Finishes assessment the next day
A US law graduate was forced to complete her bar exam from a hospital ward after going into labour just minutes into the assessment.
Brianna Hill — who recently graduated from Loyola University, Chicago — knew she was going to be pregnant during the major exam, however she wasn’t prepared for the pandemic to delay the assessment so close to her due date in October.
Taking the test remotely from home, NBC reports Hill was “ready to go” and “confident” as she began the proctored bar exam — which has four 90-minute sections that students take over two days. But just minutes after starting, Hill went into labour.
“I didn’t think about it because I was in the test,” she told the website. It was then during the break that Hill made some important calls before returning to finish her exam. “I cleaned myself up, called my husband and the test kept going,” she said.
After finishing the first part of the assessment, Hill was taken to hospital where she gave birth to her son, Cassius.
Hill, still in hospital, then spent the following day sitting the final part of her exam — breastfeeding her new-born baby during the breaks. “I woke up and they set up a spare room for me,” she said. “They put a ‘do not enter’ sign on there.”
Going through pre-term labour while studying for the test was good preparation for the real deal, according to Hill. The lawyer hopeful will find out if she passed the exam, which is the final step in qualifying as an attorney in the US, in December.
This isn’t the first time an aspiring lawyer has given birth during their exams. Briana Williams went into labour during her second-year family law exam at Harvard Law School. She apparently asked for an epidural painkilling injection and finished the exam before heading off to give birth.
