Dean David Faigman said Thursday. Faigman said bar officials assured attendees that their testing expert could develop a method for calibrating the scoring of the test sections.

Secondly, with thousands of applicants expected to take the fall exam, scores from an October sitting would probably not be released until mid-January, Those who fail the fall exam would in all likelihood not have enough time to register or prepare for the February test.

Finally, questions remain about the feasibility of administering a test online.

In their message to graduates, the law school deans said the experience of the 280 applicants who took last month's first-year bar examination, also known as the baby bar, was "indeterminate." Faigman said bar officials did not offer much information about administration of the test, although he noted that one test-taker experienced technical problems and was placed on hold during a help-center call.

The three justices who attended Thursday's meeting said they would keep an open mind on testing options. Liu did note he could not agree to adopting an alternative licensing plan that didn't apply equally to all law school graduates, Faigman and UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said.

Goodwin Liu. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM

Deans of American Bar Association-approved schools, whose students typically pass the bar at much higher rates than their colleagues from state-accredited institutions, want diploma privilege to apply only to their graduates.

The Supreme Court would have to approve the parameters of an emergency diploma privilege, including who would be eligible to receive it and whether they would have to practice under the supervision of an active lawyer or be subject to additional continuing education requirements.

States around the country continue to grapple with how, or whether, to administer a fall bar exam as COVID-19 infection numbers spike. The Texas Board of Law Examiners recommended Thursday that the state's Supreme Court cancel July and September in-person bar exams and set an online test for October. Tennessee and Florida both canceled their July bar exams over the last two days.

The California Supreme Court has scheduled an online public comment period July 7 to hear from students planning to take the bar exam this fall.