Author: Matthew Stanford

Overview During the 2008 financial crisis, President-elect Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”[1] The present pandemic is no exception. Examples of political and economic opportunities abound: the debates over the appropriate legislative response to the pandemic,[2] schemes to defraud frightened consumers and merchants,[3] the emergence of a “coronavirus economy,”[4] and even the mad dashes to hoard ordinary goods like toilet paper,[5] groceries,[6] and personal protective equipment.[7] And given the human propensity to forget our vulnerabilities between crises, the more negative of these examples will likely repeat themselves. Yet...

As the number of states electing to delay the July bar exam in response to the coronavirus pandemic increases, so too have the calls for state bar associations to waive the exam requirement altogether.[1] Such an “emergency diploma privilege” would allow new graduates to practice law without first passing a state-administered bar examination. As the explanation goes, allowing a law degree to substitute for a bar exam this year would not only resolve current uncertainty over when bar exams can be safely administered (especially in harder-hit states like California and New York), but also allow these new attorneys to offer...