Yes. The process for requesting testing accommodations is separate from the application to take an exam. You are not required to wait for a determination regarding your testing accommodations to register for an exam, and doing so is not recommended.

If you are requesting to change your testing accommodation test center to a different testing accommodation location, you may submit the request through the Applicant Portal or by emailing testing.accommodations@calbar.ca.gov by the test center change request deadline. Space is subject to availability, and it is not guaranteed that your request will be available.

In preparation for the PLP application opening on September 1, 2025, you are encouraged to: 

• Submit an Application for Determination of Moral Character as soon as possible in the Applicant Portal if you do not have a valid positive moral character determination or a pending moral character application. 

• Sign up for the MPRE or ensure you have a passing score on file with the State Bar Office of Admissions. Verify your MPRE status via the status screen in the Applicant Portal. 

• Secure a California attorney who is willing to be your Supervising Lawyer and meets the requirements of rule 9.49. 

By December 31, 2025, you must have a passing MPRE score on file and either a valid positive moral character determination, or an adverse moral character determination that is pending on administrative review by the Committee of Bar Examiners or on appeal in the State Bar Court. We recommend that you fulfill these requirements as soon as possible.

Under rule 9.49, a PLL is allowed to provide a broad array of legal servicesfor clients, including appearing before a court; drafting legal documents,such as contracts, transactional documents, and pleadings; engaging in negotiations and settlement discussions; and providing other legal advice, provided that the work is performed underthe supervision of their Supervising Lawyer. The limits on what a PLL can do, or what needs to be done under direct versus general supervision, are largely left to the Supervising Lawyer to determine based on the readiness of the PLL.

An out-of-state attorney, who is in good standing in their jurisdiction, and does not live, work, or conduct regular business in California can request permission from a California state court (superior court, Court of Appeal, or Supreme Court) to represent their client as counsel pro hac vice, which is a Latin term meaning "for this occasion." PHV is approved for a particular case, and an active licensee of the State Bar of California must be associated as attorney of record for the case. Please refer to rule 9.40 of the California Rules of Court.

No. All documentation and fees related to a PHV renewal must be submitted to the court and not the State Bar of California. Please contact the court if you have questions regarding PHV renewals.

Under rule 9.49.1, individuals who scored between 1390 and 1439 on a California Bar Exam administered between July 2015 and February 2020, as determined by the first read score or the final score, may apply so long as they:

• Have an active (unexpired) positive moral character determination or have submitted a complete Application for Determination of Moral Character. Whether the application is complete is determined by the State Bar.
• Have not received an adverse moral character determination, unless more than two years have elapsed from the date of the final determination. If, when the adverse moral character determination was issued, the Committee of Bar Examiners or the State Bar provided a time frame other than two years for when the participant was eligible to reapply, that other time frame shall control here.

The deadline to submit the Pathway PLP application is December 31, 2023. No applications will be accepted after the deadline. Applicants for the Pathway PLP must have 1) an active positive moral character determination, or 2) have submitted a moral character application that has not resulted in the issuance of an adverse moral character determination. If you have not submitted a moral character application and do not have an active positive determination, you must submit a moral character application no later than December 31, 2023. Please note that your PLP application will not be considered until the moral character application is deemed complete and filed by the State Bar. If you fail to submit a moral character application by December 31, 2023, your PLP application will not be processed.

Under the program for 2020 law graduates, PLLs who attempt the bar exam but do not pass it may continue in the Provisional Licensure Program until the program terminates. Furthermore, they are not required to sit for the bar exam. No further extensions of the program are anticipated. By the end of the program, they must have passed the bar exam to continue in the practice of law.

Please review the information regarding the Moral Character requirement, including the instructions for the Application for Determination of Moral Character and Application for Extension of Determination of Moral Character.

No. You are not eligible to file a moral character application until you commence the study of law and register as a law student with the State Bar. The State Bar has published Moral Character Guidelines that may assist applicants in understanding how their past conduct could impact a moral character determination, which is a prerequisite for admission to the practice of law.

