The State Bar of California’s move to administer the Bar Exam remotely this week was plagued by significant technical and support issues, which affected both February and future Bar-takers.
Last year, arguing that it was nearing bankruptcy, the State Bar contracted with Meazure Learning/ProctorU to administer the exam remotely and outsourced the drafting of exam questions to Kaplan. Fees to take the exam increased to over $1,000. Meazure has never administered an exam of the scale and complexity of the California Bar Exam.
The result was that the February exam was marred by technical glitches, poor customer service by proctors and Bar staff, and serious concerns about the quality of the new exam questions. Meazure’s software experienced lag, inconsistent functionality, and negligent proctoring. Considerable news reporting has covered these problems.
Even before the exam, the State Bar’s Board of Trustees acknowledged that the rollout of the new exam was “deeply concerning.” They proposed a series of refunds and the ability to repeat the exam in July. On Tuesday night, in the middle of administering the exam, the State Bar told Bar-takers that some would need to make-up portions of the exam due to technical glitches, effectively taking the exam over again in the coming weeks. Further, registration for the July exam administration, which typically opens on March 1, has been delayed.
The possibility that competent Santa Clara Law graduates may not pass the Bar Exam and/or have to repeat it is immensely unfair. The cost of taking the exam has risen to over $1,000. Coupled with the required time away from work to study and the significant stress involved, Bar admission is already an unusually high hurdle in California. Making it harder for our Bar-takers—through no fault of their own—is unjust.
The administration of the February California Bar exam has been an abject failure, which has caused tremendous hardship to our exceptional graduates who prepared diligently for, and rightly expected, a fair and reliable assessment of their competence to practice law. I am hopeful that the California Supreme Court, for whom I have boundless respect, will intervene by expeditiously examining the facts and developing an effective solution that strives to make our graduates whole.
Looking ahead, I am also hopeful that the California Supreme Court and the Bar’s Board of Trustees will take this opportunity to revisit seriously and with an open mind the question of whether this entire approach to assessing competence to practice law can ever be made sufficiently fair and reliable and whether instead there are other methods that will far better serve the profession and the public. – Dean Michael J. Kaufman, Santa Clara University School of Law, Feb. 28, 2025.
Call to Action: The Bar’s Board of Trustees will meet to discuss the situation on Wednesday, March 5. We are urging Santa Clara Law alumni who are admitted to practice in California to speak out. “The Santa Clara Law community always shows up for our students. We need their voices on this issue,” said Professor Devin Kinyon, director of the Office of Academic & Bar Success.
You can let the Bar know about the unfairness of the situation and advocate for a remedy that doesn’t fall on the backs of Bar-takers. Public comments by members of the Bar during the meeting are highly persuasive.
Further, you can email written comments to secretariat@calbar.ca.gov. It is critical that you identify yourself as a member of the State Bar of California.
In sharing your comments, we encourage you to address these points:
1) The February Bar Exam was a fiasco through the entire process. February Bar-takers must not bear the burden of the Bar’s mistakes and should be evaluated for Bar admission generously. Suggesting that they can simply repeat the exam – even if at no cost – is a shameful response that doesn’t account for the lost time and income.
2) The July Bar Exam cannot operate in the same way. If the exam is to be administered remotely, it must be done with a proven vendor that is ready now. A better solution would be to return to the standard in-person administration that has worked effectively in the past until a proven remote solution can be identified and adequately tested.
We’ve also created some convenient sample copy that you can cut-and-paste into an email.
Dean Michael Kaufman, speaking to Reuters, put it succinctly: “The bar exam is difficult under the usual circumstances… to compound that with a series of outrageous and unconscionable technological and administrative mistakes is really unfortunate for our students.”
We will keep our community updated about the changing Bar Exam as events unfold. If you have questions about how Santa Clara Law prepares its graduates for successful Bar admission, contact Professor Devin Kinyon.
Media Contact
Jennifer Wooliscroft | Director of Strategic Communication and Outreach | jwooliscroft@scu.edu | 408-551-1763