Category: Bar Exam Tips

July 2025 Cal Bar Exam will use NCBE’s MBE questions

The Cal Supreme Court issued an Administrative Order approving scoring adjustments to the February exam (approving the Bar’s Petition of April 29, and nothing more).

Note the final sentence of the Order:  “At this time, the Court orders that the Multistate Bar Examination [the NCBE’s questions] be used for the multiple choice portion of the July 2025 California Bar Examination.”

To Ellin Davtyan, Kirsten Galler, and Jean Krasilnikoff, thank you for drafting page 62 of your Petition.  The Cal Supreme Court noticed.  I noticed.  And we (and trust me, the July 2025 applicant pool is included here), thank you.

 

February 2025 Cal Bar Exam results DELAYED until Monday, May 5, noon

UPDATE:

The Cal Bar will publish the results of the February exam on Monday, May 5, noon.  This comes from the Cal Bar’s Pass List page, which is located here:

https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/exam/

 

February 2025 California Bar Examination Pass List

 

Notice: Release of results from the February 2025 bar exam has been delayed. The pass list itself will be released on Monday, May 5, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. (PDT) on the Examination Pass List webpage.

For those who did not pass the exam, letters detailing results with more information will follow later in the week.

An email update will be sent shortly to notify applicants.

 

NOTE:  as of now students hadn’t been emailed.  The Bar Exam’s Notices pages hasn’t been updated.  The Exam Results page hasn’t been updated (as of 7:35 pm).  But the Pass List page has been updated.

February 2025 Cal Bar Exam results update, as of 4 pm

As of May 2, 3:55 pm:

 

On the Exam Results page, no changes:

 

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Examinations/California-Bar-Examination/Exam-Results

Exam results release

Results from the February 2025 bar exam will be released through the Applicant Portal to applicants. The pass list will be posted on the Examination Pass List webpage. The initial release date was scheduled for May 2, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, this may be delayed.

On April 18, the Committee of Bar Examiners recommended scoring adjustments and the minimum raw passing score for the February 2025 exam. The State Bar filed a petition with the Supreme Court on April 29, to adopt the Committee’s recommendations. Due to the timing, the Court may not have sufficient opportunity to issue a decision that would allow for implementation of any adopted changes before May 2. We will update this page with a firm release date as soon as it is confirmed.

 

On the Pass List page, there was a countdown clock indicating how many hours remained until results were published.  The Cal Bar has traditionally done this for years.  The clock was there this morning.  It’s not there now.

 

Also, the sentence indicating that “Unfortunately, this may be delayed” is still on the site, but now it’s in bold:

 

Notice: Results from the February 2025 bar exam will be released through the Applicant Portal to applicants. The pass list will be posted on the Examination Pass List webpage. The initial release date was scheduled for May 2, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, this may be delayed. We will update this page with a firm release date as soon as it is confirmed.

 

You can see if the text is the same, or if there are any further updates, here:  https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/exam/.

 

I’m guessing the applicant pool and the website may receive an update after 6 pm, but not before.  We’ll see.

 

 

 

 

Cal Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson to step down

Today, multiple reports confirm that Cal State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson will not seek another term.  Her last day is July 7 and she will retire from state service.

 

Separtately, as of 12:45 pm, the Exam Results page of the Cal Bar website does not include a firm date/time for the publication of results of the February 2025 Cal Bar Exam.

 

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Examinations/California-Bar-Examination/Exam-Results

 

Exam results release

Results from the February 2025 bar exam will be released through the Applicant Portal to applicants. The pass list will be posted on the Examination Pass List webpage. The initial release date was scheduled for May 2, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, this may be delayed.

On April 18, the Committee of Bar Examiners recommended scoring adjustments and the minimum raw passing score for the February 2025 exam. The State Bar filed a petition with the Supreme Court on April 29, to adopt the Committee’s recommendations. Due to the timing, the Court may not have sufficient opportunity to issue a decision that would allow for implementation of any adopted changes before May 2. We will update this page with a firm release date as soon as it is confirmed.

No firm release date for February 2025 results as of Thursday, 9:40 pm

Per the Cal Bar’s Exam Results page, retrieved on Thursday, May 1, 9:40 pm.  No firm release date as of this time.  Keep checking this page for a firm release date of the results:

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Examinations/California-Bar-Examination/Exam-Results

Exam results release

Results from the February 2025 bar exam will be released through the Applicant Portal to applicants. The pass list will be posted on the Examination Pass List webpage. The initial release date was scheduled for May 2, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, this may be delayed.

On April 18, the Committee of Bar Examiners recommended scoring adjustments and the minimum raw passing score for the February 2025 exam. The State Bar filed a petition with the Supreme Court on April 29, to adopt the Committee’s recommendations. Due to the timing, the Court may not have sufficient opportunity to issue a decision that would allow for implementation of any adopted changes before May 2. We will update this page with a firm release date as soon as it is confirmed.