Maybe. You are required to disclose any criminal matter in which you entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere (no contest), even if the matter ultimately was dismissed pursuant to, for example, a pretrial diversion agreement or deferred prosecution agreement.

Yes. If you have been found to have violated the honor code, conduct code, or other rules governing conduct at an educational institution; or have been warned, dropped, suspended, placed on disciplinary probation, expelled, allowed to withdraw in lieu of discipline, or otherwise subjected to discipline by any educational institution, you must disclose the incident on the moral character application.

The moral character application requires that at least one of your personal references be an attorney; the attorney may be retired or inactive. If you do not know an attorney who knows you well enough to comment on your character, you may submit the name and contact information of a nonattorney who knows you well enough to complete a questionnaire concerning your character.

No. You are only required to disclose the addresses of the places you have lived within the past three years, including college and law school residences.

Yes. A copy of your moral character application can be requested by submitting a Service Request Form with the applicable fee as a General Request in the Applicant Portal. Please allow approximately 30−45 days to process the request.

All funds received by a lawyer in connection with legal representation in which a client or a third party has an interest are funds that must be deposited in a trust account. Examples include advances for fees received from clients (until they are earned by the lawyer), funds of others that are being held for disbursement at a later time, personal injury awards, and litigation settlements. 

Client and third-party funds must be held in either an IOLTA or non-IOLTA type client trust account. The definitions of each are as follows: 

IOLTA—An attorney or firm that holds funds for a client or third party that are nominal in amount or are held for too short a time to earn interest income for the benefit of the client or third party in excess of the cost to hold the funds in a separate account is required to place those funds in an IOLTA account. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6211, subd. (a)). A California IOLTA account must be established and maintained with an eligible institution that offers IOLTA accounts that meet certain requirements. The State Bar website has a list of IOLTA-eligible institutions. 

Non-IOLTA—An attorney or firm that holds funds for a client or the benefit of a single party in a matter that is large enough to generate more than nominal interest, or an attorney who holds funds for a single party for an extended period must hold such funds in a non-IOLTA trust account. An example would be funds held by the administrator of a family trust. The attorney must use a non-IOLTA account because these entrusted funds will earn interest in excess of the costs to maintain the account. The interest earned goes to the client or third party. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6211, subd. (b)).

When registering a client trust account as part of CTAPP, you must identify the trust account type. The account will either be IOLTA or non-IOLTA; an account will never be both. The account type was established at the time the account was opened and does not change. A California IOLTA must bear the State Bar of California’s Taxpayer Identification Number to ensure that interest or dividends generated by this account will be paid to the State Bar’s IOLTA program. A non-IOLTA will bear the Social Security Number or Tax ID number of the client or third party.

If you have already completed your CTAPP reporting for the current period and you want to change an answer before the reporting deadline, you can access the CTAPP reporting page by logging in to My State Bar Profile. On your Client Trust Reporting page (third blue tab at the top), click the CTAPP Annual Reporting tile. You can click through the pop-up warning that says you have already submitted your CTAPP Annual Reporting declaration and that you will have to resubmit your declaration, or you will be out of compliance. NOTE: Even if you make no changes, be sure to click all the way through and resubmit your declaration.

A lawyer must report any changes to their client trust account to the State Bar within 30 days. A lawyer may add or close an account using the 30-day reporting window in My State Bar Profile, and a firm administrator may add or close an account or add or remove an attorney from an account through the 30-day reporting window in the Agency Billing platform. When a firm administrator adds a new attorney or removes an attorney from a trust account, they provide the effective date and reason for the disassociation as part of the reporting.

The trust account reporting system does not allow changes to routing numbers or account numbers of previously registered trust accounts. To report this change, please close the registration of the existing account by clicking the “Update Account Information” link and then entering, in the “Edit Close Date” tab, the date the account was changed to the new routing and account number. You will also need to enter the balance on that date. 

You can then register the account with the new routing number and account number. In the open date field, please enter the date the account was changed to the new routing and account number. Please be sure to enter the bank balance of the new account as of December 31.