The State Bar missed the warning signs before the 2025 exam fiasco

from Adam EchelmanCalMatters

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A new state audit says poor planning by the State Bar of California led to the February 2025 exam fiasco faced by aspiring lawyers.

In an effort to save money, the state bar created a way to take the exam online at home, but for test-takers who are regularly away for months and spend thousands of dollars to study for the exam, the remote version was a nightmare. Problems, delays and malfunctions – including repeated software crashes – brought many to tears, according to class action filed against the proctor, Measure Learning.

A “significant proportion” of the 4,200 people who took the exam had problems, says the audit citing “poor planning” by the Bar as the root cause.

What went wrong?

According to the audit, the state contracted with testing company Kaplan but did not provide enough time or information to properly develop the exam. The company’s initial draft missed key areas of the law, such as questions about legal issues of negligence. The state then turned to another contractor, ACS Ventures, to draft additional questions. However, because the ACS uses AI in part, many of the questions had problems and were not considered for the final score.

Meazure Learning won the contract to administer the exam remotely and in person. In early pretests several months before the exam, test takers encountered “computer freezes, crashes and error messages,” but the state did not guarantee the company fixed the problems, the audit said.

The bar association hoped the move to a remote exam last year would save money and help the organization avoid depleting your cash reserves. At the time, the bar had run deficits in four of the previous five years and estimated that administering the remote portion of the exam, both in February and July 2025, would cost approximately $4.4 million. This amount would be about half of what it would cost to conduct the tests in person only. Instead, the February 2025 exam alone amounted to over $9 million in costs, including direct costs and lost revenue. Additional legal costs could force the state bar to pay millions more.

“We fully recognize the unacceptable experiences that test-takers faced before and during this exam,” Bar Board President Jose Cisneros said in news release Thursday. “We agree with all of the audit’s recommendations, which are consistent with changes we have already implemented or are in the process of implementing.”

The state bar is also conducting its own independent investigation, but it is “privileged and confidential,” said Rick Coca, program manager at the state bar.

Wrong exam

During the exam and in the hours after, test takers flocked to social media, writing panicked and angry statements about the mistakes and the emotional blow they suffered. Online proctoring company, Measure Learning, responded on reddit in real time saying it is a “known issue” and asking students to refresh the page.

Aspiring attorney Laura Perjanik couldn’t access the first essay until four hours after her scheduled start time, according to the lawsuit. After the software repeatedly crashed, she asked the proctors for help, who directed her to tech support. Tech support told her to talk to the proctors. The noose continued without any permission, the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Northern California said, adding that “the stress was overwhelming” and she was “in tears.” On the second day of the exam, similar problems continued. The case is pending.

In the weeks following the State Bar exam found other problemsincluding test takers who never accessed the exam and those who due to a malfunction saw other people’s answers. The agency also offered exam reimbursements and fee waivers for those who want to retest.

After the fiasco, Senator Thomas Umberga Santa Ana Democrat and attorney who authored a bill last year calling for an audit. The findings “confirm what candidates for the February 2025 bar exam already knew: The State Bar’s failed administration of the exam was the result of hasty planning, poor oversight and a failure to adequately vet its providers,” he said in an email to CalMatters. He pointed to the audit’s recommendations, which include new policies to ensure exam questions are more properly checked in the future.

About 36 percent of test takers passed the February 2025 exam, but to accommodate the problems, the State Bar changed the scoring system, resulting in a pass rate of about 65 percent.

In February 2026, by comparison, about 30% of students passed the exam.

After the test problems last winter, the bar conducts all of its exams in person.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.