California Provisional Licenses Proposed as February Exam Remedy

A California State Bar committee voted Monday to recommend that February applicants who failed or withdrew from the exam be eligible to receive provisional licenses to practice law under an attorney’s supervision for two years.

The option would provide some relief to applicants who say score adjustments aren’t enough to compensate for the devastation of the February exam that glitched and crashed, especially as reports surfaced in recent weeks that a Bar vendor used ChatGPT to write some of the questions for the brand-new exam.

However, participants in the provisional licensing program would still need to take a Bar exam to be fully admitted as attorneys in California.

The vote followed more than two and a half hours of public comment, which applicants delivered sometimes while holding back tears.

“I just feel like I went to a casino, and I gambled, and I lost,” applicant Victoria Tulsidas said in public comment. “I don’t feel like I took an exam that was fairly administered.”

Exam results were released Monday an hour before the meeting. Nearly 56% of bar takers passed the February exam—the highest spring pass rate since 1965.

The motion passed 8-2, with committee chair Alex Chan and member Esther Lin voting against the remedy. Chan questioned why the program should extend to those who withdrew from the February exam.

“We sort of created the scary mess that scared them off, especially those who withdrew,” responded committee member Paul Kramer. “This provides them relief, the ability to get going, similar to Covid.”

The State Bar implemented two different provisional licensing programs around the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic that were set to expire at the end of 2025. Members of those cohorts who failed or withdrew from the February exam would be eligible for an extension under the proposal the committee approved Monday.

The committee also approved expediting a special admissions process for out-of-state attorneys and pursuing some form of reciprocity for out-of-state US attorneys.

Members additionally approved allowing examinees who received a score adjustment for participating in the November exam experiment to apply the boost to their next Bar exam, if taken by 2026.

“I respectfully urge employers to consider extending grace and continuing to support these applicants who did not pass this administration,” Chan said.

The Bar’s executive director Leah Wilson announced Friday she will step down from her role in July. The Bar on Monday sued Meazure Learning, which provided the exam platform that crashed in February. State lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday will decide whether to launch an independent investigation into the State Bar’s handling of the exam.