A Harvard Law School graduate is suing the New York Board of Law Examiners, blaming her failures to pass the bar exam on the board’s refusal to grant accommodations for her disability.
Tamara Wyche eventually passed the bar in 2015, but claims that her legal career had already been damaged by the two prior failures.
Wyche, 29, suffers from debilitating panic attacks and requested that the board allow her to take the exam in a separate room from other test-takers, provide extra time and stop-clock breaks to decrease the stress level, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Despite support from Harvard Law for the accommodations, the board allegedly refused to give Wyche all the breaks she requested. Wyche was granted all the accommodations on her third try.
Wyche claims in the suit that “top law firms do not wish to employ someone who failed the bar examination twice.”
A spokesman for the board could not immediately be reached for comment.
