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Law360 (August 26, 2020, 7:53 PM EDT) -- The Florida Board of Bar Examiners on Wednesday announced a narrowed scope of study for the bar exam and set a date of Oct. 13 for the next test, which will be conducted on new software provided by ExamSoft.
The one-day exam — which will extend into Oct. 14 for any test-takers receiving accommodations — will retain the same format of 100 multiple choice questions and three essay questions, but will test fewer areas of the law, according to the FBBE.
The in-person exam that had been scheduled for July 28 and 29 was scrubbed on July 1 as Florida grappled with a dramatic upswing of COVID-19 cases. But the rescheduled Aug. 19 exam was canceled just days before because of data privacy and other problems with the testing software from ILG Technologies Inc.
The multiple choice questions on the Oct. 13 exam will test knowledge of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, torts, business entities, evidence, wills and trusts, according to the FBBE. The essays will focus on federal constitutional law and the Florida law subjects of torts, real property, Florida constitutional law, ethics, contracts and Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code.
The number of subjects that will be tested is roughly half of what applicants would typically have to study, according to Sean Silverman, a bar exam tutor in South Florida. He also pointed out the addition of torts and trusts, which have typically been tested in the essay portion, to the multiple choice section. Bar exam applicants won't have any sample multiple choice questions for those areas of the law to help them study, he said.
"They must be creating questions during the break," Silverman said. "These new questions have never been tested, so that's a little weird to me that they're going to throw a bunch of new questions on the test that have never been tried out before."
The FBBE said it is also developing a backup testing plan, and the Florida Supreme Court will appoint a registrant advocate to address exam applicants' concerns.
The shifting plans and the uncertainty surrounding the bar exam have sent law school graduates scrambling to figure out whether promised job offers will be withdrawn and how they will pay for expenses until the October test.
Last week, a group of Florida attorneys and Florida Bar applicants asked the state's high court for an emergency rule that would allow recent law graduates to practice law without having to pass the bar exam. The petitioners say other states, including Utah, Washington, Oregon and Louisiana have allowed recent law school graduates to practice without taking the bar due to problems administering an exam during the pandemic.
The Florida Supreme Court has not yet responded to the petition, but on Monday the court announced a promised temporary program that would allow some applicants to work under the supervision of a licensed attorney until one month after the February 2021 bar exam results are released.
--Editing by Emily Kokoll.
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