California Bar Leadership Calls for Large Licensing Fee Jump

The California State Bar’s top priority for next year is a sizable fee increase to heal a structural deficit that “can no longer be avoided,” bar leadership wrote in the preface to its 2023 annual report.

The announcement comes after the bar scrapped plans in May to create a new licensing exam that could have slashed the deficit in its admissions fund—which faces insolvency by 2026—by providing opportunities for remote and small, vendor-owned test administration. The admissions fund is one of several that comprise the agency’s budget. The bar’s Board of Trustees in March proposed a $125 licensing fee increase ...