Hello everyone,

In its message today, the Cal. Supreme Court said the following, in relevant part, about the February 2025 applicant pool:

“At present, the complete scope and causes of the problems are still being determined.  Last week, the court asked the State Bar, in conjunction with the vendor responsible for administering the exam, to provide an expedited, detailed report regarding the problems encountered by applicants.  This information is crucial in informing how the court will provide appropriate remedies for affected applicants who deserved and expected better.”

Folks, the Cal. Supreme Court didn’t have to say what I highlighted in bold.  The Cal. Supreme Court asked the Bar to provide an expedited detailed report about what happened on the exam.  All well and good.  The Court could have stopped there.  But the Court said that it wanted the information because it will inform how the Court will provide appropriate remedies.  The Court is rather unhappy about all this, in my view.  It could have left such remedies to the Cal Bar.  Seemingly the Court wants to get involved.  I would remind the Court that results day is Friday, May 2, and I would hope that the Court will provide its thoughts before results publish on that date.

For its part, the Cal Bar emailed applicants today as well and addressed a few issues.

1. The controversial March 18-19 retest.

Turns out precious few people will be allowed to participate in the March 18-19 retake.  Just 85 people met the criteria:  unable to launch the exam at all, or submitted 1, 2, or 3 (but no more) essays/PT on exam day, or people who couldn’t access the MBE at all, or people who only competed 1 or 2 of the 4 sessions of the MBE.

That’s 85 out of 5,400 applicants, or 1.5% of the applicant pool.

The Bar didn’t address whether it would be replacing all of the essays/PTs for March 18-19, or just the one essay that was published recently.  Frankly, that should be a no-brainer:  if they can replace on essay, they can replace all of the essays and the PT, and they should do so ASAP.

2. Other remedies

The Cal Bar said in its email:  The State Bar has used psychometric remedies like score imputation, pro rata adjustments, and regression modeling in prior disrupted exams. Historically, the Committee of Bar Examiners has had purview over exam grading, and any scoring adjustment would likely be subject to Supreme Court approval.”  In other words, they can recommend something, but the Supreme Court will have to approve it.

3. Provisional Licensure

The Cal Bar said in its email:  “Many of you, as well as various law school deans, have recommended that the State Bar provisionally license February 2025 test takers. The State Bar does not have the authority to unilaterally initiate a new, or extend and modify the current, provisional licensure program. ” 

The Board of Trustees will receive an update on the February 2025 bar exam at its meeting on March 5; an overview of possible remediation steps will be provided to the Board at that time. The Committee of Bar Examiners will discuss remediation options at its March 14 meeting; however, action by either body is unlikely given that preliminary grading will not have concluded. Further, neither State Bar staff nor the Board of Trustees nor the Committee of Bar Examiners can act alone in making decisions to apply scoring adjustments or to provisionally license February exam takers. Decisions about these matters are subject to review and approval by the Supreme Court.

In other words, I don’t see the Cal Bar recommending provisional licensure at all.  Ultimately, something like that is up to the Supreme Court, which has the final word on any issues relating to the Bar Exam.  Which suggests why the law school deans wrote its letter to the California Supreme Court.  The deans seemed to know that the Court is the only entity that could approve such a remedy.

No idea what’s going to happen in this regard.  However, I’m happy to see that the Court has an interest in what’s going on.  The Court rarely speaks on Bar Exam-related matters.  I’m glad the Court is getting involved and has done so expediently.

On Wednesday, the State Bar Board of Trustees was to consider Cal Bar staff’s recommendation to return to in-person testing for the July 2025 Cal Bar Exam.

Then the Committee of Bar Examiners was to meet on March 14 and make a final recommendation on the matter.

