2 Students Come to the Aid of Sick Colleague as Bar Exam Ticks Away

Two law students who stopped taking the State Bar exam this week in Pasadena to help a fellow test-taker suffering an epileptic seizure were denied extra time to finish the test, which was completed by about 500 others who seemingly ignored the stricken man.

John Leslie, 28, of North Hollywood said he was halfway through Tuesday’s phase of the grueling, three-day exam at the Pasadena Convention Center when he put down his pencil and rushed to help the man, who was writhing on the ground and turning blue.

Another student, Eunice Morgan, a registered nurse in her 40s, also responded.

While test administrators called paramedics, Leslie and Morgan administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid, trying to keep the 51-year-old victim’s head back and jaw forward so he would not choke on his tongue.

At one point, the man was unconscious and had stopped breathing, the two law students said.

Afterward, test supervisors refused to let either student make up the 40 minutes they spent during the three-hour test session helping the victim.

The man was conscious by the time paramedics arrived about 3:30 p.m. and was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital.

State Bar and Pasadena fire officials would not release the victim’s name. Leslie, a former lifeguard, said the man showed up Wednesday for the final day of the exam.

After helping the victim, Leslie said he reopened his test book but by then had lost a lot of time and could not concentrate.

He said he almost certainly failed Tuesday’s portion of the exam.

“When you’re taking the bar, it’s such an emotional situation, anyway,” the musician said. “Your life is riding on these three days. I’ve never been so filled with stress.”

Leslie is not sure why no one other than he and Morgan stopped to help.

“Two ways to look at it,” he said. “One, nobody wanted to get up from their exam. The other way to look at it, which I choose to look at, is they saw this guy being taken care of.”

Morgan said there was never a question that she would help.

“When I looked back and saw he was in trouble, it was just instinctive,” the Culver City resident said. “There’s no way you’re going to sit back with someone in trouble. A life is more important than the Bar.

“A lot of people were scared to move,” she said. “They were taking the exam.”

Jerome Braun, the State Bar’s senior executive for admissions, said the test supervisor followed policy.

A test supervisor cannot arbitrarily decide which test-takers get extra time and how much, he said.

Both Leslie and Morgan plan to appeal their scores, but they must wait until after results are posted May 28.

The victim of the seizure also can petition for a score adjustment, Braun said. “It sounds like we’re coldhearted, but we’re not,” he said. “How do you draw the line?”

A 19-member State Bar committee reviews appeals and decides whether to adjust a person’s score.

The decision is based on several factors, including the test-taker’s performance on other parts of the exam.

For example, if the test-taker scored an average of 70 on the other portions and scored a 50 on the disputed exam, the committee could award that person 20 extra points, Braun said.

However, petitioners usually are not allowed to retake the test, he said.