California still considering its options to remedy the flubbed bar exam
Updated: The State Bar of California’s board of trustees decided April 2 to hold off approving provisional licensing for February bar exam participants while it considers other options.
California’s provisional licensure program, launched in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, had been supported in March by the Committee of Bar Examiners as an option for candidates who failed or withdrew from the February bar exam. The program, ending Dec. 31, allows law school graduates to practice under the supervision of a licensed lawyer until they pass a bar exam.
The board’s decision came after public comments from law professors and examinees at the board’s meeting demanded remedies for the troubled exam.
“We have heard, and we recognize, that the experiences of many applicants in February fell short of our expectations,” Brandon Stallings, board chair, said in a release. “We are committed as a board to finding appropriate and fair solutions for those test takers.”
The widely used Uniform Bar Examination is administered and developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. In February, California debuted its new hybrid test, which is instead written by Kaplan Exam Services, deployed by Meazure Learning and designed to be taken remotely and at test centers.
But February bar candidates faced a host of issues—including delayed start times, technical glitches, grammatical and factual errors in the questions, rampant cheating, proctors arguing and fellow test-takers screaming out of frustration. The ongoing outcry by candidates and law school faculties has forced the state bar to consider remedies.
The board also announced it would hold a special meeting to discuss the Committee of Bar Examiners’ proposed remedies following the completion of grading and score analysis.
The state bar’s decision this fall to launch a new exam was motivated by its need to save money in order to ease an anticipated $3.8 million deficit.
Savings from the move now seem unlikely. The July 29-30 administration of the bar exam, originally planned to be held in hybrid format, will be held in person in accordance with a March 4 directive from the California Supreme Court.
At the April 2 meeting, the board also approved nine site locations for the in-person exam and an agreement with ExamSoft, which the state bar used for two decades, to replace Meazure for software. Both are subject to approval by the Committee of Bar Examiners at its April meeting.
Typically, far more candidates sit for July exams than the February administrations. The California bar exam had 3,944 examinees in February 2024 and 8,291 for the July 2024 exam, according to the NCBE. This February, more than 5,600 candidates originally registered to take the new exam, but about 1,300 withdrew, according to the state bar.
Historically, there is a lower pass rate for the February administration of the California bar exam, with 33.9% passing in February 2024, according to a May 2024 state bar news release.
California tests the second-highest number of bar examinees, behind only New York, according to the NCBE.
Updated April 4 at 6:47 p.m. to clarify that the board will have a meeting to discuss the Committee of Bar Examiners’ proposed remedies.
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