Last July, a woman taking the New York bar exam went into cardiac arrest. She gasped for air, cried out, fell out of her chair, and turned blue on the floor in front of proctors, staff, and hundreds of other examinees. The proctors told everyone to stay in their seats and keep writing.
A year later, she’s suing. Mary Jane Jung, a 2025 Fordham Law graduate, filed last week in Nassau County Supreme Court, alleging that the delay in getting her help left her with avoidable, permanent damage, describing ongoing memory loss and cognitive impairment.
“The emergency was neither subtle nor ambiguous,” the complaint explains. “Every lost minute mattered.” That’s true, but underscores the problem with the lawsuit’s caption. Jung’s suit names Hofstra, which makes sense as the testing site where this happened. But the suit leaves out the bar examiners themselves who craft and enforce the draconian, nonsensical rules that make proctors fear disrupting the “sanctity” of this stupid exam even when someone is in the middle of a life-or-death emergency.
It’s not Hofstra that makes everyone in attendance forfeit their phones and then chides the people on the ground administering the test that it could compromise the exam to stop and ask if there’s an EMT in the house or clear the room while emergency services tend to a patient. Candidates who tried to intervene were reportedly told to sit down and focus on the test. Those are broken priorities and those orders aren’t coming from Hofstra.
Unfortunately, this probably isn’t an error on Jung’s part. Judiciary Law § 56 makes the State Board of Law Examiners a creature of the Court of Appeals. Since they’re administering a state function, that presumably requires any claims against the Board into the Court of Claims, with a whole lot of protections for discretionary policy judgments by governmental entities.
Hofstra, for its part, denies any delays in medical assistance, and has said that its public safety officers began CPR and defibrillation and kept going until paramedics arrived. Eyewitnesses at the time reported lengthy delays, Hofstra says no. That’s the kind of question discovery exists to answer.
The Board of Law Examiners, meanwhile, gets to skip the whole exercise. There’s not going to be referendum on whether the rules it insists upon contributed to a culture of dangerous indecision while a woman turned blue and proctors counseled people to worry about the time limit.
It’s the sort of problem that legislative action could address. Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn introduced the Clock Should Stop Act on August 13, 2025 — two weeks after the incident, with a legislative-intent section that recounts the collapse in clinical detail. It requires the Board to have emergency protocols, it tells proctors to use their cell phones to call 911, and it pauses the exam clock while someone might be dying. It also offers accommodations to people who watched someone nearly die 20 feet away and were then marched back in after lunch.
The Senate version passed on May 19, 2026, by a vote of 58-1. It was delivered to the Assembly that same day and referred to the Judiciary Committee.
It has been sitting there ever since.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee is chaired by Charles Lavine, who in August 2025 sent a letter to the Board expressing deep concern that the response had been “disorganized, delayed, and lacking in clear protocol” and urging a thorough review to prevent a recurrence.
The lone nay vote was State Senator Mark Walczyk, who evidently reviewed the bill instructing proctors to dial 911 and found something in there he couldn’t support. In 2023, he was very proud of his bill to mandate permanent Daylight Saving Time in New York, so it’s not as though he’s against stopping a clock as long as it’s in service of one of the dumbest policy ideas ever.
New York’s answer to Jonah Ryan aside, the momentum is fully behind this bill, making it hard to understand why it’s still not in force over a year later.
Bar examiners would probably say that there are emergency protocols already. For example, the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ supervisors’ manual reportedly already includes a prepared emergency announcement for proctors to read aloud in case of emergency. The problem is these same authorities are quick to tell states and examinees that nothing actually counts as an emergency. These are the people who scoffed at the suggestion of remote exams during a global pandemic. And that filters down to the state authorities. In February, New York had an historic blizzard. Over 10,000 flights were canceled, New York City instituted a travel ban, and the Bar Examiners put out a voicemail informing stranded applicants that not showing up counts as a withdrawal. One Washington Heights site closed while other city locations stayed open. The Board’s institutional reflex, tested twice in seven months, proved identical both times: the exam always comes first.
New York devotes two days every summer to determining whether applicants can identify a duty of care, spot the breach, and trace the causal chain to the damages. The people running it have had a year and still can’t find the issue.
Earlier: Bar Exam Taker Suffers Apparent Heart Attack
Bar Applicants Call B.S. On Examiner’s Account Of Test-Taker Suffering Cardiac Arrest
5 Crucial Lessons From The Bar Exam’s Near Deadly Failure
Politician Calls On New York Bar To Reform ‘Disorganized, Delayed’ Emergency Response
New York’s ‘Clock Should Stop Act’ Could Ensure Safety Measures For Future Bar Exams
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post Woman Who Went Into Cardiac Arrest During NY Bar Exam Sues Hofstra — But Not The Bar Examiners appeared first on Above the Law.
