Flurry of moves aim to remedy—and prevent future—California bar exam disasters
Updated: Attempts to resolve myriad issues in the disastrous February administration of California’s bar exam—and to prevent future missteps—spurred a flurry of moves last week from the State Bar of California, the California Supreme Court and law school deans as the state prepares for the return to an in-person administration of the Multistate Bar Examination next month.
On Friday, the State Bar of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners approved more scoring adjustments for examinees whose original overall scores were between 1350 and 1390 on the February exam, which had been plagued with widespread technical and proctoring issues.
Those examinees had a “second read” of the written portion of the exam that averaged the scores of the first and second reads. But now, the higher score for each question of the two reads will be used. The move could potentially pass more than 200 candidates.
In addition, the committee will rerun the state supreme court-ordered imputation of scores—meaning estimating scores for sections that had missing information—for the performance test for all candidates who failed. That portion of the test asks applicants to analyze facts and documents, as well as write a memo or a legal filing.
“Because scores will now be higher for those who went through second read, imputed scores will also be higher,” a June 4 letter from the state bar to candidates read. “That is because an imputed score is based on the difficulty of the question—derived by looking at how others scored on the question being imputed—and the applicant’s performance on the questions they answered.”
Those who now pass will be notified June 6, according to the state bar.
This follows the state supreme court’s decision in May to lower the February exam’s pass score, resulting in a 55.9% pass rate, the highest spring pass rate since 1965.
On Thursday, the state’s highest court proposed shifts in control of the bar exam, consolidating power with the Committee of Bar Examiners, a group of 16 volunteers, instead of sharing more responsibilities with the state bar’s board of trustees. The proposal now will be out for 45 days of public comment, according to a May 28 press release.
The move is raising eyebrows of some law professors who found that the state supreme court’s requests raised more questions than it answered.
Susan Smith Bakhshian, a professor and the director of bar programs at the Loyola Law School in California, notes that the committee has subpoena powers, which could be helpful to investigate issues with the February exam.
“But what if the CBE is responsible, even in part, for the exam administration errors?” she wonders. “It is unlikely the CBE will choose to subpoena any witnesses or documents that will cast blame on their own actions or inactions. This may be the fox guarding the henhouse.”
The proposal prohibits legal academics from serving on the committee. Mary Basick, an assistant dean for academic skills at the University of California at Irvine School of Law, found that surprising.
“If a legal academic, particularly a bar exam expert, [had] been a member of the Committee of Bar Examiners, many of the February 2025 missteps could have been avoided,” Basick says. “And had it not been for the persistent questions posed by legal bar exam academics, many of the February 2025 bar exam errors would remain undisclosed.”
Last month, the Committee of Bar Examiners placed the option of provisional licenses for candidates who fail or withdrew from the February California bar exam on the table, extending a COVID-19-era program that allows law school graduates to practice under the guidance of a licensed lawyer until they pass the bar exam. That proposal needs the approval of the state supreme court.
But 11 deans of California-accredited law schools want to expand the offering. In a Friday letter to the state’s highest court, the deans requested to have the same option for those who flunk or withdraw from the upcoming the July administration, citing the uncertainty about which exam will be administered, what bar prep would be relevant, whether accommodations would be granted, and whether the questions generated by third-party contractors—some via artificial intelligence—were reliable.
“These disruptions, due to no fault of eligible July 2025 examinees, have contributed to an environment of increased uncertainty, anxiety, stress and financial burden that reasonably can be anticipated to increase the risk of failure for certain examinees,” according to the deans’ letter.
In addition, the state bar has received a number of complaints that some February candidates did not receive their requested accommodations during the test, according to an email sent to test-takers.
“Due to the volume of complaints received, the state bar is unable to respond within 60 days,” according to the email, but it anticipates that it will answer by Sept. 30.
The next administration of the California bar exam will be July 29 and July 30.
Updated June 4 at 4:02 p.m. to clarify reporting on the scoring adjustments for examinees and the examinees who had a “second read” of the written portion of the exam. Updated June 5 at 9:21 a.m. to include reporting on a June 4 State Bar of California letter about scoring adjustments.
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