The overall pass line is 1390, and you need more than 1350 to get a re-read.
So… roughly 32.5% passed on the first read. About 10% of the applicant pool got a second read, and the second read appears to have increased the pass rate by roughly 1.4%.
The Cal Bar posted results for the February 2022 exam at 6 pm tonight. The pass rate was 33.9% overall. This represents a drop of 8.9% from February 2021’s 37.2% pass rate. How February 2021 impacts things given that this was the exam right after the COVID-delayed October 2020 exam and less time to prep for February 2021 is unclear.
Considering February 2016-February 2020 pass rates, 33.9 is relatively normal for a February exam because those pass rates were 35.7, 34.5, 27.3, 31.4, and 26.8. Today’s 33.9% fits neatly within that context.
The MBE score nationwide is worth considering from this exam. The Cal Bar reports that the national average on the MBE dropped to 132.6, the lowest score all-time. That could explain the lower overall pass rate for this exam. It could also explain the 61.8% attorney exam pass rate, highest in 19 years!
At least 12 other states reported lower pass rates for February 2022, according to the Cal Bar. Repeater pass rate was 24.0%.
Full press release appears below.
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State Bar of California Releases Results of February 2022 Bar Exam
Today the State Bar announced that 1,056 people (33.9 percent of applicants) passed the February 2022 California General Bar Exam—the first in-person exam since February 2020. If those who passed satisfy all other requirements for admission, they will be eligible to be licensed by the State Bar to practice law in California.
“This is a day of pure joy for the 1,056 applicants who passed the General Bar Exam, and their families, as well as the 209 candidates who passed the Attorney’s Exam,” said Leah Wilson, State Bar Executive Director. “We congratulate all those who successfully passed the exam and look forward to welcoming them to California’s legal profession very soon.”
This year’s 33.9 percent pass rate on the General Bar Exam was a drop of nearly 8.9 percent from the February 2021 pass rate of 37.2 percent, but higher than the February 2020 pass rate of 26.8 percent.
Nationally, at least a dozen other states saw their February 2022 pass rates drop from the previous year, including
New York (45 percent compared to 49 percent in 2021),
Florida (44 percent compared to 47 percent in 2021),
North Carolina (50 percent compared to 60 percent in 2021), and
Pennsylvania (37 percent compared to 51 percent in 2021).
The national average score on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) dropped to 132.6—the lowest all-time score—matching the low reached on the 2020 February exam.
Attendance at California’s February 2022 General Bar Exam was slightly higher (3,113) than during the remotely administered February 2021 exam (3,098) but still low compared to past years, when 4,000 to 5,000 typically took the exam.
February 2022 General Bar Exam preliminary statistics
Completed the General Bar Exam: 3,113 applicants
First-time applicants: 1,090 (35.0 percent of total)
Pass rate for first-time applicants: 53.0 percent overall
Repeat applicants: 2,023 (64.9 percent of total)
Pass rate for repeat applicants: 24.0 percent overall
Pass rate for the General Bar Exam (rounded to whole numbers) by law school type:
The Attorneys’ Examination is open to those who have been admitted to the active practice of law and are in good standing for at least four years in another U.S. jurisdiction, as well as disciplined lawyers who are ordered to take the examination as a condition of reinstatement. Of the 338 attorneys who completed the Attorneys’ Examination, 209 (61.8 percent) passed.
Successful applicants who satisfy all requirements for admission may take the Attorney’s Oath individually or participate in admissions ceremonies held by their law school or others. Applicants are eligible to practice law in California after taking the Attorney’s Oath and submitting their oath card to the State Bar. Once again, the State Bar is enabling digital signing and electronic processing of oath cards.
Remember, these people ARE NOT JOKING. If you don’t register for the exam by June 1, welcome to February 2023.
