The California Bar Owes Test Takers More Than a Free Retake

It’s day one of the bar exam, and the first essay question is on a subject you don’t recognize. You break out in a nervous sweat and try to come up with something—anything—to say about the hypothetical. You haven’t studied that topic at all, and you realize you’re going to fail. You wake up, flooded with panic. Welcome to the practice of law: You’ve just had the dream every attorney in the US has had at least once—the standard bar exam nightmare.

Lawyers recall their bar exam experiences with universal clarity. We remember the intense stress of wondering what would be tested; the anxiety of writing furiously before time runs out; the worry after submitting the essays of whether we addressed all issues. We will never forget the feeling of deep insecurity when taking the multiple-choice section and deciding between two seemingly strong answers (for most of us, those were Multistate Bar Exam questions, authored by the National Conference of Bar Examiners). And, we remember the dread of waiting for results.

California’s February 2025 Bar examinees experienced their own nightmare last month when they were faced with hour-plus delays to start and restart the test; the words on their screens lagged behind their typing; copy/paste and other promised features didn’t work or only worked intermittently; software crashed; unsaved work was lost and examinees had to restart with diminished time; timers continued running during software glitches; and, multiple-choice questions looked nothing like practice materials.

California’s February examinees didn’t have the luxury of experiencing ordinary bar exam stressors. They didn’t get to fret about identifying issues and applying the law. They weren’t able to merely debate which of the two tempting answer choices was the best. Instead, they endured failing technology, proctors who didn’t know the exam rules, and pop-up chats demanding they sit up, move back, and scoot closer to their computers.

And it wasn’t just the software, Meazure, which is the consistent subject of headlines. February California Bar examinees were the unlucky pilot group of the new multiple-choice questions written by Kaplan, rather than the National Conference of Bar Examiners. As part of cost-cutting measures, the State Bar contracted with Kaplan who wrote new multiple-choice questions. Examinees reported these questions were drastically different from their validated predecessors (the Multistate Bar Exam). Instead, the questions were unclear, had multiple correct answers, or sometimes no correct answers at all. These reports seem reliable based on the sample questions Kaplan released in advance of the exam, which contained incorrect statements of law, more than one correct answer choice, or no correct answer choices.

Imagine just one of those things happening and how that would affect your ability to concentrate during a test that demands the most of its examinees. And yet many test takers experienced multiple issues throughout the exam. How can we expect any of them to show the competency it takes to pass the California Bar—one of the hardest in the country—when faced with such profound problems?

The cruelty of the California Bar is that most of the examinees will fail the February exam, and they didn’t get a fair shot. Although various remedies—including provisional licensure, which would allow individuals to practice law under the supervision of an attorney but would require them to successfully take the exam again before becoming licensed—are being discussed, nothing will repair the damage done to those examinees because most will fail and will be required to retake a second bar exam—every lawyer’s nightmare.

We can’t undo this catastrophe. But the law is all about finding remedies to address wrongs. Due to these extreme circumstances, the bar must consider extreme remedies.

After numerous complaints leading up to the February exam, the Board of Trustees announced free retakes for the July bar exam. Although this was a positive outcome for the examinees, they poured months of their lives into preparing for every aspect of this exam, gave up time with loved ones, lost income, and learned everything possible. Refunds and free retakes are not enough.

The bar should give all examinees the 40 point score bump (previously approved by the California Supreme Court for the November Phase I Bar experiment participants), make psychometrically appropriate scoring adjustments for those who identified the legally salient issues but were unable to complete their analysis for any reason, and engage experts to determine which of these 200 new multiple-choice questions can fairly be used to assess the competency of these future lawyers.

We’ve all had the standard bar exam nightmare. But what 4,500 California February examinees experienced was nothing short of parasomnia.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Katie Moran is associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law where she teaches evidence and is the co-director of the Academic and Bar Exam Success program.

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