Cal Bar invites Cal Supreme Court to bring back the NCBE’s MBE questions to the Cal Bar for July 2025

In Section VI of the Cal Bar’s Petition to the California Supreme Court on April 29, the Cal Bar discusses improvements for the MBE for the July 2025 exam.

There are several parts to this plan to improve the Kaplan MBE experience.  In fact, the process is so intricate, that the Cal Bar admits it needs “ample time”

to implement them:

“ample time is required to do the following:

• Select applicants with the input of the CBE;
• Confirm eligibility of selected applicants based on the
CBE’s adopted criteria;
• Perform attorney complaint and disciplinary history checks
on selected applicants (which is anticipated to be part of
the CBE’s selection policy);
• Execute contracts;
• Securely transmit the questions to the subject-matter
experts; and
• Provide ample opportunity for subject-matter experts to
review the questions for legal accuracy.”  Petition, at 61.

As a result, the Cal Bar admits this process may not be able to be completed in time for the July 2025 exam.

So, what’s the alternative?

Buried on page 62 of the 63-page Petition, the Cal Bar states (note, the reference to MBE means the traditional NCBE questions):

Up until this point, neither the State Bar nor the CBE have
considered returning to the [NCBE] MBE. But as the State Bar continues
to work with the CBE to improve the multiple-choice question
review process, this Court may conclude that, pursuant to its
plenary authority over admissions to the bar in this State, the
State Bar should be directed to utilize the MBE for the July 2025
General Bar Examination so that there is not a risk that the
process improvements are not effectively implemented before the
next administration of bar examination.

The Court’s Administrative Order 2024-10-21-01, filed on October 22, 2024,
which refers only to 200 multiple-choice questions, does not
require amendment for the Court to make this directive.

Friends, this is an earnest, eager entreaty by the Cal Bar to the California Supreme Court:

We can’t sort out 200 properly vetted MBEs by the July 2025 exam.  We need more time to implement

a proper plan.  So please, California Supreme Court, order us to use the NCBE’s MBE questions,

so we can buy enough time to put our MBE house in order.

 

And, while we’re at it, folks, I’d go even further.  I would ask the California Supreme Court to

direct the California Bar to use the NCBE’s MBE questions until further notice until such time

that the Cal Bar can properly, confidently, and in a manner worthy of the public’s trust, roll out 200

MBE questions for use on future exams.  If the Cal Bar’s plan takes 6 months, great.  If it takes 2 years, great.

Just get it right.

 

Two final notes of interest: 

 

1) the NCBE will stop creating MBE questions after the July 2028 exam.  As such, the California Supreme Court can 

provide the Cal Bar and Kaplan with over two years of runway to ensure that it gets its collective MBE house in order.

 

2) the NCBE published a statement Monday indicating that if the California Bar wants to use the NCBE questions 

on the July 2025 exam, the Cal Bar must notify the NCBE by June 10, 2025.

 

 

We ARE getting results on Friday… right?!

Just when you thought this couldn’t get any worse…

On Friday, April 18, the Cal Bar’s Committee of Examiners decided to reduced the raw passing score on the February 2025 Cal Bar Exam from 560 to 534.  Problem?  The Cal Bar can’t do that unilaterally.  It must file a petition to the California Supreme Court.  If the Court approves (ideally before April 28, so that the Cal Bar could implement those changes in results letters), then the Cal Bar felt that it could still publish results on time, on May 2.

Sooooooo…. the Cal Bar didn’t exactly file that petition on April 18.

Then, last week, the Cal Bar revealed that its psychometric vendor, ACS Ventures, used artificial intelligence to craft 23 of the 200 multiple choice questions that applicants saw on the February exam.  In addition, 48 questions were taken from the Cal Bar’s  bank of questions for the First-Year Law Students’ Exam (aka, the Baby Bar, which consists of 100 contracts, crim, and torts MBEs).  Kaplan, you know, the firm that received all that money to create the MBE questions, drafted only 100 of the 200 questions.  No word on who drafted the 29 questions deemed to be experimental and which were not graded.

Remember, the Cal Bar said it would file its petition with the Court on April 18.  As I said, it didn’t happen.  Then, the Cal Supreme Court found about the non-lawyer psychometrician drafting MBE questions with AI just like the rest of us, via press release (trust me, the justices were NOT amused, on multiple levels).  Then, last Thursday, on April 24, the Cal Supreme Court issued a statement:  “Because the court was not made aware of the use of AI to draft some of the multiple-choice questions for the February bar exam, the court has asked the State Bar, in its petition regarding the scoring of the exam, to explain to the court how and why AI was used to draft, revise, or otherwise develop certain multiple-choice questions, efforts taken to ensure the reliability of the AI-assisted multiple-choice questions before they were administered, the reliability of the AI-assisted multiple-choice questions, whether any multiple-choice questions were removed from scoring because they were determined to be unreliable, and the reliability of the remaining multiple-choice questions used for scoring.”  As of Friday, April 25, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Cal Bar hadn’t sent its petition to the Court regarding lowering the passing score for the February 2025 exam.  This is probably because the Court asked the Cal Bar to address how and why they used the 200 questions they used for the MBE on the February 2025 exam.

