July 23, 2020
Hon. Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224
Hon. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Majority Leader New York State Senate 188 State Street, Legislative Office Building, Room 907 Albany, NY 12247
Hon. Carl Heastie, Assembly Speaker New York State Assembly 188 State Street, Legislative Office Building, Room 932 Albany, NY 12247
Hon. Janet DiFiore Chief Judge of the State of New York New York State Unified Court System 25 Beaver St., 11th Floor New York, NY 10004
RE: Letter in Support of Diploma Privilege Legislation, S.8682/A. 10794
Dear Governor Cuomo, Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Speaker Heastie & Chief Judge DiFiore:
We write to express our strong support for the COVID-19 Diploma Privilege bill to ensure that the communities most hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic do not lose access to eager and qualified incoming public interest attorneys. While the 2020 bar exam has been cancelled, the State of New York currently has no clear plan to allow for the admission to the bar of thousands of recent graduates. The COVID-19 Diploma Privilege bill will allow qualified law graduates to be automatically admitted to the bar without the requirement to take and pass the Uniform Bar Exam. Judiciary Law Section 53 gives the Court of Appeals the power to adopt, amend, or rescind rules
relating to the admission of attorneys, so long as those rules are not inconsistent with the constitution or statutes of the state. If ever there was a time for the Court of Appeals to wield this power, it is now.
As public defenders and unions representing non-profit legal service providers, we rely on recent law graduates to provide the highest level of representation for our clients and communities. Our organizations hire these graduates, who have already shown they have the work ethic and character to provide this representation, before they even sit for (let alone pass) the bar exam. We should not require law students to put their health and safety on the line, when diploma privilege is not only possible, but happening in states throughout the country in light of this crisis.
The Center for Disease Control's Guiding Principles make clear: "'[t]he more people an individual interacts with at a gathering and the longer that interaction lasts, the higher the potential risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 and COVID-19 spreading." The bar exam requires large groups of students and administrators to gather together and spend, at the very least, six hours each day in a crowded environment. This is directly at odds with what the CDC and public health experts recommend. No one knows how long it will be before there is a vaccine to the coronavirus that will allow for safe implementation of the bar exam. Law graduates should not be required to postpone their careers until it is safe to do so, or worse, risk their health and that of their families by sitting for the exam before the pandemic has ended.
Recent law graduates have been through enough. Our communities have been through enough. There is a clear path forward to allow law graduates to begin their careers without delay to meet the diverse and complex legal needs of New Yorkers. They will have our supervision and our support, but they need their law licenses, too. We urge you to immediately pass and sign into law the COVID-19 Diploma Privilege Bill, S.8682 (Hoylman) / A. 10794 (Simon).
Sincerely,
Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325 The Bronx Defenders Brooklyn Defender Services Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo The Legal Aid Society Legal Services Staff Association, a unit of NOLSW/UAW 2320 (Unit representing staff at Legal Services NYC & Mobilization for Justice) National Organization of Legal Services Workers, UAW Local 2320 Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem New York County Defender Services Queens Defenders