Email accident: New USC law school dean releases confidential bar exam results

In a digital age slip up, the new dean at the University of South Carolina School of Law sent an email to law school students containing a file with the confidential bar exam grades of recent graduates, including those who passed and those who failed.

Almost instantly he realized his error, said law school Dean William Hubbard in a Tuesday interview, and quickly sent out another email trying to undo that first email.

Hubbard’s second email read, “Please delete the message I just sent about bar passage. It was sent with the wrong attachment for which I am very sorry. Please do not open and, if opened, do not reveal any information in that attachment to anyone.”

In the world of law, where lawyers are taught to respect confidentiality, the specific grades a bar exam candidate makes are one of the most confidential of matters. And the names of those who fail the bar exam are never published.

In the Tuesday interview with The State in a conference room at the School of Law, Hubbard, 68, whose long legal career has been marked by one distinction after another, including being a former president of the American Bar Association, appeared devastated at the mistake he committed, barely two months after assuming one of the most prestigious academic posts in South Carolina: dean of the 153-year-old law school.

“It was totally an accident, an accident I deeply regret,” said Hubbard, who became dean Aug. 1.

“I’ve sent a personal email to every one of those students, and I’ve had an email dialogue with some of them and some phone conversations and plan to make myself available to any student who wants to meet.”

In those emails, he apologized, Hubbard said. “The vast majority of the former students have been understanding, forgiving and gracious.”

Hubbard spoke slowly, his shoulders were slumped and at times, he bowed his head. “It’s a mistake I deeply regret. I take full responsibility for the error, and I am profoundly sorry for any harm or distress I may have caused.”

Hubbard repeated, “I take full responsibility. It’s my fault, and mine alone.”

Word of Hubbard’s mishap rocketed around South Carolina’s legal world over the weekend, shocking both lawyers and judges who have heard about it. Not one of a dozen or so legal sources wanted to be quoted on the record about it, out of respect for and also not wanting to be seen as criticizing Hubbard, a former longtime member of the USC Board of Trustees, the prominent Nelson Mullins law firm and ex-president of the American Bar Association. He graduated from both USC and the law school he now leads.

When the S.C. Supreme Court publishes the lists of law school graduates who take the bar exam, the high court only publishes the names of those who passed. It does not publish their grades. Also, the high court does not identify by name those who fail the bar exam. Identities of those who fail are confidential. Instead, test takers who fail the test are identified by a five-digit number.

On Friday, for example, the Supreme Court Office of Bar Admissions published the names of 276 bar exam candidates who took the bar exam in July and passed. It also published, identifying the test-taker only by a five-digit number, the numbers of the 109 candidates who failed. Those who failed must take the bar again and pass the exam before they are able to become practicing lawyers.

Of USC students who took the bar, 82% passed, a relatively high percentage in comparison with recent years.

In fact, Hubbard said Tuesday, it was in the grip of exhilaration about such successful test results that the mistake happened.

He had just gotten an email Friday afternoon from the Office of Bar Admissions with a letter about USC’s Law School’s high-achieving 82% success rate. That email had a file with the confidential grades of each test-taker attached. (Charleston Law School, the state’s only other law school, had a pass rate of slightly more than 50%.)

“I didn’t realize the attachment had something else attached to it,” Hubbard said, explaining he thought he was just sending out the letter with the overall, non-individual results in it. The attachment also contained information about how well, or how poorly, each test-taker did on the exam’s individual components, such as writing, multiple choice and lawyering skills.

That letter also contained a sentence saying the School of Law “has agreed this information ‘shall be kept confidential by the law school...”

Hubbard said the Law School will be offering a “tailored bar preparation course” for those who did not pass the July exam for the upcoming February bar exam. Some people have already said they want to attend, he said. And the Law School is continuing preparations for a robust bar preparation course for third-year law students, he said.

In an Aug. 25 letter to alumni posted on the School of Law’s website, Hubbard said in part, “Classes began last week and another academic year is now underway. We have a good mix of in person and virtual classes to manage the COVID risks.

“There is great energy in the building. I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead, and I pledge to you that I will work tirelessly to accelerate this law school’s upward trajectory. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on how, together, we can lift the School of Law to even greater heights,“ he said in the letter.

In Tuesday’s interview, his tone was different. “The last thing I would ever, ever want to do is hurt any of our students or graduates. I am deeply, profoundly sorry for my mistake.”