In a dramatic move, the California Supreme Court, the final word on all things Bar Exam, spoke today.  Here’s what the Court said:

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday issued the following statement about the administration of the February 2025 California Bar Examination:

The court is deeply concerned by the troubling reports of technical failures, delays, and other irregularities in last week’s administration of the February 2025 California Bar Examination.  The court regrets this situation and apologizes for the disappointment, stress, and frustration experienced by some applicants.  At present, the complete scope and causes of the problems are still being determined.  Last week, the court asked the State Bar, in conjunction with the vendor responsible for administering the exam, to provide an expedited, detailed report regarding the problems encountered by applicants.  This information is crucial in informing how the court will provide appropriate remedies for affected applicants who deserved and expected better.  In the interim, the court directs the State Bar to plan on administering the July 2025 California Bar Examination in the traditional in-person format.”

Emphasis mine.

So, yes, the Board of Trustees will meet, and the Committee on Bar Examiners will meet, but the decision has already been made about the July exam: it’s in person, so that means paper fact patterns and scratch paper will return.  Party like it’s 2018!

There are other issues to consider, especially about the February 2025 applicant pool.  But this issue, at least, has been resolved.

Hello everyone,

The unprecedented February 2025 Cal Bar Exam continues, apparently, for weeks.

Tonight, in the 7 pm hour, the Cal Bar emailed the applicant pool with an update.  That update appears below:

