Three Washington law school deans are pressing the state Supreme Court to grant diploma privilege after a catastrophic bar exam failure left hundreds of graduates without a path forward.
The July bar exam administration collapsed at a Yakima convention center when six hours of dead WiFi rendered the entire NextGen exam undeliverable, with not a single question answered.
Roughly 600 examinees were left with three options by the Washington State Bar Association, each of which effectively makes candidates pay the price for a failure that was not theirs.
Those options include a September makeup exam in Tacoma, a transfer to February 2027, or a withdrawal and refund that is meaningless for anyone hoping to practice law this year.
Deans from the University of Washington School of Law, Seattle University School of Law, and Gonzaga University School of Law have all written letters to the state Supreme Court urging action.
Seattle University School of Law Dean Tony Varona branded the September rescheduling “unwise” and called for diploma privilege, writing that “equity and fairness require diploma privilege” given the circumstances.
University of Washington School of Law Dean Tamara Lawson asked the court to grant diploma privilege “to avoid any additional harms to these graduates, specifically to prevent any delay in their careers or admission to the practice.”
Lawson was direct about where responsibility lies, writing that diploma privilege “is the only equitable remedy that would ensure that the financial, professional, and emotional burdens of this catastrophic failure are not shifted to the test takers.”
All three deans argued that a makeup exam fails to address the money already spent on travel, lodging, and job opportunities that are contingent on bar passage this year.
Washington is not without precedent here, having granted emergency diploma privilege to ABA-accredited law school graduates in June 2020, allowing them to begin practising law without sitting an exam.
Graduates who wanted a portable score were still able to sit for one later, and the 2020 arrangement was widely considered to have worked without incident.
The Washington Supreme Court acknowledged the pressure it is facing in an email to applicants, stating it is “hearing from examinees, law school deans, members of the WSBA board of governors, among many others, all of whom urge us to take swift action.”
The court added that it is “actively engaged in fully understanding what happened and working with WSBA and the NCBE toward a timely solution.”
NCBE chief communications officer Faye McCray noted that diploma privilege decisions are made by individual jurisdictions and do not involve the NCBE directly.
McCray said the NCBE “recognises the tremendous disappointment and disruption this has caused the applicants affected by the cancellation of the July Washington administration” and remains committed to supporting both examinees and the bar association.
The central question now is whether Washington takes the route it has already successfully used, or forces a class of graduates to absorb the consequences of an institutional failure entirely beyond their control.