Wednesday, March 12, 2008

New York's New Governor

A piece of trivia you may not know about David Paterson: he is a graduate of Hofstra Law School, but he is not a lawyer. Why? Because he was not able to pass the Bar exam.

In his defense, Patterson, who has limited vision and is legally blind, claims he received inadequate accommodations. The Bar Examiners provided an amanuensis to read him the questions and transcribed his answers. Paterson explained to the New York Observer: “I can do some reading on my own, but the bar exam I couldn’t, because it was grueling. ...It was a big problem for me. … I didn’t feel I had enough time.”

My reaction to his excuse? I don't know. Having somebody read me the questions and transcribe my answers sure would have sounded great when my hand felt like it was going to fall off from writing so much. However, I see his point. The exam is time pressured in some areas: if he received no extra time and needed somebody to read each question to him slowly, then it would have been absolutely impossible to finish the exam (I'm thinking about the multiple choice Multistate Bar Exam portion).

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