Day 3 of the exam has concluded. For those of you testing in person, Day 2 meant a significant delay in getting started; for most it involved delays in logging back into the exam after the lunch break. In addition to these systemic challenges, we are aware of other issues experienced by test takers, including continued challenges with proctors, connectivity lapses, time lost, and submission problems. We are still assessing results from Day 3 and will report on that following the conclusion of all testing.   As we stated after Day 1, these conditions are unacceptable, and we make no excuses for them. We are actively meeting with our psychometrician and other stakeholders to solidify the full range of remediation steps.   Initial retake opportunity March 18-19 Note that the retake originally planned for March 3-4 has been rescheduled due to a prohibited online disclosure of an essay question.(Please see more about this prohibited disclosure below.) Day 1 content will be changed as a result of this disclosure. This change requires reconfiguration of the exam driver, which takes time to execute. In the immediate term, Meazure will be offering this retake opportunity on March 18-19 to test takers meeting the following criteria: Were unable to launch the bar exam in the Meazure Learning platform at all. Have fewer than four successfully submitted written responses (essays and/or the Performance Test). Why this parameter? For statistical reasons, imputation of scores can be applied to applicants with at least four written submissions. Imputation, regression analysis, and pro rata scoring adjustments have been used with the California bar exam in the past—most recently in July 2021.You can learn more about that score imputation here.   [NOTE: I will publish the Cal Bar memo about the July 2021 exam below.] If you meet criteria 1. or 2. above, you will be affirmatively contacted to schedule your retake exam.   If you do not meet these criteria Because of the evolving nature of what we are learning, the fact that there are a number of accommodated applicants who will continue to test through Saturday, and the need to better understand systemwide versus applicant-specific failures, we will be taking a few more days to finalize any other remediation plans. As mentioned, the State Bar has used psychometric remedies like score imputation, pro rata adjustments, and regression modeling in prior exams. We understand that any delay on our part will be a cause for even more frustration, but we do not want to rush towards a solution that may not in fact work. Statement re: prohibited dissemination of exam questions The State Bar is aware that certain individuals are attempting to prevent the administration of a retake of the February 2025 bar exam by posting exam questions online.This conduct is strictly prohibited. The State Bar will engage digital forensic experts to identify individuals who have posted exam content and has already taken steps to preserve postings to support this forensic investigation. Individuals who are found to have engaged in any conduct that violates exam security or compromises exam integrity are subject to strict sanctions, including revocation of a previously granted positive moral character determination or denial of a pending moral character application. In short, individuals who are found to have engaged in this type of prohibited and unethical behavior will find it difficult if not impossible to secure licensure with the State Bar of California.   Seeking your input In the immediate term, those of you who have completed an exam should expect to receive a survey from us. This will not be a typical post-exam survey; instead, the results will be used to inform the remediation discussions we are currently engaged in.   Lastly, some of you may notice that we are changing the registration date for the July bar exam. Please don’t be alarmed; we will finalize the application launch date once July exam administration plans are confirmed in the coming weeks.   Thank you for your perseverance,   Office of Admissions State Bar of California   NOTE:  the memo titled “Scoring Adjustments for Applicants Negatively Affected During the July 2021 California Bar Examination” is published below:   SCORING ADJUSTMENTS FOR APPLICANTS NEGATIVELY AFFECTED DURING THE JULY 2021 CALIFORNIA BAR EXAM During the July 2021 Bar Exam, applicants nationwide encountered technological issues that vendor ExamSoft reported were caused by high-memory utilization between ExamMonitor (the video proctoring arm of the software) and the main software that generates digital images. After the State Bar of California investigated the scope of impact of these issues on California examinees, the agency worked with its psychometrician to develop a grading adjustment for those who were negatively impacted. A negative impact was defined as follows: • Examinee reported encountering a black or blue screen that required a laptop reboot, whether the examinee lost time or not. • Examinee experienced a black or blue screen that required more than a laptop reboot in order to continue testing. Typically, the applicant was directed by ExamSoft to redownload the exam question to restart that exam session and continue testing. • Examinee was not provided access to redownload the exam question and thus was unable to fully complete that exam session. State Bar Admissions staff verified each reported incidence through a variety of sources, including review of proctoring videos, ExamSoft call logs and reports, reports submitted in the Applicant Portal, and emails received by the State Bar. The State Bar concluded that 2,429 examinees experienced negative impacts. Applicants who reported incidents that were not substantiated have been informed that they did not receive a grading adjustment. For applicants who were negatively impacted by these ExamSoft issues during the written sections of the exam (essay questions and Performance Test), the State Bar applied a pro rata grading adjustment for each affected question, which utilized data from the unaffected population of examinees, as well as the affected individual’s scores on questions where there were no recorded problems. The adjustment consisted of two components: 1. The first component accounted for the relative difficulty of each question. This component was calculated by first obtaining the average score on each question among examinees who had no memory utilization issues on any written question and the overall average of all scores in that group. The difference of the averages on each question and the overall average was used to represent the relative difficulty of each question. For example, if the overall average across all questions was 78, and the average on the first question was 76, that question was considered more difficult than the average question by 2 points. The 2-point difference was considered OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS Scoring Adjustments Page 2 the “adjustment factor” for that question. Each question was given an “adjustment factor.” 2. The second component was based on the scores of each individual who experienced an ExamSoft memory utilization issue. First, an average was calculated for the examinee’s scores on which no issue was encountered. That average was considered to be the best estimate of that individual’s ability. For each question on which there was some technological issue of the type described above, the average score from the unimpacted sessions was adjusted by the “adjustment factor” to arrive at an “Expected Score.” The “Expected Score” was then compared to the examinee’s actual score on the question. If the actual score was less than the “Expected Score,” an adjustment was made, and the final score on the question was the “Expected Score.” If the actual score was greater than the “Expected Score,” the score was not changed. For examinees negatively impacted during any session of the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) provided an adjusted score for the State Bar’s use that also uses the pro rata method. Similar to the adjustment method for the written section, if the adjusted score calculated by the NCBE was lower than the original MBE score, then no adjustment was made. For statistical reasons, the pro rata grading adjustment could not be applied to applicants who either experienced more than three negatively impacted written sessions, or more than two negatively impacted MBE sessions. For the very small number of applicants who met this criteria (less than 2 percent of those who were negatively impacted), the State Bar employed a regression model that takes into consideration MBE scores to adjust the written session, or for those missing three or four MBE sessions, considers their written essay scores in adjusting the MBE score. Examinees who experienced these technological issues and were unsuccessful on the exam will have the option to request that their July 2021 bar exam fees be applied as a credit to take the February 2022 or July 2022 California bar exam. Applicants who do not plan to sit for those exams will be able to request a full refund of their fees. Applicants will receive instructions with their results letter on how to take advantage of these options

Hello everyone.

