Law firms, schools, attorney mentors find new ways to administer oaths to latest bar exam passers

As the February bar exam results are released tonight,law schools and lawyers are looking for alternatives to administer the oath to new attorneys.

Videoconferencing will replace traditional gatherings. But attorneys and deans say that administering the oath remotely or via notaries allows for a more intimate and personal occasion.

UC Irvine School of Law will hold a remote event via Zoom. It's the first time the school will administer the oath remotely. There will also be a remote commencement ceremony for graduates.

"I do think that for some people and some types of events, it can almost be more personalized and intimate," Vice Dean Christopher A. Whytock said. "Webinars existed before the pandemic and maybe now we'll find that it's a really effective way to engage not only our students but the county, the state and the nation. I do see a silver lining, not that it will replace the in-person events, but that it could be a nice compliment to in-person events."

Before students can be admitted to the bar, they have to pass a moral character assessment. The state Supreme Court must approve the applicants before they can be sworn in. This is a process that usually takes six months and it is now being done remotely.

Informal conferences that take place when there are serious moral character questions that could impact admittance to the bar are being held via online conferencing, State Bar spokeswoman Teresa Ruano explained. Candidates can also choose to wait if they prefer to avoid a video call.

Last year, 3,889 people passed the general bar exam in July, and 1,458 in February.

Applicants who took the exam in February this year will be less impacted by the moral assessment being done online since the bar recommends that students start the process at the beginning of their last semester. But for students who plan on taking the postponed bar exam in September, it could cause some obstacles, said Whytock.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little bit more of a crunch with students who are taking the exam in what now looks like it'll be September," said Whytock. "That'll also give the bar hopefully more time to figure out ways of streamlining the process."

But administering the attorney oath remotely also brings other challenges. The official conducting the oath for UC Irvine School of Law graduates is Orange County Superior Court Judge Karen L. Robinson. She will have to sit in front of a screen and make sure students actually take it. Whytock expects that about 10 students will attend the event since more people take the exam later in the year, so he expects everyone will be able to see each other in the video chat room.

The bar has provided applicants with an oath card that has to be signed by both the applicant and the official swearing them in remotely, to make sure that the oath is valid.

Martin Pritikin, dean of the online Concord Law School, said his school will also hold remote swearing-in ceremonies for the first time, and the faculty is still working out the details.

The videoconferencing tool they use depends on how many people attend the ceremony, Pritikin said. For larger schools, it might cause some issues as to how the school and the judge can verify who actually took the oath, he said.

"If you've got 200 people taking the bar and most of them passing, that might make create for a greater challenge for some schools," Pritikin said. "But I imagine there are ways you could work around that where the law school invites people who are verified graduates of the school who are on the bar passers list, and they could record the session to verify who entered the room. That way, you could match that up with whose bar card should be signed."

Although law schools usually have a judge who administers the oath, there are other alternatives. The bar has a list of 23 officials who are authorized by the state Legislature.

When John E. O'Grady of O'Grady Law Group APC was helping Tracy Warner, a student he was mentoring, take the oath in her home in December, he decided to use a notary. Notaries are among the authorized officials.

For O'Grady, the approach allowed for some creativity. First Warner took the California attorney oath, and then a personalized oath that was written by O'Grady.

"Writing a personal oath is a chance to really personalize it and reflect on who is the lawyer you want to be, and that's going to guide your career, rather than supporting the Constitution," O'Grady said. "I'm an estate lawyer, I've never had a constitutional question. I even forgot that I took an oath. And I had no recollection that I took an oath to support the Constitution. It's irrelevant as a practical matter, and so this is an opportunity to create a practical, personalized oath."

For O'Grady, helping Warner getting sworn in was his favorite lawyering moment of 2019 and he's now encouraging his friends who are mentoring students to follow his approach.

But taking the oath remotely can be bittersweet, according to Matias Gonzales, staff attorney at Manhattan Legal Services. Gonzales passed the bar exam in New York and was sworn in remotely Wednesday. A judge administered the oath and three other judges were present in the video call, Gonzales explained.

He was looking forward to taking the oath together with his fellow students, but doing it remotely also allowed him to have his daughter with him.

"I had my daughter with me, which for me was almost the closing of a chapter, because when I started law school, she was one year old," Gonzales said. "So, I would hold her in my right arm and I would write with my left hand. And that was a lot of the experience for me in law school, and it was facilitated by them, they were awesome. So, it was really nice to have her there."

He said that he understands a lot of people who have passed the bar are in despair, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.