California Top Court’s Bar Exam Order Allows State-Specific Test

California Supreme Court justices outlined a vision for the future of the state’s bar exam on Thursday that includes the possibility of allowing applicants to retake only parts of the test they failed, without having to sit again for an entire exam.

It comes as the state bar irons out a deal with Kaplan NA LLC to create a California-specific exam by the start of next year that can be administered remotely, to cut costs as the state bar’s admissions fund faces a dire outlook.

The administrative order doesn’t mention Kaplan or the February 2025 exam specifically but does allow the bar to develop a state-specific exam.

Future California bar exams should continue covering legal theories and general application principles, but de-emphasize the need to memorize doctrinal law, justices wrote.

The state bar should consider “the availability of any new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, that might innovate and improve upon the reliability and cost-effectiveness of such testing,” the order said.

Justices also encouraged the bar to use intervention programs to help ease identity-based disparities in bar exam passage rates.

They asked the bar to survey applicants to find other factors, like psychological stress and financial hardship, which could be addressed by similar programs.

Some Proposals Shot Down

The justices denied a recommendation to allow attorneys licensed in other U.S. jurisdictions to be admitted to the California bar through reciprocity, rather than by taking all or part of the bar exam.

And they rejected an alternative proposal to the test that would allow applicants to submit portfolios after a period of supervised practice representing real clients.

Not only has the idea not been approved by the Committee of Bar Examiners, it would be an unreliable measure because applicants would be supervised by attorneys with varying degrees of skill.

A supervisor might not be willing to tell graders that an applicant was incompetent while representing a client in real life, because that disclosure could implicate the supervisor in an ethical dilemma, the justices said.

Also on the cutting room floor was a bid from some law schools to lower the score to pass the test.

California’s current passing score of 1390 is already at the low end of the range experts recommended, the Supreme Court’s executive officer wrote.