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The Cal Bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners had its monthly meeting on Friday/Saturday of last week and one of its closed session items was to talk about contingency planning for the Feb. 2022 exam. While no announcements have been made about a final plan for in-person v. remote exam, the Cal Bar’s Twitter feed may have provided an answer. At 12:46 pm today, the Cal Bar announced that it was hiring proctors. I’m guessing that doesn’t happen if we have a remote exam. We shall see. Announcement below:
State Bar of California
@StateBarCA
Do you want to help administer the #CAbarexam? Apply to proctor the Feb 22 & 23 exam. Proctors play a key role in the success of the exam by ensuring established policies & procedures are followed. Starting pay is $25.00/hr. Learn more and apply: http://ow.ly/fHfW50HrZ75
The Cal Bar’s Committee on Examiners has its monthly meeting this week, on Jan. 28-29. One item of interest is in closed session:
II. EXAMINATIONS
A.
Action on Pending Testing Accommodation Appeals.(Christina Doell)[Closed pursuant to Bus. & Prof. Code §6026.7(c)(3),§6026.7(c)(4),and Gov. Code §11126(c)(1).]
B.
Discussion of Contingency Planning for February 2022 Bar Examination. (Audrey Ching) [Closed pursuant to Bus. & Prof. Code §6026.7(c)(2) and Gov. Code §11126(c)(1).]
Link to the agenda for the full Friday-Saturday meeting here:
I strongly recommend that the Committee continue the front-facing comments it’s provided to everyone throughout this process: in person testing, Feb. 22-23 exam date.
Mercifully, it appears that the Omicron variant is retreating/plateauing/cresting. The LA Times indicated as much in an article on January 19. But in today’s LA Times, we have an even STRONGER indication of such a pattern in the location centers of Bar Exam testing. As noted in today’s article:
The improvement is most pronounced in places like Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area, where health officials have voiced increased confidence in recent days that the coronavirus test positivity rate, as well as daily new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, have either stabilized or begun to convincingly decline.
“This downward trend is encouraging, and it signals that we’re likely to have passed the peak of Omicron transmission and are beginning to see a real decline in the number of newly infected individuals,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.
Candidly, any positive comment from LA County Public Health Director Ferrer is GREAT news for the status quo argument of Feb. 22-23 exam testing. If LA County had an overwhelming Omicron problem, she’d put up the red flag, and if LA County forces LA testing for the Cal Bar to go remote, then the whole state would.
More evidence from the article of a receding trend:
California’s Omicron surge appears to have peaked in the week of Jan. 10-16, when the state was recording about 122,000 new coronavirus cases a day. That figure has since dropped to 96,000 cases a day, according to state data released Tuesday that reflects cases reported through Monday.
Here’s the most compelling evidence we need:
Compared with their Omicron peaks, daily coronavirus case rates have dropped by 39% in L.A. County, 33% in Orange County, 25% in San Bernardino County and 21% in Ventura County, according to a Times analysis of state data released Tuesday.
Regionally, Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Greater Sacramento area have also observed declines of 25% to 28%.
“We are past the peak,” said Cody, the Santa Clara County health officer. “And we’re just beginning to see early signs that that our hospitals may be seeing a little bit of a reprieve.”
So let’s be clear: from this article, LA County is down 39%, Bay Area is down 25%, and Sacramento is down 28%. The article mentions San Diego, the fourth site, and says:
Yet the San Joaquin Valley and rural Northern California have yet to begin a persistent drop. In Southern California, San Diego and Riverside counties have also yet to observe the same.
No, San Diego hasn’t gone down 25-39%, but it hasn’t increased, either. So if 3 sites are down 25-39%, and one is unchanged/has a much less drop, none of that is evidence that there’s going to be a massive flareup in four weeks.
My sincere hope is that the Cal Bar internalizes this data and decides this weekend that there’s nothing to see here, and no reason to go remote. The consequences of going remote are severe: candidates are rumored to need several weeks to find locations to take the test that aren’t at home (due to too many people/animals at home to take the test in a quiet, solitary setting or internet reliability is a problem), plus the NCBE extorted all jurisdictions by saying that due to the spat with Examsoft, MBEs will be available in “late March” (March 23 or 30, probably). That means exam administration is delayed a month, that means grading gets pushed back, and that means results get pushed back to June, and that crimps the study schedules for those who fail the February exam.
Let’s NOT go there, Cal Bar and Cal Supreme Court. The Omicron is receding. Let’s mask up, be vaccinated or prove negative, and let’s get this exam in.
