SC prepares for first online bar exams

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court is ironing out preparations for the country’s first-ever localized and online examination for new lawyers later this year with the holding of a mock bar exam.

On Friday, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, chair of the 2020-2021 bar exams, said 120 law graduates would be chosen to take part in the pilot test of the new exam process on Jan. 31. He said the localized bar exams would be held simultaneously in Metro Manila and the cities of Baguio, Cebu and Davao as regional testing centers for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, respectively.

The high court had decided to forego the annual bar exams last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The pilot [mock] bar examinations will be a small-scale simulation of the actual bar examinations using computer software, proctored both physically and virtually,” Leonen said.

“The goal of this exercise is to improve on the procedures and technical specifications for the first-ever digital and localized bar examinations in November 2021,” he said.

Leonen said the policies regarding this year’s bar exams would be released before Feb. 14.

—Marlon Ramos