Ex-Arkansas bar exam chief charged with 65 felonies over alleged score tampering

A former senior Arkansas court official faces 65 felony counts over allegations that she manipulated bar examination scores. The case raises questions for any legal department that relies on Arkansas-admitted lawyers, in-house or outside.

Nancie Givens, the former executive director of the Arkansas Supreme Court's Office of Professional Programs, was arrested Nov. 5 and charged with 65 counts of tampering with a public record. Each count is a Class C felony. The Sixth Judicial District prosecuting attorney's office, which covers Pulaski and Perry counties, filed the charges. Givens is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. KATV reports that she has pleaded not guilty.

What the court and prosecutors allege

Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones said Nov. 5 that the investigation found irregularities in Arkansas Bar exam scores from July 2020 to July 2025. Jones said the charges concern how Givens handled her duties, including the alteration of exam results and the destruction of supporting records.

Six Arkansas Supreme Court justices issued a joint statement the same day. It was signed by Associate Justices Courtney R. Hudson, Rhonda K. Wood, Shawn A. Womack, J. Cody Hiland and Nicholas J. Bronni, and Special Associate Justice Cory A. Cox. The statement said evidence exists that Givens took points from some examinees' scores and added them to other examinees' scores within the same test administration. The court said this elevated some examinees' scores to the minimum passing score of 270 or greater.

The justices also said at least one passing score was dropped to a failing grade, and a person who should have received the top score had that score reduced. They wrote: "If these allegations are true, these actions constitute an unprecedented breach of public trust."

Missing records

Givens resigned in February 2026. The court then directed Robert Brech, executive director of its Office of Professional Conduct, to supervise the office that administers the exam. The justices said about 11,400 files, totaling 1.8 gigabytes, were deleted or made unavailable. Most were applicant records, profiles and score sheets that court rules required the office to keep for 25 years.

According to investigators, files on the office's shared drive dropped from 11,447 to 205 between nightly backups on Jan. 4 and Jan. 5. Court personnel could not determine who deleted them or how. A state police investigator's affidavit said Brech restored 8,100 files and found irregularities, including "manually altered bar exam scores." His review identified discrepancies across at least eight exam administrations between July 2020 and July 2025.

According to the affidavit, Givens told Arkansas State Police on May 21 that she removed files from the shared drive after being directed to terminate an employee, moving them into her own directory so others could not access them. The affidavit does not establish that she carried out the large-scale deletion on Jan. 4 and 5. Arkansas State Police and the FBI opened a criminal investigation in April.

One detail is unresolved. The Nov. 4 arrest affidavit and warrant list 64 counts, while prosecutors announced 65 on Nov. 5. The documents do not explain the difference. The 64 examinees with manually altered scores are a separate figure from the charge count.

Fallout for affected examinees and licensure

The justices said the vast majority of applicants told they passed did pass. They said the Office of Professional Conduct will notify affected applicants once their status is confirmed. The statements did not say how many applicants received incorrect scores or whether anyone was admitted to practice on altered results.

Givens has been referred to the Office of Professional Conduct over possible violations of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct, separate from the criminal case. KATV reports that Chief Justice Karen Baker issued a separate statement that declined further comment to protect the ongoing investigation. The court also said new testing procedures and security measures took effect with the February 2026 exam.

Robert Steinbuch, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, told KATV that the case is among the biggest scandals in modern Arkansas. He said defendants could raise ineffective-assistance claims in habeas actions, though KATV notes an inaccurate score would not by itself invalidate a conviction.

What this means for in-house counsel

Nothing in the public record says any named lawyer, including a lawyer at your company or at one of your firms, was admitted on an altered score. The court has not identified the affected examinees, and it says notifications are coming. Even so, legal departments with Arkansas-licensed lawyers should plan for the possibility that a lawyer's licence status changes after those notices go out. Know which matters those lawyers handle and who could cover them. Review how your engagement letters and outside counsel guidelines treat a firm's duty to tell you about a lawyer's loss of licence or discipline.

Do not act on speculation. The court has said most passing results stand, and any remedy for admitted lawyers is undecided. Watch the Arkansas Supreme Court and the Office of Professional Conduct for orders on how affected lawyers will be handled. Avoid personnel actions against Arkansas-admitted staff or counsel until a lawyer's status is confirmed by the court. Treat the matter as a question of licence verification and risk allocation, not as a presumption about any individual.

The records side of the case is a useful prompt for your own governance. The court's rules required these files to be kept for 25 years, and thousands vanished from a shared drive overnight, according to investigators. Check who can delete or move files on shared drives that hold legally required records. Confirm that backups and access logs would let you reconstruct what changed and when. Check that retention schedules and litigation holds cover the systems where your department's own records sit.