Finally, a note from our friends in Washington: a recently published “Exam Health Safety Plan for COVID-19”: in-person exam, while taking proper precautions.
According to the ABA Journal, the 1st, 2d, 5th, 7th, and Federal Circuits are conducting oral arguments by Zoom or teleconference.
The ABA Journal also reports:
The Northern District of California said it would delay all criminal and civil jury trials through Jan. 26, impacting proceedings at its courthouses in San Francisco; Oakland, California; and San Jose, California.
The Central District of California announced that it would delay all civil and criminal trials for three weeks through Jan. 24.
“Given the increased rate of transmission of COVID-19 in the Central District of California due to the omicron variant, conducting jury trials would place court personnel, attorneys, parties and prospective jurors at undue risk,” the court’s statement said. “Accordingly, a temporary suspension of jury trials is necessary to protect public health and safety, as well as ensure the continuous performance of essential functions and operations of the court.”
The federal court in Connecticut announced Monday that it will delay trials set to begin before Feb. 1. The court’sordercited the risks of seating jurors close to each other and the “reduced ability to obtain an adequate spectrum of prospective jurors due to the public’s perceptions of the risks associated with jury service.”
ReutersreportedTuesday that an increasing number of federal courts are delaying trials, including in Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Maryland. State courts in Ohio, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland and Hawaii had also announced delays.
In some jurisdictions, trials are still going ahead. In New York, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore of the New York State Court of Appealssaidin-person proceedings will continue, but the state courts will be “monitoring the metrics very closely, assessing the situation in each courthouse and staying ready to pivot quickly to make any and all appropriate adjustments necessary to respond to problem areas or new public health guidance.”
A nice little bombshell today from the NCBE, the organization who administers the MBE for bar exam jurisdictions.
Evidently the NCBE and Examsoft aren’t getting along. The NCBE just announced that if a jurisdiction switches from an in-person to a remote bar exam format, “remote testing using NCBE exam materials is no longer an option for the February exam dates.”
So… a few options present themselves:
Hold your exam in person (come what may), and paper materials and status quo start date of February 22.
Pull a Nevada: hold the exam remotely, hold it at the status quo start date of February 22, and NO MBE.
Use the Examsoft equivalent program of ILG Exam360, have the NCBE use that service for its MBE administration, and hold the exam on the same dates – status quo
OR… as the NCBE states below, force a bar exam jurisdiction to postpone its exam to late March and provide MBEs then.
No, I’m not making this up. See below.
From the NCBE:
Update on Status of February 2022 Bar Exam
MADISON, WISCONSIN, January 10, 2022—NCBE is actively supporting bar admission agencies and courts as they prepare to administer the February bar exam consistent with their local health restrictions and requirements. As of this date, we anticipate that most jurisdictions will be administering the bar exam in person on February 22 and 23.
In the event that a jurisdiction’s February bar exam administration is prohibited due to public health restrictions, testing materials will be available for makeup dates in late March. Examinees are encouraged to watch for email and website announcements from the jurisdiction in which they plan to test, including announcements about specific COVID-19 protocols in place for the exam. Further information about administration of the bar exam in either February or March will come from the individual jurisdictions.
Due to firm deadlines set by ExamSoft, remote testing using NCBE exam materials is no longer an option for the February exam dates.
The Cal Bar’s latest FAQ (published January 10) seems to be a bit of a sea-change in tone. Yes, each iteration of the FAQ has indicated, in #1, in person, paper paper paper, party like it’s 2017. BUT the escalation of the FAQ for the COVID testing section (#5) about full vaccination, negative PCR test, antigen test deadlines, no sufficient proof of vaccination, no entry into the exam, and of course all of the reports of schools going remote or extending remote, Grammys being cancelled, etc. all seemed towards an inevitable transfer to a remote exam.
But this week’s FAQ (1/10) has more of a feel that the exam’s going in person. Their tone now seems to be: we’re doing this in-person (see #1, in person, paper paper paper), but if you’re feeling squeamish about doing this in-person thing, you can always ring the bell and opt out, and if you get COVID and can’t show up, you can get a 95% refund. That sounds a LOT like the Super Bowl in LA rationale: we’re just going to push forward and it’s going to happen, no matter what’s going on around us.
