Nancie Givens
Introduction
Nancie Michelle Givens was the executive director of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Office of Professional Programs — the state office that administers the Arkansas Bar Examination and decides, in effect, who is allowed to become a lawyer. On November 5, 2026, she was arrested and charged with 65 felony counts of tampering with a public record after a joint Arkansas State Police and FBI investigation concluded that bar examination scores were deliberately manipulated across five years, while roughly 11,400 electronic files the office was legally required to preserve were deleted or made inaccessible. She has pleaded not guilty .
Background Information
The Office of Professional Programs sits inside the Arkansas Supreme Court and runs every administration of the state bar examination, where a score of 270 is the minimum needed to pass and enter the legal profession. Givens led that office until February 2026, when she resigned; following her departure the court directed Robert Brech, executive director of its Office of Professional Conduct, to supervise the office and review its records and administrative operations. The criminal investigation began in April 2026 and involved the Arkansas State Police and the FBI .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged; presumption of innocence. Givens faces 65 untested felony counts; she is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law, and she has pleaded not guilty.
The allegations were laid out on November 5, 2026 in separate press releases from Chief Justice Karen Baker and six other justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court, alongside the announcement of the charges by the Sixth Judicial District prosecuting attorney’s office, which covers Pulaski and Perry counties. In their joint statement the six justices wrote that “evidence exists that Givens harvested points from a number of examinees’ scores and then added them to other examinees’ scores within the same test administration,” pushing some applicants to the 270 passing threshold while at least one applicant who should have passed may have been failed .
The alleged manipulation spanned at least eight administrations of the Arkansas Bar Examination between July 2020 and July 2025, with points allegedly taken from some test takers and given to others on the same exam. In one instance described by the justices, an examinee who legitimately earned the highest score on an administration had points deducted, so that another applicant was recorded as the exam’s top performer. “If these allegations are true, these actions constitute an unprecedented breach of public trust,” the six justices wrote .
A review of recovered examination records identified manually altered scores involving at least 64 individuals, according to details attributed to an investigative affidavit in published reporting. The November 4 arrest affidavit and warrant list 64 counts of tampering with a public record, while prosecutors announced 65 counts the next day; the documents do not explain the discrepancy. Court documents also describe an overnight reduction in files, statements Givens made to investigators, and a silver thumb drive later recovered from her home .
The missing records compound the score allegations. Brech’s review found that numerous files and electronic communications had been modified or deleted in early January 2026 — approximately 11,400 files in all, most of them bar examination applications, applicant profiles and score sheets that Supreme Court rules require the office to retain for 25 years .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The scale of the alleged manipulation turned the case into one of the most consequential episodes in the state’s legal establishment. Robert Steinbuch, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, called it “one of the biggest scandals in Arkansas, and certainly in modern-day Arkansas, because what will come of this has to be dramatic,” adding, “There is at least one person who apparently would have passed the bar and was told he or she failed the bar” .
Institutionally, Givens had already lost her position: she resigned in February 2026, before the criminal case was filed, and the court installed Brech to run the office in the interim. Brech told Talk Business & Politics he could not comment beyond the joint press release because the federal and state investigations are ongoing .
Current Status
Givens was arrested on November 5, 2026, charged with 65 counts of tampering with a public record — each a Class C felony — and has pleaded not guilty. The charges were filed by the prosecuting attorney’s office for the Sixth Judicial District. The Arkansas State Police and FBI investigation remains open, as does the court’s own review of the damaged records, and no trial date has been reported .
Impact on Their Career/Life
Givens’ career in the state’s court system ended with her February 2026 resignation, and the felony charges now hang over what was the capstone role of that career — an office whose decisions shape who may practice law in Arkansas. The wider fallout extends beyond her: the integrity of every bar result issued during the five-year window is in question, sitting attorneys’ credentials may face scrutiny, and the state court system has had to rebuild an office whose own record-keeping failed it. Whatever the verdict, the case has already forced Arkansas to re-examine how its gatekeeping office for the legal profession was run and supervised .