The Number of Law-School Grads Getting Extra Time for the Bar Exam Is Surging

More aspiring lawyers are receiving bar exam accommodations, with 14% of California test takers in July getting extra time. More aspiring young lawyers are asking for -- and getting -- extra time to finish the bar exam, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. In California, for instance, where more people take the bar than in any other state, 14% of the nearly 8,000 test takers last July received accommodations, up from 4% a decade earlier, according to the state bar. In Washington, D.C., the number has exceeded one in seven. The development follows one already coursing through high schools and colleges: More students have diagnoses for disabilities like ADHD and receive extra time for classwork or the SAT. Now, as this generation enters the workforce, the phenomenon has reached professional licensing exams -- and law firms are adapting, launching programs to support young associates with diagnoses. Perry Zirkel, a disability-law scholar and former Lehigh University dean, said the need for testing accommodations for truly disabled students is real, but he worries about unfairness. Savvy families that can pay thousands of dollars for private disability assessments, he said, gain advantages by gaming the system. "This gives a benefit to those who already have power and privilege, and once they get good at it, they just simply keep playing the game," Zirkel said. The increase traces primarily to two sources: rising rates of diagnoses, and amendments in 2008 to the Americans with Disabilities Act that liberalized eligibility, he said. The changes stemmed in part from a desire to help disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with conditions such as PTSD. At some affluent high schools today, more than 30% of students have disability diagnoses and receive testing accommodations. Some colleges reflect this surge: At Hampshire College, Pace University and Smith College, more than one in three students claim a disability, according to federal data. By contrast, less than 3% of students at Springfield Technical Community College, 20 miles from Smith, claim disabilities. The pattern carries into post-graduate education. At some law schools, more than 20% of students had testing accommodations in recent years, according to a study in the Oregon Law Review that examined enrollment at 60 schools between 2021 and 2023. The increases in California parallel those elsewhere. In Washington, D.C., 15% of test takers received accommodations this past February, up from 5% a decade earlier, according to the district's Court of Appeals, which administers the exam. Nearly 12% received accommodations in July last year, which is the more popular sitting. In Illinois, 13% of bar takers this past July received accommodations, up from 2% a decade ago. In Georgia, the share rose to 7% from 2% over roughly the same time span. In California, the most common category for accommodation is psychological conditions, which can include ADHD, anxiety and learning disabilities. In recent years, about 60% of the accommodations the state granted fell into that category, while 32% were for physical disabilities. In February 2025, 65% of those with accommodations passed the California bar compared with 58% of all test takers. About 90% of applicants who sought an accommodation received one, and 97% were for extended time. (The state bar says its methodology for tracking accommodations has varied somewhat over the years.) Law firms are navigating growing numbers of young attorneys arriving with psychological-disability diagnoses. Caitlin Vaughn, a managing director at Goodwin Procter, a global firm with about 1,800 attorneys, believes the number of people with conditions like ADHD hasn't changed but is being recognized more often. "I would be a little leery of supposing that it's a gaming of the system in order to get some unfair advantage," Vaughn said. "Taking initiative, being a self starter and being able to advocate for yourself is a skillset that is helpful when you practice law." In 2024, Goodwin Procter started a program called "Thriving with ADHD," which addressed issues around task initiation, sleep, mental health and working with colleagues with ADHD. The firm's goal is to improve productivity and enhance lawyers' professional performance, Vaughn said. One practice that emerged from the program is "body doubling," which pairs attorneys who struggle with starting tasks with accountability partners. They meet online, discuss what they need to accomplish, work in silence and reconvene to review what they got done. Outside law, professional organizations, including those representing financial professionals and engineers, declined to provide data on accommodations for professional exams. ETS, which administers testing for teachers, also declined. Test takers with accommodations on two major nursing exams rose to 2.6% last year from 1.3% in 2016, the first year for which data was available. On exams for dental professionals, the rate climbed to 1.7% last year from 0.5% in 2015.