But as with all lawyers, we have ONE little disclaimer: if a public health authority “relevant to the testing center locations issues different mandates for in-person gatherings” then we’ll get back to you.
What I interpret that to mean is that if LA County says you can’t hold an in-person bar exam at the LA County sites, the exam will be administered remotely for everyone in the state. I believe that the Bar is tone deaf about its question 13, a new question altered from #7 a week ago (“What if there is a winter COVID-19 surge? What if there is a new variant?)
Guess what, folks? It’s not a new variant. It’s Omicron, and it’s been here for months! Call it winter, call it Omicron. It ain’t new, and it’s GOTTEN A LOT WORSE. LA County case counts are doubling every two days. Criminal trials have been suspended two weeks. Eight UC’s have gone remote and five have doubled (for now) it’s remote calendar. And just yesterday, Nevada became the first state to announce a remote, non-MBE exam. So it’s not a new surge, and we don’t need a new variant to go remote, because the current one continues to get worse.
Questions #11-14 are listed below.
11. In light of the recent surge in COVID cases, I don’t want to travel to take this test in person. Can I withdraw from the exam at this point due to my concerns about COVID?
Yes. The Office of Admissions is seeking to provide in-person testing conditions that are safe for all test takers, proctors, and staff. But we understand that some people might nonetheless have concerns about the in person environment. If you would like to opt out of this exam due to concerns you might have with an in-person exam, you may do so. You will be given a full refund if you withdraw by January 18, 2022, by 11:59 p.m. PST.
To make a refund request, please submit a General Request in your Applicant Portal with the subject “Withdrawal for COVID concerns,” and request your refund in the body of the request. If you ask to withdraw from the exam for this reason after January 18, 2022, you will not receive any refund.
12. I withdrew before you put this information out about allowing an additional reason to withdraw with a full refund. How can I get more of my application money back?
All those who withdrew before this information was published will be contacted, and their additional fees will be refunded.
13. What if there is a new variant or another serious surge?
If public health conditions change and a public health authority relevant to the testing center locations issues different mandates for in-person gatherings, we will update all applicants for the February 2022 bar exam accordingly.
14. What happens if I test positive for COVID-19 and cannot come to the exam?
If you have COVID-19, or any illness, that prevents you from attending the February bar exam, you may apply for the existing 95 percent medical refund of fees. Documentation must accompany any request for medical refund.
Check the FAQ daily for updates. For now they seem to be issuing updates on Mondays (1/3, 1/10), but as with everything else, that can change quickly as well.
My advice: prepare as if the exam is in-person, AND prepare as if the exam is remote. Have your logistics ready to go about where to take the exam, etc., either way. Practice essays with paper fact patterns and digital fact patterns. Practice PTs with paper Library and File, and with digital Library and File.
Exam held over two days, and no MBE. People who were going to handwrite the exam could still do so at the State Bar’s office, but spacing is limited so it sounds like no guarantees.
NOTICE TO FEBRUARY 2022 BAR APPLICANTS
THE FEBRUARY 2022 BAR EXAM WILL BE HELD REMOTELY DUE TO COVID-19 CONCERNS
The Supreme Court of Nevada has ordered holding the February 2022 bar exam remotely due to COVID-19 concerns, as was done successfully with the July 2020 and February 2021 bar exams. The February 2022 bar exam will be held over two days (February 22-23, 2022) and the MBE will not be given. There will be seven (7) Nevada essay questions and two (2) Nevada Performance Test questions. Additional information, including the registration and testing schedules, computer registration schedule and testing protocols will be included in the Notice to Appear that will be emailed to all February 2022 bar exam applicants in mid- January.
Applicants who signed up to handwrite the exam: You will be permitted to take the exam in-person at the offices of the State Bar of Nevada in Las Vegas if you elect to do so. As there will be limited space at the State Bar’s offices due to social distancing requirements, we will honor this election on a first come-first served basis. Alternatively, applicants who signed up to handwrite the exam may elect to take the exam remotely by computer. Please provide us with your decision via email by no later thanJanuary 14, 2022atadmissions@nvbar.org.
