'One of the biggest scandals in Arkansas': bar exam official accused of rigging scores and erasing records
Six Arkansas Supreme Court justices call the allegations, if true, an unprecedented breach of public trust.
Nancie Givens, the former executive director of the Arkansas Supreme Court's Office of Professional Programs, was arrested Thursday and charged with 65 counts of tampering with a public record, KATV reported. Each count is a Class C felony. Sixth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones announced the charges. Givens is presumed innocent.
Her office ran the Arkansas Bar Examination, the test that decides who gets a license to practice law in the state. Investigators say scores were altered on exams given from July 2020 through July 2025, covering at least eight administrations of the test.
How the scores were allegedly changed
Points were moved between examinees who took the same exam, according to KATV. Some scores went down and others went up, lifting test-takers to 270, Arkansas's minimum passing score, or higher. An affidavit says manually altered scores involve at least 64 people. That figure is separate from the 65 counts and may not capture everyone affected.
The alleged changes cut both ways. The justices said an examinee who legitimately earned the exam's top score had it lowered so someone else would be recognized as the top performer. At least one test-taker appears to have been failed outright. "There is at least one person who apparently would have passed the bar and was told he or she failed the bar," Robert Steinbuch, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, told KATV.
Thousands of records erased
About 11,400 electronic files were deleted or made inaccessible, most of them in early January 2026. Many were bar applications, examinee profiles and score sheets, records the Arkansas Supreme Court requires to be kept for 25 years. About 8,100 were later restored to a shared drive.
Givens resigned in February 2026. Robert Brech, then executive director of the Office of Professional Conduct, took over supervision of her office. He found the missing files and gaps between the scores people earned and the scores on record, and reported them. The Arkansas State Police and the FBI opened a criminal investigation in April. No motive has been made public, and no one else has been charged.
What it does to the Arkansas bar
Six justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court said in a joint statement that the allegations, if true, are "an unprecedented breach of public trust." They said they recognize "the profound consequences for affected examinees, the Bar, and the public at large."
Steinbuch called the case "one of the biggest scandals in Arkansas." He said the fallout could reach criminal cases. A defendant whose lawyer never legitimately passed might bring a habeas petition, a request for a court to review whether someone is lawfully imprisoned, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel. An improper score would not automatically overturn a conviction, he said, and there is no clear answer yet for what to do about attorneys who may have been admitted without passing scores.
Put together, the allegations reach every side of the licensing system. People who earned a license may have been denied one. People who fell short may be practicing law, with clients who trusted that the state had tested them. And many of the records needed to sort it out are the same ones investigators say were deleted.
What happens next
The court has not said how many examinees were affected, named the person who was wrongly failed, or announced any remedy. The justices said affected examinees will be notified once their status is confirmed, and that "The people of Arkansas deserve, and the Court is committed to providing, total transparency in this matter," while warning that disclosures will be limited during the criminal case. Chief Justice Karen Baker said separately that the court would not comment further "to preserve the integrity of the active and ongoing investigation."
Givens has also been referred to the Office of Professional Conduct for possible ethics violations. New testing and security procedures began with the February 2026 exam. Jones said his office would release no more information for now, and the reports we reviewed did not list a court date or a response from Givens or a lawyer for her.
If you took the Arkansas bar exam between July 2020 and July 2025, keep your score report and any letters from the court, and watch for a notice about your exam status.
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