Who Handed the Georgia Bar Examination?

The Georgia Office of Bar Admissions released the July bar exam results Friday, showing an overall passing rate of 64.4%.

The rate was down from October 2020 – 68.2% – and July 2019 – 65.8% – but increased from July 2018 – 61.2%.

Some would have expected that given the technical issues with the remote bar exam, the success rate would continue to decrease. Those who took the test across the country in July reported technical failures, blank screens, cracks and overwhelming stress.

The words “nightmare” and “look death in the eyes” appeared on social media. Widely used reports detailed lost time ranging from a few minutes to an hour and a half. The problems focused on the ExamSoft program that was used for the test.

According to John Earles, director of the Georgia Supreme Court Bar Association, Georgia test takers generally appear to have had a better experience than some other states. “For the vast majority of our 1,200 applicants, the exam went smoothly (at least from a technical perspective; I cannot judge the difficulty of the exam questions),” Earles told the Daily Report in July.

For a list of those who passed the bar exam, click here.