Hacker News Reader

Comment by paultopia | Hacker News Reader

I've been closely watching this situation. It's a disaster. Basically, a bunch of places have been trying to do a remote bar exam since July, with various delays (Illinois, for example, is finally about to happen next week... theoretically). It's... just not working. Applicants are turning up security problem after security problem after security problem.

Which I think is predictable. The bar examiners (and many applicants) are incredibly paranoid about cheating, far more paranoid than normal university exams. So they're asking for, essentially, very strong managed device levels of security to prevent cheating, with stuff like facial recognition layered on top... and on an incredibly variety of applicants' own devices. It's like if the CIA had a BYOD policy.

View on HN

I find the requirement of using a laptop without being allowed to use an external monitor to view potentially very long documents (half screen!) for hours on a tiny screen to be ridiculous.

Not just IL, also NY, CA, MA, FL, TX, PA, OH and a dozen more. ~35,000 nationwide, simultaneously!, next Monday and Tuesday, two sessions per day for two days. It all has to work perfectly 150,000 times!

> The bar examiners (and many applicants) are incredibly paranoid about cheating, far more paranoid than normal university exams.

And yet supposedly the Bar only admits members who have passed an ethics vetting.

The moral fitness test isn't designed to ensure that all lawyers are ethical. It only eliminates from consideration people whose past actions demonstrate that they have questionable ethics.

But many law students are young and have no paper trail/track record, so this isn't a very strong filter.

As an attorney who handles[] confidential client data running malware like this proctoring software is a breach of professional ethics, though not one yet acknowledged.

[] And not just will handle, because of limited cross state privileged many people who take the bar are already licensed and practising under another state.

This is an excellent point.

It's not just a character and fitness check for past conduct. Almost all states require that students pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) for admission to the bar. In some ways it's like the bar exam, but it tests knowledge of the rules of professional conduct (~lawyer ethics).

I'm taking it this month, presumably in person.

It’s also very, very easy (CA has the highest pass threshold, which is around 60%). Considering this is a multiple-choice test, that is a very low threshold.

More importantly, the test does not in any way measure whether an applicant will act ethically. It only tests whether you know the rules.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com