Despite a landmark election, a Hoosier’s appointment to the United States Supreme Court and countless major developments in the Indiana legal community, this year belonged to the coronavirus, Indiana Lawyer’s top story of 2020.
COVID may have seemed like the only thing that happened in 2020, but for Indiana’s legal community, the past year brought watershed developments that will be with us for years to come, many of which were touched directly by the pandemic. Here are the Top 10 non-coronavirus Indiana legal news stories as determined by consensus of the Indiana Lawyer editorial staff.
There are several reasons why a law student in Indiana should take the IndyBar Review course to prepare for the bar exam. Here are my top three as to why you should do it in 2021.
Indiana will again be administering its bar exam remotely in February but, unlike the test given during the summer, this time the exam will be two-days and applicants will not be allowed to consult any outside materials.
Speaking with reporters via Zoom on Thursday, Indiana Chief Justice Loretta Rush acknowledged that despite efforts to keep courts operating remotely as much as possible, judges will face the difficult task in 2021 of working through COVID-created backlogs and getting their dockets back on schedule.
Indiana’s decision to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam came after a year of study, and the decision wasn’t unanimous. As Chief Justice Loretta Rush explained, “I really respect the dissenting opinion and in many ways a lot of us agree with what they are saying. But we really felt the time had come.”
Indiana has decided to join the growing majority of states and adopt the Uniform Bar Exam in July 2021, according to an announcement Tuesday from the Indiana Supreme Court. Justices also announced Tuesday that the February 2021 Bar Exam will be given remotely.
Citing the “continuing uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 emergency,” the Law School Admission Council has announced that all the remaining LSAT exams will be delivered remotely instead of in-person through April 2021.
The Indiana Supreme Court hosted the Fall 2020 Bar Admission Ceremony by videoconference Monday in keeping with safeguards of hosting once events online amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the speakers encouraged new Indiana lawyers to look to the example of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The overall passage rate for the Indiana August 2020 bar exam reached 74%, about 10 percentage points higher than the overall pass rate for the previous four July bar exams. Likewise, 84% of those taking the test for the first time passed while 53% of the repeat takers were successful, the highest rate for repeaters since 54% passed the February 2015 bar.
For the second time this year, new Indiana attorneys will be taking their oaths via videoconference during the Fall 2020 Bar Admission Ceremony, the Indiana Supreme Court has announced.
Indiana’s unprecedented bar exam that was reformatted and delayed until August 2020 because of the coronavirus has turned in a pass rate that tops the previous four years. Almost three-quarters of those who took the remote test passed, according to the list released Tuesday.
Concord Law School at Purdue University Global, the online law school owned by Purdue University, has been fully accredited by the State Bar of California, enabling students to continue their legal studies without having to pass the Golden State’s First Year Law Students’ Exam.
In an order issued by the Kentucky Supreme Court on Friday, the commonwealth has joined the growing list of states adopting the Uniform Bar Exam, putting Indiana in an even smaller group of non-UBE jurisdictions.
After a series of software failures, increasing anxiety and a quick pivot to another format, Indiana administered the state’s first remote bar exam Tuesday without an apparent glitch.
Although the testing software was supposed to allow individuals to take the July 2020 Indiana Bar Exam while remaining safely in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology malfunctioned so badly that the Indiana Supreme Court will be forced to administer the test by relying on email and the applicants’ integrity.
The Indiana Supreme Court issued an order Wednesday again revamping the July 2020 bar exam, opting to send test questions by email and allowing applicants to refer to notes and course materials during the test. The test is still scheduled to be administered remotely Tuesday under the new format.
The Hoosier state is postponing its bar exam by one week to Aug. 4, because of ongoing problems with the testing software, the Indiana Supreme Court announced Friday afternoon.
Two business days from the July 2020 bar exam, some Indiana applicants are reporting problems with the software and adding more anxiety that they will not even be able to log on to take the test Tuesday.
A late change in the way the Indiana bar exam will be administered has raised sufficient fears of some applicants about the potential for wide-spread cheating that they are asking the test to be open-book. But the Indiana Supreme Court rejected a petition from dozens of law school graduates who will take the bar exam remotely next week.