Problems With New California Bar Exam Spark Lawsuit and Enrage Test Takers

Even under normal circumstances, the California bar exam is one final harrowing hurdle before aspiring lawyers can practice. But last week was worse than any other, as they were thrown into limbo by technical glitches, delays and what many said were bizarrely written questions on a revamped test that didn’t match anything in preparation.

The faulty rollout last week of the new licensing test, which was approved by the California Supreme Court in October and was touted by the state bar as a way to save money, has outraged test takers and the law school community at large, and prompted an investigation by California lawmakers and a lawsuit.

“You can talk to any attorney — because they have all been through the bar experience — and they will tell you how hard it is and how stressful it is to go through the bar exam,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. “To have to then take it again because of the incompetence of the bar is inexcusable,” said Mr. Chemerinsky, who had raised concerns along with other law school deans about the new exam before it was approved.

The botched exam, which is administered digitally, has left test takers in a bind that puts their career aspirations and personal finances in jeopardy. Many took weeks off work and missed time with family — and have job offers contingent on passing the February exam.

“I just kind of feel ripped off,” said Zack Defazio-Farrell, who took the exam last week. He added: “You spend a lot of money preparing. You spend a lot of time not making money. And this happens.”

Test takers reported a range of technological problems over the course of the two-day exam, which on Day 1 included five one-hour essay sessions and a 90-minute section that assesses the ability to carry out legal tasks, and on Day 2 involved 200 multiple choice questions over the course of four 90-minute sessions.

Test takers said they had encountered delays of over an hour to gain access to the exam, and some said they could not access the test at all. Others reported chronic freezing and lags, and an unresponsive copy and paste function.

Some also said the questions were bizarrely written, were missing key facts, contained typos or simply did not make sense. And according to the state bar, there were reports that on-site proctors often did not have answers to basic questions.

The technology and proctoring of the exam was provided by the company Meazure Learning, which provided the ability to take the exam remotely, a change from previous years. The company now faces a class-action lawsuit by test takers.

Meazure Learning could not be reached for comment. On its website, the company says it has more than 30 years of experience successfully launching licensing programs. “We excel at developing fair, reliable and secure exams that you can trust,” it says.

The state bar, which said in August that the new test would save the organization up to $3.8 million annually, said that it was examining whether the company’s performance had failed to meet its contractual obligations and that a full accounting of how many people had experienced issues was still underway on Saturday.

Tom Umberg, a state senator who chairs the body’s judiciary committee, which is tasked in part with funding the state bar, said there would be an inquiry. “We are going to be doing a deep dive as to what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The new exam was written by Kaplan North America, a test preparation company. It replaced questions by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which writes the exams in a majority of states.

The state bar’s response has focused on the issues involving Meazure Learning. The bar said that the questions developed by Kaplan had undergone the same review processes as previous exam questions. Efforts to reach Kaplan were unsuccessful.

For generations, California’s bar exam was widely considered the nation’s hardest. Even elite law students often had to take it more than once to clear the high threshold for passage. Former governors Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson and former Vice President Kamala Harris are among the many famous lawmakers who failed the California bar on their first try. The threshold for passing was lowered slightly several years ago, but the test still remains exceptionally rigorous relative to exams in the rest of the United States.

Some have said the bar was aware of glitches months in advance, after an experimental exam in November contained technical issues for some. But the bar said those problems were isolated.

The state bar appeared to anticipate issues with the new exam before the rollout ahead of last week. Before the test, it offered people who withdrew from or failed the February exam a fee waiver for the next test date. Exams are administered twice a year, in February and July.

“This new exam has not rolled out the way it should have, and we, the board, apologize along with state bar leadership and staff,” the bar’s board of trustees said in a statement on Feb 21. “The continued issues with testing locations, scheduling, technical issues and communication lapses have distracted applicants from their studies and created confusion.”

Of the 5,600 people who registered for the February exam, 1,066 withdrew, the state bar said.

On Friday, the state bar said it was looking into remedies for those who took the exam and experienced technical difficulties, including conducting analyses to adjust scores. Mr. Chemerinsky has called on the bar to offer provisional licenses to test takers and revert to the old exam in the future.

For some of those who were not able to complete the exam, the bar offered a chance to retake the test this week. But that opportunity has been delayed to later this month after some test takers allegedly leaked the questions online.

But for those who don’t get a chance to retake the test this month, it means waiting until July — which provides little comfort.

Some said that may be too late to avoid devastating financial situations dependent on becoming licensed by May, when February test results are released.

“If I have to take it in July, I probably will not be living in California anymore,” said Alexandra Sennet, who said she was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from law school. She added that she has a job offer that is contingent on her becoming licensed in May.

Ms. Sennet said she was also in debt paying for bills associated with a spinal injury she sustained after a car accident. That injury forced her to miss last July’s bar exam and has limited her ability to work a regular job.

“I’m banking on this to pay my bills, literally,” she said, adding, “This is my livelihood.”

Mr. Defazio-Farrell said he was unsure how he was going to pay off his student loans without a lawyer’s salary.

“I’m not employed at the moment, and getting back into it is going to be difficult without a license,” he said.

For others, the thought of committing yet more time for the test presents more than financial anxiety. Becky Hoffman, 38, said she decided to pursue becoming a lawyer in part to give her three young children a better life, and sacrificed spending time with them over the past three and half years during law school.

She wrote over 45 essays and took over 1,600 multiple choice questions to prepare in the weeks leading up to the exam.

After the second day of testing ran late on Wednesday because of glitches, Ms. Hoffman stepped outside the testing site where her wife and children were waiting to take her home.

“I tried my hardest to just be brave and tell them that it’s over, and mommy is done, and I’m so happy to be able to spend more time with you,” she said. “And I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.