‘Botched' new exam format, AI controversy build pressure on California State Bar
California has nearly 270,000 lawyers, and they've all cleared the difficult final hurdle to securing a license to practice law: passing the bar exam.
The licensing exam is administered twice a year in California, and while it is usually a source of anxiety and stress for fresh law school graduates and their families, the test is usually not a source of controversy or front-page news.
Until this year.
For its test in February, the State Bar of California — the agency that licenses and disciplines attorneys — opted to create its own exam as a way to save some much-needed money rather than rely on a national testing system for exam questions.
The new format also allowed aspiring lawyers to take the exam remotely, as opposed to the typical in-person test.
But the rollout of that test was marked by glitches and chaos that led some test takers to file a lawsuit against the State Bar.
As Times national correspondent Jenny Jarvie reports, there are growing calls from law school leaders and an influential state legislator to return to the test developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which California had used since 1972.
Such a move 'would be a major retreat for the embattled State Bar,' Jenny wrote. 'The Supreme Court has yet to direct the State Bar to return to the NCBE system, even though test takers complained that some of the multiple-choice questions in the new test included typos and questions with more than two correct answers and left out important facts.'
Last week, deans of more than a dozen major law schools in the Golden State wrote a letter to California Supreme Court Justice Patricia Guerrero, expressing 'serious concerns about the exam's fairness and validity.'
Sen. Thomas J. Umberg (D-Santa Ana), chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, has also urged the State Bar to abandon its own test.
'Given the catastrophe of the February bar, I think that going back to the methods that have been used for the last 50 years — until we can adequately test what new methods may be employed — is the appropriate way to go,' Umberg told Jenny.
Last week, the State Bar faced another round of outrage after admitting that artificial intelligence was used to develop some multiple-choice questions on its new exam. Jenny reported that neither the State Bar's Committee of Bar Examiners nor the California Supreme Court was aware that AI had some role in generating the exam questions until after the test was administered.
The State Bar could soon face more scrutiny. Umberg filed legislation that would launch an independent review of the exam by the California State Auditor.
'That bill is slated to be reviewed at a May 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, along with Senate Bill 253, the State Bar's annual license fee authorization bill, which gives lawmakers leverage to push the State Bar to make improvements,' Jenny explained.
You can read more of her reporting here.
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