As expected, the Cal Bar/Meazure Learning had issues today on the first day of the February 2025 Cal Bar Exam.

The Cal Bar owned it, and evidently established contingency plans in case there were significant technical and customer service challenges between applicants and Meazure Learning.

The Cal Bar sent out a notice to applicants tonight indicating, in part, “We know that many of you, however, faced significant technical and customer service challenges. . .   In advance of the exam, the State Bar took measures to ensure that a makeup opportunity would be available, if needed, for applicants who experienced significant technical issues. As such, we had already planned to offer a makeup opportunity on March 3 and 4 for those of you who had experienced technical issues beyond your control and were unable to connect to the platform and launch the exam as well as for those who were unable to complete the exam.  

After Meazure Learning platform performance Day 1, particularly for in-person test takers, we know that additional remediation measures must be put in place for those who were unable to cut and paste in the Performance Test, as well as for those who were disconnected and could not complete one or more essay questions.

Options being explored include offering the opportunity to retake the Performance Test, offering the opportunity to retake those essay questions you were unable to access, or making psychometrically appropriate scoring adjustments.”

Stay tuned for further updates about the February 2025 Cal Bar Exam.

Accessing the Exam Platform on Exam Day

To ensure a smooth exam experience, please review the steps needed to access the exam platform on exam day. As a reminder, your confirmation email from Meazure Learning, sent after you booked your session, contains instructions and your unique exam session information. Be sure to review this in advance.

Remote Test Takers

• Log in to your candidate portal: https://cabar.ysasecure.com/login
  • You can visit this webpage directly through the Guardian Browser. If you visit this webpage on another browser, you will be redirected to Guardian Browser later in the process.
• Click the ‘Launch Exam’ button at your scheduled exam time.
  • You will be redirected to the ProctorU platform.
• Follow the on-screen instructions.
• You will be connected to a proctor within 15 minutes.
• Your proctor will walk you through a series of steps outlined in this video.
• This check-in process does NOT count toward your exam time.
• If you encounter technical difficulties, you MUST contact technical support immediately.

In-Person Test Takers

• Test takers will not be required to take any actions. Proctors will navigate each test taker through the launch process.

Hello y’all.

So… I’m teaching one of my Critical Studies 1 classes at UC Law SF today, and I say that registration for July 2025 will open on March 1.  A student raised his hand and told me that he checked his applicant portal and it said, in red letters:

Applications for the June 2025 First-Year Law Students’ Exam and the July 2025 California Bar Exam will not open on March 1, 2025. We anticipate that they will open in mid-March. Please note that the Board of Trustees eliminated the initial late filing fee for both exams mentioned above due to the delayed opening of the applications. This message will be updated once an opening date is finalized. We apologize for the inconvenience.

As such, you can’t register for the Cal Bar (or the June 2025 Baby Bar) on March 1.

What does this mean?  If the Cal Bar intends to retain the February 2025 scheduling cycle, then this delay won’t matter much.

The February cycle involved this:

October – pay fees on time and indicate non-binding preference for in-person or remote testing

November – $50 late fee for registration

December – $250 late fee

mid-January – Mock Exam – important to do proctored Mock Exam if you wanted to do remote testing

Jan. 30 – final registration process.  In-person choose a site, remote choose a time.

For the July cycle this would mean:

March 1 – pay fees on time and indicate non-binding preference for in-person or remote testing

April – $50 late fee for registration

May – $250 late fee

mid-June – Mock Exam – important to do proctored Mock Exam if you wanted to do remote testing

June 30 – final registration process.  In-person choose a site, remote choose a time.

As long as the July cycle remains the same as February, then it really doesn’t matter too much.  Especially if you can’t choose a site in March or April.  Then pay the registration fees on time in March, whether that start time is March 1, 15, 20, 25, etc.  That first day of registration wouldn’t matter much given the above.  Especially if there’s no more April late fee.

