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Software Company Hopeful No Bar Exam Essays Will Be Lost
New York Law Journal
July 31, 2007
The Massachusetts company that provided the software for students using laptops for the New York state bar examination last week said it believes no essays will be lost due to computer problems, the New York state Board of Law Examiners said.
Students reported problems saving the essays on their computers, and later uploading the essays onto the company's Web site for transfer to the state for grading.
"We have been advised by the software company that so far, there are no essays that appear to be lost and they are confident that no one will lose any essays," John McAlary, executive director of the Board of Law Examiners, said Friday. The board will notify laptop test takers by electronic mail when their essays are located, McAlary said.
He said the process of matching the essays with the answer packets of the students who wrote them will probably take until the end of this week to complete. The board is also sending e-mails to the test takers to notify them of the status of the effort to locate all essays.
The six essays were included on the New York state portion of the two-day bar exam that students took on July 21. About half the 10,850 students taking the bar exam used laptops to write their essays, McAlary said.
Software Secure Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., was the supplier of the SecureExam software that the law examiners blamed for the glitches.
