Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I checking in with Vanderbilt Law School's Cat Moon on what she has dubbed the #BloodyBarpocolypse. That's the practice of some bar exam jurisdictions prohibiting test takers from bringing in their own feminine hygiene products. For Moon and her supporters, the ban exemplifies more fundamental problems with the attorney licensing exam—which has been pummeled with criticism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On a lighter note, I touch base with University of Iowa law professor Greg Schill in the final weeks of the Yada Yada Law School. The fake Seinfeld-based online law school has been a rousing success and now has a charitable bent. Read on and stay safe out there!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

   

#BloodyBarpocolypse

Of all the things I thought I might write about the hot mess that is this year's bar exam, feminine hygiene products were definitely not on my list. But it's 2020 folks, so nothing is off the table. Here goes: Cat Moon, the Director of Innovation Design for Vanderbilt Law School's Program on Law and Innovation, caused a stir on Twitter last week when she pointed out that Arizona bans bar examinees from bringing their own feminine hygiene products into the test. (She learned of the policy after a candidate in Arizona tweeted about it.) It turns out that Texas, Pennsylvania, and possibly other jurisdictions have similar policies, and provide candidates with tampons and the like at the exam site. Bar examiners generally prohibit test takers from bringing possessions in with them, but for Moon—who has been monitoring bar exam cancelations and inaction from licensing body with increasing concern—the feminine hygiene product ban is a bridge too far.