Last July, a woman taking the New York bar exam went into cardiac arrest. She gasped for air, cried out, fell out of her chair, and turned blue on the floor in front of proctors, staff, and hundreds of other examinees. The proctors told everyone to stay in their seats and keep writing.
A year later, she’s suing. Mary Jane Jung, a 2025 Fordham Law graduate, filed last week in Nassau County Supreme Court, alleging that the delay in getting her help left her with avoidable, permanent damage, describing ongoing memory loss and cognitive impairment.
“The emergency was neither subtle nor ambiguous,” the complaint explains. “Every lost minute mattered.” That’s true, but underscores the problem with the lawsuit’s caption. Jung’s suit names Hofstra, which makes sense as the testing site where this happened. But the suit leaves out the bar examiners themselves who craft and enforce the draconian, nonsensical rules that make proctors fear disrupting the “sanctity” of this stupid exam even when someone is in the middle of a life-or-death emergency.
It’s not Hofstra that makes everyone in attendance forfeit their phones and then chides the people on the ground administering the test that it could compromise the exam to stop and ask if there’s an EMT in the house or clear the room while emergency services tend to a patient. Candidates who tried to intervene were reportedly told to sit down and focus on the test. Those are broken priorities and those orders aren’t coming from Hofstra.
Unfortunately, this probably isn’t an error on Jung’s part. Judiciary Law § 56 makes the State Board of Law Examiners a creature of the Court of Appeals. Since they’re administering a state function, that presumably requires any claims against the Board into the Court of Claims, with a whole lot of protections for discretionary policy judgments by governmental entities.
Hofstra, for its part, denies any delays in medical assistance, and has said that its public safety officers began CPR and defibrillation and kept going until paramedics arrived. Eyewitnesses at the time reported lengthy delays, Hofstra says no. That’s the kind of question discovery exists to answer.
The Board of Law Examiners, meanwhile, gets to skip the whole exercise. There’s not going to be referendum on whether the rules it insists upon contributed to a culture of dangerous indecision while a woman turned blue and proctors counseled people to worry about the time limit.
It’s the sort of problem that legislative action could address. Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn introduced the Clock Should Stop Act on August 13, 2025 — two weeks after the incident, with a legislative-intent section that recounts the collapse in clinical detail. It requires the Board to have emergency protocols, it tells proctors to use their cell phones to call 911, and it pauses the exam clock while someone might be dying. It also offers accommodations to people who watched someone nearly die 20 feet away and were then marched back in after lunch.
The Senate version passed on May 19, 2026, by a vote of 58-1. It was delivered to the Assembly that same day and referred to the Judiciary Committee.
It has been sitting there ever since.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee is chaired by Charles Lavine, who in August 2025 sent a letter to the Board expressing deep concern that the response had been “disorganized, delayed, and lacking in clear protocol” and urging a thorough review to prevent a recurrence.
The lone nay vote was State Senator Mark Walczyk, who evidently reviewed the bill instructing proctors to dial 911 and found something in there he couldn’t support. In 2023, he was very proud of his bill to mandate permanent Daylight Saving Time in New York, so it’s not as though he’s against stopping a clock as long as it’s in service of one of the dumbest policy ideas ever.
New York’s answer to Jonah Ryan aside, the momentum is fully behind this bill, making it hard to understand why it’s still not in force over a year later.
Bar examiners would probably say that there are emergency protocols already. For example, the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ supervisors’ manual reportedly already includes a prepared emergency announcement for proctors to read aloud in case of emergency. The problem is these same authorities are quick to tell states and examinees that nothing actually counts as an emergency. These are the people who scoffed at the suggestion of remote exams during a global pandemic. And that filters down to the state authorities. In February, New York had an historic blizzard. Over 10,000 flights were canceled, New York City instituted a travel ban, and the Bar Examiners put out a voicemail informing stranded applicants that not showing up counts as a withdrawal. One Washington Heights site closed while other city locations stayed open. The Board’s institutional reflex, tested twice in seven months, proved identical both times: the exam always comes first.
New York devotes two days every summer to determining whether applicants can identify a duty of care, spot the breach, and trace the causal chain to the damages. The people running it have had a year and still can’t find the issue.
Earlier: Bar Exam Taker Suffers Apparent Heart Attack
Bar Applicants Call B.S. On Examiner’s Account Of Test-Taker Suffering Cardiac Arrest
5 Crucial Lessons From The Bar Exam’s Near Deadly Failure
Politician Calls On New York Bar To Reform ‘Disorganized, Delayed’ Emergency Response
New York’s ‘Clock Should Stop Act’ Could Ensure Safety Measures For Future Bar Exams
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
