California bar exam-takers were told they failed. Oops, they passed.

By Karen Sloan

May 15 - The State Bar of California said on Wednesday that a number of scoring errors had occurred on its February bar exam — the latest black eye for the disastrous test plagued by logistical and technical issues.

A review of the February exam’s scoring revealed three separate categories of mistakes, which resulted in four examinees going from failing to passing after those problems were corrected, the bar said in an email to test takers that Reuters reviewed. More than 4,200 people sat for California’s February exam.

The state bar is still looking into a fourth category of potential problems involving the incomplete transfer of performance test answers and does not yet know how many examinees were impacted by that issue, it said.

The February exam was marred by problems ranging from delays and computer crashes to lax exam security and distracting proctors. Those issues prompted the state bar on May 5 to sue Meazure Development, the company that delivered the exam. Meazure, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, said after the bar filed its lawsuit that the bar was trying to "shift the blame" for the flawed rollout of the test. Test-takers have filed a separate lawsuit against the company.

The faulty February exam also spurred the resignation of the bar’s top administrator.

The state bar's email on Wednesday also said the agency plans to hire an “independent third party” to undertake a comprehensive review of the registered complaints of the scoring and grading of the exam.

California isn't the first to give out incorrect bar exam results. Kentucky in 2020 wrongly told 15 bar examinees they had passed when they actually failed, while three were wrongly told they failed when they passed. Three Michigan bar examinees were incorrectly marked as failing in 2021. And scoring errors led to 90 Georgia bar examinees in 2015 and 2016 being wrongly told they failed.

Some February test takers raised concerns about scoring anomalies in public comments to the state bar and on social media after the results were released on May 5. The February exam had a 56% overall pass rate — far higher than the historical average of 35% — after the California Supreme Court allowed the state bar to implement a lower raw passing score because of all the exam’s problems.

The state bar also plans to ask the court to approve a provisional licensure program under which those who failed osuedr withdrew from the February exam can work under the supervision of an experienced attorney for up to two years while they retake the bar exam.

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.

In addition to the tech issues, the state bar later revealed that a small portion of the multiple-choice questions were generated by a third-party contractor using ChatGPT.

The state high court has ordered the July exam to be conducted in person and to return to the Multistate Bar Exam—the 200-question multiple choice portion of the exam developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners which the state had used prior to the February test. Those changes are expected to add nearly $6 million in costs.

State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson has said she will step down in July, citing the botched rollout of the new exam. And the state bar has sued testing platform Meazure Learning over the many tech problems, as have at least two groups of test takers.

Read more:

California Bar backs provisional licensing after February exam mess

California scraps new bar exam for July, adjusts scores on botched February test