Dr. Shaman is an infectious disease modeler and epidemiologist at Columbia. His team built one of the first Covid-19 models.
The Omicron variant is spreading widely and infecting large numbers of people, including the vaccinated and those previously infected with the virus. While spikes in cases have been the norm for the past two years, there are clear indications this wave will differ substantially from previous ones.
The record number of cases in the United States and globally is largely because Omicron is more contagious than other variants and has a greater ability to evade immunity to infection. At the same time, early evidence indicates that it’s less common for people infected with Omicron to experience severe disease and end up in the hospital. This has important implications when estimating just how disruptive Omicron will be in terms of deaths, hospitalizations and work and school interruptions.
To assess the future burden of a variant like Omicron, epidemiologists like myself often turn to mathematical modeling and projection. The idea is to use a computer-based representation of how the virus spreads to simulate potential future outcomes.
It is important for modelers to explore the unknowns around Covid. For instance, evidence indicates that Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant, but by how much? By incorporating uncertainties into our models, we don’t merely project a single outcome. Instead, we create a distribution of outcomes, much like the cone of uncertainty used for a hurricane landfall forecast.
Projecting the Covid-19 burden is also more difficult now because of the December holidays. Reporting of cases is often delayed during the two weeks beginning shortly before Christmas until shortly after New Year’s Day. As a consequence, reported case numbers can give the misleading short-term appearance of steep case increases, or even declines.
All these issues create uncertainty and limit how far we can reliably project the burden of Omicron. My inclination is that four to six weeks is as far as modelers should routinely project.
So what does my team see for January 2022?
Our models project that the United States is likely to document more Covid-19 cases in January than in any previous month of the pandemic, but a smaller fraction of those cases will require hospitalization. Whether hospitals experience more or less strain than they did in January 2021 will depend on case numbers and how severe they are. For example, if twice as many people become infected but these people are half as likely to be hospitalized, the demand for hospital beds would be the same. This calculus also applies to estimated deaths from the virus, as well as expected disruptions to the work force.
Our projections depict a rapid surge of cases nationally that peaks at record high numbers during the first one to three weeks of January. Just how many? Our middle-of-the-cone projection produces five million cases during the worst week but ranges from three million to more than eight million cases. And the estimates vary by location. New York City is projected to peak during the first week of January; other locations peak later.
As we move deeper into January, it will be important to monitor whether the steep rise of Omicron cases is followed by a rapid decline, as has been seen in South Africa. This would make the Omicron wave intense but short-lived. However, a rapid decline is not guaranteed. South Africa has a younger population compared to the United States, and younger people are more likely to have mild, undetected infections. South Africa is also in summer, which is less favorable for virus transmission.
Other countries like Britain, which has demographics more similar to the United States and is also in winter, will be critical to watch. If Britain also experiences a rapid case decline, that may bode well for the United States.
The implications for hospitalizations and deaths here from the Omicron wave are even less certain. While Omicron is causing record numbers of infections, the hope is that vaccinations, booster shots and prior infections by other variants will still protect most people from the worst effects of the virus. Early evidence supports this conclusion. However, Omicron may still greatly affect our daily lives in other ways: If teachers test positive and schools move to remote instruction; if flights, subways and buses are disrupted because of a lack of workers, or if elective surgeries are postponed because of staffing shortages.
What will happen beyond January? We don’t yet know the ultimate fate of SARS-CoV-2 and all its variants. The future burden of Covid depends in large part on whether highly transmissible variants able to evade pre-existing immunity, such as Omicron, continue to emerge.
If new variants arise roughly twice per year, for example, then we should expect multiple outbreaks each year, even in the summer. If such variants emerge less frequently, then outbreaks might occur annually or even less frequently. The severity of these outbreaks will depend on the characteristics of those new variants and whether prior infections, vaccination and new drugs can keep people at a lower risk of severe disease.
The long-term implications of Omicron remain unknown, but in the near term, everyone should expect an intense month of disruption. Still, the familiar advice remains the best: get vaccinated, get booster shots and prepare for a bumpy January.
EXAMINATIONS