NOW it comes to pass that tonight, Monday night, April 28, the Cal Bar sent applicants an email:  the Cal Bar still hadn’t filed the petition that it was going to file on April 18.  The Bar said that “we anticipate doing so tomorrow, on April 29.  The timing of our petition submission will not give the Court much time to rule in a manner that allows us to apply the scoring recommendations adopted by the Court and then release February Bar Exam results on May 2.  There may therefore be a slight delay in releasing results.(emphasis mine).

And, at the end of the email, the Cal Bar said that it is “committed to sharing exam results as soon as we are able.”

Unprecedented, this.  The Cal Bar results may not publish on time.  We’ll see when the Cal Bar files its petition.  We’ll see how quickly the Cal Supreme Court rules on the petition.  Remember, the Cal Bar cannot control the Cal Supreme Court in any way:  what it decides, or when it decides.  Do you think the Supreme Court will adjust the cut score given the Cal Bar’s fundamental alteration of the MBE, by allowing non-lawyers to use AI to generate MBE questions?  Not to mention the use of seemingly easier questions (48 questions for a 1L exam used on a Cal Bar exam), which may have been deliberately used to improve student performance to dilute the impact of Kaplan’s inability to deliver more than 50% of what it promised to do?

Either way, as the Cal Bar said, “there may therefore be a slight delay in releasing results.”  I hope applicants receive results on Friday!  We shall see.

UPDATE! Conspiracy theory UPDATE!

Hello everyone,

Remember how you and I were exceedingly unhappy about the announcement of the February 2025 Cal Bar “Retake” on March 3-4?  Only to be surpassed by the announcement that one rogue actor published (evidently accurately) one of the questions around March 1, and so the “retake” was moved a few weeks later, to mid-March?  And how that seemed SO UNFAIR because the Bar announced that they were using the same questions?  And the psychometrician also said there was no other way to have a reliable exam than to have the same questions?

That seemed SO unfair.  And it seemed like some people theoretically could have gotten quite an unfair advantage by consulting the deep reddits or the darkest parts of the web and found out what the questions were about before they saw them?

Well, the Cal Bar caved.  Even thought they said there was NO WAY they could provide new questions in time for the March 17 test, well, what do you know, they found a way.

Today, April 16, I discovered that the Cal Bar published the questions that people saw from the original exam on February 25… AND the re-test questions from mid-March.  I expected to see one new question because that’s what the Cal Bar said was going to happen.  Replace the spoiled question with a new one and retest the other 4 essays and a PT.

Nope.  What did I see today?

February 25 (original exam… note the questions were inexplicably presented in a different order for people, but they took the same questions)

  1. Crim Pro
  2. Wills/Trusts
  3. Property
  4. Contract Remedies
  5. PR

And on the re-test?

  1. Evidence
  2. Community Property
  3. Con Law
  4. PR (different fact pattern/calls of question)
  5. Contract remedies (different fact pattern/calls of question)

Whither the PTs?

The PTs were different.

 

Totally different exams, people!  I’m guessing State Bar Counsel informed the Bar that they risked SERIOUS legal exposure if they used the same questions.  Regardless of the rationale, one thing is clear:  the questions were different on Feb. 25 than they were in mid-March.

Now what does that all mean for July predictions?  Who knows? Totally unprecedented circumstances.

 

 

The Cal Bar Board of Trustees met on April 2.  In a press release summarizing the meeting, this tidbit was of interest:

 

At the April 18 CBE [Committee of Bar Examiners] meeting, psychometrician Dr. Chad Buckendahl of ACS Ventures also will present initial grading results as well as recommended score adjustments for November experiment participants. In addition, Dr. Buckendahl is expected to provide recommendations on scoring adjustments for impacted February exam test takers. 

 

So… for those of you who participated in the Cal Bar Experiment in November 24, you will get further clarity on April 18.  And we hope, February bar takers will get more clarity about scoring adjustments as well.

 

https://www.calbar.ca.gov/About-Us/News/News-Releases/board-approves-testing-locations-vendor-for-in-person-july-bar-exam?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–4BIDfMHEjoMUptoqEhBWAnU7cZzUJd8FYviGs4mKKncmJ2sL0bau_1gT7X0RLEY1-soN5R6CTMWel-M2PjKA3OW55GqWvnhThtkHGTPJZj3sDZdo&_hsmi=2&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

 

Cal Bar July 2025 registration open now

FYI:  it’s open now.

March 27, 2025

July 2025 bar exam application is open

Applicants may apply for the July 2025 bar exam in the Applicant Portal now.

The July 2025 bar exam will take place over two days, Tuesday, July 29, and Wednesday, July 30, in person at designated test sites across California.

For more details, please visit the July 2025 California Bar Exam webpage.