California bar hits pause on provisional lawyer licensing tied to exam meltdown

By Karen Sloan

April 2 (Reuters) - The State Bar of California on Wednesday held off on approving a proposal to enable those who took or withdrew from its troubled February bar exam to temporarily practice under the supervision of an experienced lawyer until they can retake and pass the bar exam.

Members of the state bar's board of trustees said they want to see the results of the February test before deciding whether to extend an existing provisional licensure program, which it enacted in 2020 when the bar exam was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, to include February examinees and those who withdrew in the run-up to that test. Several trustees mentioned the relatively low 35% historical average pass rate on California's February bar exam and the bar's duty to protect the public as reasons to be cautious about rushing to adopt alternative licensure pathways. Exam grading is slated to finish on May 2.

Trustee Mark Toney called the February bar exam a "huge failure," but said the board needs more data to decide "the right thing to do, not just the quick thing to do."

The February exam marked the debut of California’s hybrid remote and in-person test without the components of the national bar exam the state has used for decades — a change that was intended to save as much as $3.8 million annually. But the test was marred by widespread technical and logistical problems. Some test takers were unable to log in to the exam at all, while others faced delays, computer crashes, lax exam security, distracting proctors and a copy-and-paste function that didn’t work.

At least two groups of February examinees have sued testing vendor Meazure Learning, alleging the company failed to provide a functioning test platform despite ample warning of technical troubles. A Meazure spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The trustees directed the state bar's Committee of Bar Examiners to develop proposals for other potential remedies such as score adjustments or a portfolio bar exam that would enable law graduates to become licensed after spending four to six months working under the supervision of an experienced attorney and submitting an acceptable portfolio of legal work.

The Committee of Bar Examiners endorsed a provisional licensure program on March 14, but such a program requires the approval of both the state bar's trustees and the California Supreme Court.

As they have during previous state bar meetings, February examinees implored the trustees for a variety of remedies beyond provisional licensing, including allowing them to become licensed without taking another bar exam.

The state bar trustees on Wednesday also approved contracts for software vendor ExamSoft to replace Meazure Learning for the upcoming July bar exam and rentals of 10 exam sites throughout the state. The California Supreme Court last month ordered the state bar to do in-person testing for July. Those changes will increase the projected costs of the July bar exam from $2.4 million to at least $4.75 million — an overage of $2.3 million, bar staff told the trustees.

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