Ian Calvert, 30, had a job waiting at Pierce County Assigned Counsel with an August start date.

Instead, after a Wi-Fi meltdown canceled Washington's bar exam on July 28, the aspiring public defender faced close to $10,000 in lost salary.

On Thursday, Aug. 6, the Washington Supreme Court offered a resolution: first-time test takers among the 645 graduates stranded by the cancellation may waive the bar exam entirely and be admitted to practice by court order.

Those who prefer to sit for the test can take a makeup exam Sept. 1–2 in Tacoma or wait until February 2027, also in Tacoma.

Eligible graduates must notify the WSBA by email at [email protected] by noon on Friday, Aug. 14. Those who choose the waiver will be admitted after Oct. 9. Those who do not respond by the deadline will be deemed withdrawn and receive a full refund.

What happened in Yakima

The July 28 exam was Washington's first administration of the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam, a nine-hour, fully computer-based test that replaced the traditional 12-hour format. Washington was among the first states to adopt it.

Inside the Yakima Convention and Event Center's ballroom, test-takers described rows of tables for two, each set with three colored paper cards: yellow for tech help, blue for a break, green for a finished exam. By 7:30 a.m., yellow cards were rising across the room. IT workers walked between rows asking people to restart computers. One test-taker estimated a third to half the room had connectivity issues. No one completed a single question before the WSBA canceled the exam that evening.

Washington was the only state where the NextGen exam failures forced a full cancellation, according to the ABA Journal. Missouri reported technical challenges, but candidates in the other nine jurisdictions finished.

Who qualifies

The diploma privilege waiver applies only to applicants who registered in person for the July exam and have never previously failed a bar exam in any U.S. jurisdiction. Repeat test takers may transfer to the September or February exam without paying fees but cannot receive the waiver.

Graduates who accept the waiver will be licensed only in Washington. Those who want to practice in other states will still need to take a future exam to obtain a portable UBE score.

Deans pushed for broader relief

Before the court ruled, deans at all three of Washington's law schools wrote a joint letter urging diploma privilege. Seattle University School of Law Dean Anthony Varona, University of Washington School of Law Dean Tamara Lawson and Gonzaga University School of Law interim Dean Linda D. Jellum argued the September makeup was not enough.

"These students have told me they have taken out loans. They have postponed surgeries. They have postponed weddings. They have pulled out of work," Varona told KUOW on Aug. 5. "I cannot overstate how disastrous this was for them."

The court acknowledged the difficulty in a statement accompanying its order, saying there was no perfect resolution. Chief Justice Stephens and Justices Johnson, Whitener and Angelis dissented on the section granting the exam waiver.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners, which developed the NextGen format, said in a statement reported by the ABA Journal on Aug. 6 that it is committed to a full investigation of the issues that caused the cancellation.

What's next for Tacoma-area graduates

The Sept. 1–2 makeup exam will be held in Tacoma, though the WSBA has not announced a specific venue. The original July exam required all 645 test takers to travel to Yakima, which has no law school within two hours. Tacoma's selection puts the exam closer to the state's largest concentration of law graduates.

For Calvert, who had lined up public defense work in Pierce County, the court's order means a choice: skip the exam and start practicing after Oct. 9, or sit for the September test and wait for results on the same date.

"I'm going to end up losing close to $10,000 in salary because of this," Calvert told the Seattle Times on July 28, the day of the cancellation. "I'm a public defender. I don't make money, compared to other lawyers."