Plans for California bar retake change yet again
The State Bar of California has rejected a request from the under-fire company that administered last month’s test for the retake exam dates to be pushed back further. (Image from Shutterstock)
Updated: The State Bar of California has rejected a request from the under-fire company that administered last month’s test for the retake exam dates to be pushed back further.
On March 14, ProctorU Inc., through its Meazure Learning unit, requested a one-week postponement of the exam and making it fully remote because “it could not confidently deliver the March 18-19 retake exam for both in-person and remote test-takers,” according to an advisory from the state bar. The original retake dates were March 3 and 4.
The state bar found that the ProctorU requests were “unacceptable,” according to the emailed statement.
Unlike the widely used Uniform Bar Examination and its components administered and developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, California’s new test written by Kaplan Exam Services was designed to be deployed by Meazure Learning remotely and at test centers.
Instead, the retake will be available both remotely, facilitated by Meazure Learning, and administered in person by the state bar next week at its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, according to the advisory. The in-person exams will be administered without the Meazure Learning platform or devices. Test-takers will use hard-copy essay, performance test and multiple-choice questions, but they will record essays and performance test responses on laptops and multiple-choice questions on Scantron forms, according to the advisory.
Only about 80 of the more than 4,000 candidates who took the February test were offered the retake, according to the state bar. The criteria included being completely unable to launch the bar exam in the Meazure Learning platform; having fewer than four successfully submitted written responses, including essays and/or the performance test; being unable to access the multiple-choice questions; or not having submissions for two or more multiple-choice sessions.
Initially, the state bar’s board of trustees had estimated that the new exam could save the California bar up to $3.8 million in exam-related expenses, according to an August 2024 press release.
Meazure Learning’s initial quote to administer the February 2025 bar exam was about $1.7 million, according to the state bar. However, with projections for increased attendance and the addition of projected costs for providing testing accommodations, the amount has increased.
Updated March 14 at 2:34 p.m. to clarify how the retake will be administered.
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