As some states have already recognized, the July bar exam will almost certainly not take place this summer as scheduled. The best path forward is for states, at a minimum, to accord two-year provisional licenses to practice law to law school graduates, on condition that they practice under the supervision of a licensed attorney.

As we face the inadequacy of ventilators, masks and hospital beds, and worry about still-escalating COVID-19 infection rates across the country, the plight of newly minted lawyers unable to sit for a licensing exam might not seem like the most urgent problem. But soon tens of thousands of aspiring lawyers from across the country will earn their law degrees without a realistic chance to actually enter their profession on schedule.