California State Bar Negotiating $8 Million Kaplan Exam Contract

The California State Bar’s governing body is back on track with plans to develop its own licensing exam, having authorized its chair and the executive director to negotiate and potentially approve an $8.25 million, five-year contract with Kaplan NA LLC.

As the state bar’s admissions fund faces insolvency by 2026, the plan to replace the Multistate Bar Exam that moved forward on Thursday is expected to save millions of dollars annually. However, the test’s $8 million possible price tag is higher than the $7.4 million figure the bar had floated in documents in May.

That proposal was tabled shortly ...