Cal Bar Registration for July 2025 will NOT open on March 1
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.
