Supreme Court

TEXAS SUPREME COURT advisory

Contact: Osler McCarthy
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COURT APPROVES SHORTENED BAR EXAM
FOR ITS TWO SUMMER EXAM DATES
The amended order allows re-weighted scoring

In a statement posted to its website the Board of Law Examiners explained the mechanics of reconfigured Texas bar exam that follows the Texas Supreme Court’s approval Tuesday of a two-day test in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Board of Law Examiners will condense the remaining 2020 Texas bar examinations to two days in the sessions scheduled for July 28-29 and September 9-10.

The Court’s order amends Rule Governing Admission to the Bar 11(d) to require the two-day format and reweight the examination components to accommodate reducing Texas essay questions to six from 12. The modified examination will be weighted: Multistate Performance Test (10 percent), Texas procedure and evidence (10 percent), Multistate Bar Examination (50 percent) and essays (30 percent).

The Court’s order follows the Board of Law Examiners’ recommendation to shorten the examination by reducing the number of essays and re-weighting the components to improve the reliability of the examination. The board relied on a study in 2018 by Research Solutions Group, a psychometric consulting firm that evaluated the likely effect of adopting either the Uniform Bar Examination or a shorter, two-day bar examination. That study concluded that fewer essays would lower the test-reliability factor, but that increasing the weight of the Multistate Bar Examination and reducing the weight of the six essays would improve reliability to an acceptable level.