California bar exam meltdown on Tuesday prompts offer of March retakes

By Karen Sloan

Feb 26 (Reuters) - The State Bar of California is offering a retake of its February bar exam after examinees experienced "significant" technical issues or were unable to launch the test on Tuesday — the first day of the state's newly developed licensing exam.

"It’s clear that the exam did not go smoothly for an unacceptable number of test takers,” State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson said in a prepared statement.

The state bar was assessing the number of people impacted by Tuesday's problems, Wilson said.

The two-day test was scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday's portion of the exam will still count for those who were able to complete it, and Wednesday's test is still taking place for them.

Tuesday marked the debut of California’s hybrid, two-day remote and in-person exam without any components of the national bar exam, which the state has used for decades. Wilson said the state bar is still assessing the extent of Tuesday’s problems.

“I’ve never had this much despair and hopelessness,” said exam taker David Drelinger, a 2023 graduate of the California-accredited Lincoln Law School in Sacramento. He said he tried to start the exam more than 30 times, with the testing platform crashing each time a proctor logged on to his computer.

Drelinger said he switched internet connections and laptops three times during the day, to no avail. By Tuesday night, he was unsure whether he would be able to take the test at all.

“I’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars" into becoming a lawyer, Drelinger said. "It’s supposed to pay off, eventually. It feels so far out of reach right now. I don’t know if I can do this to myself again.”

The State Bar in August fast-tracked a new exam written by Kaplan Exam Services and gave examinees the option of testing in person or remotely under the supervision of online proctors — a change initially projected to save as much as $3.8 million annually by eliminating the need to rent out large event spaces, though the test has faced cost overruns.

Test takers for weeks have warned of logistical and technical problems with the exam’s administration, which is being handled by vendor Meazure Learning. Examinees have also complained of confusing and contradictory information from Meazure and the state bar.

In response to concerns, the bar said on February 13 that test takers could withdraw and receive a full refund. On February 21 it said those who fail can retake the July exam at no cost. As of Monday, 964 of the 5,600 registered examinees had withdrawn.

Meazure Learning did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.

The February retake — an unprecedented step for the exam law graduates must pass to become licensed — will be March 3 and 4 for those who faced tech problems, the state bar said in an 8 p.m. email to examinees on Tuesday.

In that email, the state bar also acknowledged problems with the copy and paste function of the testing software and said some people were disconnected and unable to complete the essay portion.

Seth Feldman, an out-of-state lawyer sitting for the exam, said his in-person testing location in San Francisco with about 1,500 people was chaotic on Tuesday due to interrupting proctors, computer crashes, and a brief Internet outage.

“Each person started and ended their test at different times, the software did not work, the exam simply was not ready,” Feldman wrote in a Wednesday email before testing resumed for the day.

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