A new state audit says poor planning by the State Bar of California led to the exam fiasco that aspiring lawyers faced in February 2025.
In an effort to save money, the cash-strapped State Bar created a way to take the exam online at home, but for test takers , who routinely take months off of work and spend thousands of dollars studying for the exam, the remote version was a nightmare. Glitches, delays and malfunctions — including repeated software crashes — brought many to tears, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against the proctor, Meazure Learning.
A “significant portion” of the 4,200 people who took the exam experienced problems, the audit says , pointing to the State Bar’s “poor planning” as the root cause.
What went wrong?
According to the audit, the state contracted with the testing company Kaplan but didn’t provide enough time or information to properly develop the exam. The company’s initial draft left out key areas of law, such as questions about legal issues of negligence. The state then turned to a different contractor, ACS Ventures, to draft additional questions. However, because ACS used AI in part, many of the questions had problems and were not considered for the final grade.
Meazure Learning won the contract to administer the exam remotely and in-person. In early pretests a few months before the exam, test takers faced “computer freezes, crashes, and error messages,” but the state did not ensure that the company fixed the problems, the audit said.
The State Bar hoped the switch to a remote exam last year would save money and help the organization avoid exhausting its cash reserves. At the time, the Bar experienced deficits in four of the previous five years and estimated that administering a remote portion of the exam, both in February and July 2025, would cost roughly $4.4 million. That amount would have been about half what it would cost to administer the tests solely in person. Instead, the February 2025 exam alone totaled over $9 million in expenses, including direct costs and lost revenue. Additional legal costs could force the State Bar to pay millions more.
“We fully acknowledge the unacceptable experiences exam takers faced leading up to and during that exam,” State Bar board chair José Cisneros said in a news release Thursday. “We agree with all of the audit’s recommendations, which are consistent with the changes we have already implemented or are in the process of implementing.”
The State Bar is also conducting its own independent investigation, but it’s “privileged and confidential,” said Rick Coca, a program manager with the State Bar.
A flawed exam
During the exam and in the hours after, test takers flocked to social media, writing panicked and angry rants about glitches and the emotional toll they took. The online proctoring company, Meazure Learning, responded on Reddit in real-time, saying it was a “known issue” and asking students to refresh the page.
Aspiring lawyer Laura Perjanik couldn’t access the first essay until four hours after her allotted start time, according to the lawsuit. After the software repeatedly crashed, she asked the proctors for help, who referred her to tech support. Tech support told her to talk to the proctors. The loop continued without any resolution, the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Northern California says, adding that the “stress was overwhelming” and she was “in tears.” On the second day of the exam, similar issues persisted. The lawsuit is pending.
In the weeks after the exam, the State Bar found other issues, including test takers who were never able to access the exam and those who, due to a malfunction, saw other people’s answers. The agency also offered refunds for exam costs and fee waivers for those who wanted to retest.
After the fiasco, Sen. Thomas Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat and an attorney, authored a bill last year, calling for the audit. The findings “confirm what February 2025 Bar Exam applicants already knew: the State Bar’s failed administration of the exam was the result of rushed planning, poor oversight, and a failure to adequately vet its vendors,” 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 vetted in the future.
About 36% of test takers passed the February 2025 exam, but to accommodate for its problems, the State Bar modified the grading system, leading to a pass rate of about 65%.
In February 2026, by comparison, about 30% of students passed the exam.
Since the issues with the test last winter, the Bar conducts all of its exams in person.
