ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia’s Supreme Court announced Friday that it has rescheduled the state bar exam because of the coronavirus outbreak and will allow recent law graduates to practice temporarily without a bar license.
The exam that had been set for late July has been postponed until September 9 and 10, the high court said in a news release. Because of difficulties that delay could cause for recent graduates, the court also adopted a temporary rule to allow them to be provisionally admitted to practice before taking the exam.
The roughly 1,500 people who take the bar exam each year generally sit close together in the same convention hall, and the court consulted with the state health department before rescheduling the exam, the release says.
“As we carefully considered all of our options, it became clear that the bar exam should not go forward in July,” Chief Justice Harold Melton said. “At the same time, it is vitally important to the Court that the law students and graduates affected by this delay be afforded the opportunity to move forward in their careers.”
The new rule allows people who have graduated in the prior 18 months from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association to apply for a certificate of provisional admissions.
The rule also provides a path for lawyers admitted to the bar in another state to be provisionally admitted in Georgia.
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