Perhaps a better question is what would necessitate the Bar moving off the spot of March 1.  What tech glitch would necessitate the move, given that they weren’t asking for much on March 1 (fees and non-binding preference about in-person v. remote)?

We shall see.

Cal Bar updates from the February 2025 Bar Exam Notices on February 21 and 23, 2025:

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Examinations/California-Bar-Examination/February-2025-Bar-Exam-Notices

February 23, 2025

Meazure Platform Issues Resolved

We had been receiving reports of issues in the Meazure Learning platform affecting the ability to type into the answer window, use backspace/delete, and cut and paste. Meazure has informed us that these issues have been resolved. If you continue to experience problems, please contact testingsupport@meazurelearning.com.

Spellcheck/Autocorrect Disabled

Please note that the spellcheck/autocorrect feature within the Meazure platform has been disabled. Spellcheck functionality may have contributed to the recent issues with the platform. In addition, this feature was not functioning properly and appeared to be more distracting than helpful. As a reminder, spelling is not taken into consideration in the grading of responses.

February 21, 2025

July 2025 Bar Exam Fee Waived for February Applicants

Although we know that monetary compensation is not sufficient, today the Board of Trustees authorized a waiver of the application fee for the July 2025 bar exam for applicants who are unsuccessful on the February 2025 bar exam despite their good faith efforts and those who withdrew from the exam. Staff are directed to develop parameters within this general framework. Following the Board’s action, Brandon Stallings, Chair of the Board made the following statement:

“The State Bar Board of Trustees is committed to addressing the myriad issues that have arisen leading up to the February 2025 California Bar Exam. This new exam has not rolled out the way it should have, and we, the Board, apologize along with State Bar leadership and staff. The continued issues with testing locations, scheduling, technical issues, and communication lapses have distracted applicants from their studies and created confusion. These problems are deeply concerning.”

Read more in the State Bar’s February 21 news release.

Limited Reimbursement Available for Nonrefundable Travel Expenses

We recognize that many of you already booked travel and lodging based on the initial test center availability. To support those affected, we are offering reimbursement for nonrefundable travel and lodging expenses, other nonrefundable transportation expenses, and change fees. To qualify, you must have booked nonrefundable travel and lodging and later switched to a test site added in the Central or Eastern time zones, switched to test sites added in Bakersfield (Kern County Superior Court), Fresno (San Joaquin College of Law), or Los Angeles (State Bar office), or been reassigned to a different test site by Meazure Learning.

To apply for reimbursement, you must fill out the State Bar’s form by 11:59 PT, March 30, 2025, and email it to nonCABarExamExpenseRequest@calbar.ca.gov. Please note that limited funds are available for this purpose.

Viewing the Performance Test File and Library

Applicants cannot view the Performance Test File and Library in a separate window next to the exam platform on exam day; it is only accessible in a different tab. The Guardian Browser is more secure on exam day; if you were able to view two windows side-by-side during the tutorial exam, this will not be possible on exam day.

Optional Start Time Changes to be Completed by Tomorrow

This week, Meazure Learning reached out to some remote applicants with the option to move their exam start time due to the peak demand for some time slots. The benefit of changing the start time is connecting with a proctor and beginning the exam faster. If you expressed interest in doing so, Meazure Learning will notify you of your new start time tomorrow.

Emailed to applicants on Feb. 13:

Important February 2025 Bar Exam Updates–Refund Option, Updated Study Guide, New Test Sites

During the Cal Bar Q&A on Jan. 21, the Bar clarified:

If you’re not a handwriter, you MUST do the mock exam.

If you’re in-person, you don’t need to schedule an appointment since you won’t have a video proctor.  But you still MUST do the mock exam.

And if you’re remote, you MUST do the mock exam, but you must set an appointment so a video proctor is there since that’s what’ll happen on exam day.